Flushed Away
Bog-standard
It would be all to easy to begin a review about how terrible Flushed Away is by throwing in a few cheap toilet and sewage-related quips. In fact, as someone partly responsible for maintaining the quality of journalism at play.tm, it could quite possibly cast a detrimental shadow over the standard of others' work... but maybe just this once such slacking can be excused.
Related
Deep breathe. Flushed Away is crap - from its turd-stinking level design to its bog standard graphics, sound and gameplay. Not even the BAFTA award-winning talent of Aardman can rescue this from being the game you'd most likely use to wipe your arse with if you'd past the point of no return and its instruction booklet was the only paper to hand. Okay, okay, it's not quite that bad, but it's nothing more than any seasoned gamer has come to expect from titles rushed out to tie in with big movie releases.
The game is loosely based on the film of the same name. Primarily you take control of a rat named Roddy St. James, joined along the way by Rita (also a rat) and a boat called, erm, Jammy Dodger. Most of your time involves exploring an uninspiring underground sewer city in an attempt to help Roddy find his way home. The dapper rodent would never, ordinarily, have found himself in such a predicament, but now we all know what you've got coming to you if you spend too much time mucking about on the rims of toilet seats.
They both deal with sewage and platforming, but Roddy and his posse never come close to teaching Mario and Luigi anything they don't already know. Each and every level consists of generic run/jump sequences interspersed with the occasional freeze-frame cut scene from the film to keep events chugging along. Other than their genetic make-up, Roddy and Rita are fundamentally the same character. They each possess an identical athletic ability, which comes in handy for the tireless waves of basic gymnastic tasks and puzzles that await them. These include jumping across platforms with varying distances between them, avoiding moving obstacles and climbing physical barriers such as, wait for it - walls. Sometimes you might even have to push or pull a box or two in order to progress, but really that's as complicated as it gets. The only differentiating attribute between Roddy and Rita is their choice of accessory. Roddy's middle-class stature sees him fending off enemies or floating short distances with the help of his umbrella, while Rita can use her grappling hook to propel herself to seemingly inaccessible points. The latter is like Zelda, just not as good.
Flushed Away's biggest problems are also typical of the 'quick film spin-off' genre. They include, but are not restricted to: a fiddly camera with a mind of its own, a learning curve flatter than road kill on the M4 and a spattering of enemies that might as well not be there. Case in point is the fact that, after ten minutes of play you'll end up running past the useless goons instead of bothering to kill them. They all annoyingly re-spawn, too, which is another reason why skipping past them is a better tactic than wasting time in the dispatching of them.
Since Wallace and Gromit, the talents of Nick Park and his team have plasticined, (read: cemented) their position amongst the world's top animators. Sadly, the usual podgy charm of his models has been unsuccessfully replicated in the videogame version of Flushed Away. The characters are reasonably detailed, but are animated in a fashion more comparable to a school child's first attempt at stop-frame animation rather than by a dedicated team with masses of technical wizardry at their disposal. Their movements are clunky and unresponsive, while the dreary underworld environments don't make for the most awe-inspiring exploration. Yeah, they're sewers and are supposed to be mucky, depressing places but they're still not really pretty or interesting to wander about. In part, the game's storyboard voiceovers are its saving grace. These are full of wit, charm and genuine humour, something you'll likely be cherishing while it lasts since it all but disappears when play resumes. A last mention must go to Jammy Dodger who, as well as sharing his name with a scrumptious biscuity snack actually is pretty enjoyable to control. His missions involve shooting targets and floating downstream, but sadly don't play too much of a part.
Like the recent Cars, Barnyard, Open Season and Happy Feet games, Flushed Away is one that only children are likely to enjoy for any length of time; sadly naive enough to overlook the title's most blatant lack of innovation and/or imagination. Apart from the topical title, Flushed Away shares the same type of brain busting boredom we've all come to expect from these sort of lazy cash-ins, with the added disadvantage of leaving itself open for some puntastic criticism... absolute toilet.
38%
Comments