  You would be an angry robot too if you were stuck in such a cruddy game. |
What do you do if your house is floating in space, an insane robot with saw blades is roaming about and there's reptilian aliens slobbering all over your mom's new living room carpet? Use the Force? Nope. Beam back to the Enterprise? Nope. Hope that Ripley will somehow be resurrected...again? Nope. Not on your life. You play the Zathura board game and finish it.
I know. I know. Jumanji? Zathura? What's the difference, right? Ask author Chris Van Allsburg and not me. He's the one who recycled his Jumanji plot for Zathura. A great example to follow and I think I will here in this review.
Hit me with a dead fish or a deceased aquatic animal if you've heard this plot. Two kids find an old board game. For the heck of it, they begin playing it and then all hell breaks loose. You see, once you start the Zathura game, you have to finish it and the danger, hazards and perils are real.
Jumanji? Zathura? What's the difference, right?
To coincide with the release of the movie, we of course have the video game by 2K Games. Short and recycled sums up 'Zathura' quite nicely. It's really, really short and really, really recycled. Even though it is made for children, any kid with gaming experience could finish off 'Zathura' in about as much time as it takes to watch the actual movie. Okay, okay, I'm exaggerating a bit here but it would be darn close that's for sure. Really, really close.
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The two kids this time around are brothers Walter and Danny. Danny is younger, quicker and more agile. Walter is older, stronger and wiser. Following the film's plotline, you automatically switch off between the siblings as you encounter aliens, robots and tricky environments as the family home has become an alien world. Danny uses a slingshot and his nimbleness to overcome these obstacles. Walter uses brute strength and a baseball bat that is apparently made of adamantium because he can deflect, repel laser beams and the other alien and foreign weapons that are hurled at him.
Further into the game is where the real fun begins as you can play as the runaway Robot armed with powerful pincers, a pulse cannon, a backslap that would make The Rock proud and a powerful jetpack. The rock 'em, sock 'em runaway Robot positively rules.
What doesn't is Zathura's ultra forgiving nature. As we've already established, the game is already mega short to begin with. It's short, really, really short. That failing is exacerbated by the fact that the health tokens are like Tribbles. They are everywhere. If you do happen to die, which will probably be during the moving platform levels because it is hard to judge distances due to the slipshod design work, you will be respawned in unbelievably convenient locations. In that regard, Zathura is about as challenging as a crossword puzzle with all the vowels filled in.
Zathura's gameplay and the environments share one thing in common: they are not special at all. Zathura is as generic as they come. Don't get me wrong or misinterpret what I am saying. Some of the levels (especially those with the runaway Robot) are rewarding but for the most part you are leaping over laser traps, shooting flying objects, unlocking doors and pummeling hordes of robots into scrap metal. Kids have done this all before over and over again in more distinct and sleeker settings. Besides the cool runaway Robot sequences there's nothing that's challenging, innovative or eye-catching about Zathura.
What the developers should have done is forget about the two human brats and made a game starring just the runaway Robot. The rock 'em, sock 'em runaway Robot positively rules.
WHAM! Rating: |
3 out of 10 |
ESRB Rating: |
E (Everyone) |
Official Web Site: |
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