GameSpot editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Poor
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 07/24/2008
- Released on: 06/24/2008
- Originally published on GameSpot: WALL-E (DS) Review
As a robot designed specifically to make trash cubes, Wall-E's finely honed talent makes up a large part of his existence, but it takes up only a small portion of the movie. There are only so many unique ways Wall-E can interact with waste material before it gets tiring. Sadly, the Nintendo DS version of WALL-E chronicles the robot's twisted relationship with cubes for the entirety of the journey. A puzzle game designed around the joys of slinging garbage may seem like a promising idea, but the tedium of constantly wrestling with a camera that seems to exist solely to hide valuable objects while you dutifully hurl another block at another switch makes for a tedious experience.
The story of WALL-E vaguely follows the events of the movie, but the drama is so separate from the gameplay, it's easy to forget about the narrative thread entirely. Important events are showcased through cartoony cutscenes that, though they bear no artistic relationship to the big screen flick, are well animated and cheery-looking. It's just hard to take Wall-E's plight seriously when you see dramatic encounters play out in cinemas only to go through the same block-throwing puzzles when the action starts up again. The fact that you're a lonely robot trying to save the humans from their own greed and laziness doesn't seem important at all here. The segregated nature of this quest makes everything seem slight and unimportant.
Wall-E squares off against a much more interesting robot.
Levels are full of conveyor belts, laser-guarded doors, and wall-mounted switches that must be properly tweaked to allow your safe progress. The key to every puzzle is throwing a cube at a switch. The Earth levels have garbage stations where you can collect and compress ordinary trash cubes to toss at enemies or buttons. The later levels, which take place on a spaceship, mix in cubes with different properties. You'll have to manage cubes that explode, implode, and disable electronics (including you) to safely make your way through the next cube-filled room.
There are plenty of head-scratching puzzles along the way, but a number of flaws make this experience more frustrating than rewarding. The camera is awful. You view the action from a top-down, slightly angled perspective. Because switches and obstacles line every wall of the area, you have to constantly rotate your view to see what's going on around you. Methodically tweaking your position is fine when you aren't in any immediate danger, but the later levels are full of enemies that make patience impossible.
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WALL-E (DS):
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