I was in two minds as I sat down to review Xiaolin Showdown, I mean look at it, sat there packed with enough primary colours bursting from the screen to induce a migraine in anyone over the age of ten, it's clearly a kids game (yes, the fact that it's the licensed game of an American children's cartoon was another giveaway) and perhaps deserves to be reviewed with slightly less natural cynicism than it otherwise would have garnered. On the other hand we live in a world where the very rugrats this is aimed at seem to be born with a level of gaming dexterity that goes someway towards proving the theory of evolution, are they really the undemanding consumers of all things brightly coloured that games companies often take them for?

Typically, unable to decide one way or the other, I decided to go for broke and attempt the remarkable feat of viewing it from both angles. Not actually having a nipper on hand to offer a truly age appropriate perspective and after rejecting the idea of having one solely for the purposes of this review (the pesky nine month incubation period making it something of a non starter what with deadlines looming and all) instead I used a range of advanced meditation techniques to go deep into my quiet place and get in touch with my inner child. A far trickier job than those who know me would tend to believe. At that point, with the delicate emotional groundwork now in place, I slipped Xiaolin Showdown into the console, told my inner child to put the cat down and stop fidgeting, before settling back to play.

Once past the worryingly jerky side scrolling introduction the game itself quickly shows itself to be a button bashing, four player, arena based brawler in which you control one of four trainee Xiaolin monks as they bid to stop Jack Spicer, a petulant teenage genius on a power trip, and his robotic minions from unleashing the worst demon known to man in the history of the ever ever! Excited? No, me neither, but then what did you expect? To be fair to XS (I've had enough of typing the X word now) it's not such a rotten idea in principle, take some much loved (by 'fans' one would assume) children's characters, let up to four little nippers at a time control them and happily mash the buttons through numerous arenas based on bits from the show beating familiar baddies. Okay, so it won't be winning a but it could provide a bit of fun.

Unfortunately you soon realise that, even 'providing a bit of fun' is outside the realms of possibility for XS such is the sheer brokenness of the game mechanics. All four playable characters take part in each and every round; any characters not directly player controlled are assigned to the AI. The basic idea in each arena is to simply defeat all the bad guys between the four of you in some kind of mass brawl. What it means in practice is that you run around a small horribly realised arena (just because it may be how they look in the cartoon doesn't make them look any less flat and lifeless in the game) getting routinely lost in the midst of all the other onscreen while you almost randomly hit the jump and attack buttons trying to get a feel for the incredibly sloppy controls while dealing just as much damage to your team mates as you do to the enemy, the side on camera and faulty targeting meaning you're woefully unable to differentiate between the two amidst the action. And there you have the first and ultimately most show stopping problem, all too often you'll find yourself beating up a fellow monk by accident or, even more annoyingly, they'll do the same to you while the evil robots stand around helpfully waiting to be hit. Since it's often a case of four monks against a single robot, thereby creating a bit of a crowd, you'd have expected some kind of 'obviously I meant to hit the bad guy' feature in the games AI but no, all that the four against one odds mean is that your chances of actually connecting with your intended target are significantly reduced. The game does apparently offer a lock on targeting feature with a tap of the right analogue stick, but other than making a weird beam of coloured light appear very briefly over the head of the chosen enemy (not even long enough for you to be sure which one it means) it makes no noticeable difference when it comes to the randomness of dealing out beatings.

The promise of combos and purchasable special moves (called Shen Gong Wu) look set to try and brighten proceedings a little but, guess what, fail on every possible level. Combos in XS are just a fancy word for the process of mashing a couple of buttons so that you perform a slightly more deadly than normal move against someone who is probably on your own side. The Shen Gong Wu are a bit more interesting at least in theory, and at the start of each arena you can pick up to three of the ones available to you and they can be used in game as a kind of special move. There are a decent variety of them and more can be earned or bought as the game goes on. However, before you go thinking they're a wholly good thing XS renders them almost always useless and just as often completely irritating by again making them effect the other members of your team too. Has one of your team brought the SGW that turns enemies into blocks of ice? Expect to spend half the battle frozen solid. Think you'll use a SGW on the end of stage boss? Damn, it's incapacitated all your friends too! For a game designed as a 'kids' title you have to wonder if the designers have ever met any children before, if they had they'd know that such frustrating acts of friendly fire are likely to cause enough acts of child on child violence for the Daily Mail to launch a campaign about.

As if noticing the inadequacies of a game engine that deals damage to friendly targets as much as it does enemies the developers have included bonus stages where you have to battle it out in a winner takes all showdown with your fellow monks for any new SGW discovered in the previous level. Fantastic idea, so having battled side by side through the perils of the last level your band of heroic warriors turn on each other in a petty squabble over the loot. That's the kind of message all the world's children need! The fights for the Shen Gong Wu are variants on gaming staples like king of the hill and tag but any interest you may have in proceedings are soon brushed aside by a camera that zooms out to keep everyone in view helpfully rendering the whole thing completely devoid of skill as you're unlikely to be more than half an inch high on screen a lot of the time meaning the close your eyes and button bash nature of combat is only increased.

I've never seen the cartoon XS is based on, perhaps if I had I may have enjoyed it more, but I doubt it. With such soulless and unplayable mechanics slapped onto an idea that was mediocre at best and marketed to kids via a familiar(ish) licence this represents not only the worst game I've played in a long long time but the most gut wrenchingly cynical example of all that's wrong with the games today. I defy anyone, whatever age, to gain any kind of enjoyment out of the XS experience there's just not one single redeeming feature to be championed. My inner child that I'd hoped may help me find the kiddie sized joy in the game threw down the game pad within the first half an hour and stormed off moodily to watch repeats of Thundercats leaving me wishing I could do the same. In fact I'd even settle for watching an episode of Xiaolin Showdown itself, it can't be any worse than the game and at least it'd give my fingers a rest.

(Just because it didn't crash)

5%

By Paul Newcombe

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  1. jackce Unregistered 1 year ago

    so cool