With most movies based films being nothing short of a cash cow and a failure in the eyes of gamers, most of the time not reflecting the film story line or just being really bad games in general with no imagination. There are some games that do break the mold though and turn out to be good games like Batman on the commodore 64 back in the day, or quite enjoyable like Surfs Up. This brings us to the new movie based game Jumper: Griffins story, which side of the fence does this game sit on, or is it neither as it balances itself teetering between the excrement and the enjoyable.
Upon loading the game you have only one selection available and that is New Game, no options for this game, its begging you to just get straight in there. So the game starts with some of the story being told via voice acting and still cartoon style frames, a story I hasten to add I want to avoid as I really want to watch the film. The voice acting is very poor to say the least and sounds like the guy recording it was really pissed off and didn’t want to be there.
The plot lines now out of the way so it’s on to the 1st level.(I say plot but I’m confuddled as it doesn’t make much sense, either that or I’m not paying attention to it) The 1st level starts and your standing in what I can only imagine is a totally different place to the one you saw a minute before. To say the graphics aren’t the best looking maybe an understatement, but we all know that graphics aren’t everything so let’s move on.
The controls are pretty easy to use; it appears this game is going to be a button basher from start to finish. They are a bit similar to the Night Crawler levels in the X-Men 3 game, but with a few changes thrown in for good measure, does it work I’m not to sure yet as I’m on the 1st level at this point, as I like to play the game as I write taking breaks to fill in the blanks, so only time will tell.
The first few sections are basically the training for the game with menus popping up every so often telling you what to do and what not to do, such as don’t attack on the red side or your head will explode or something similar to that.
All the enemy characters so far look to be the same 3 variations of characters, and the fighting system seems ok, not to bad but not exactly great either, one problem I’ve found is your view can get blocked by the scenery while fighting which causes you to lose a bit of health.
For some reason every so often it will transport you and an enemy to another area and something will happen, either an explosion or something similar in which time you will be transported to where you were before, while the enemy gets the full force of the blast or whatever happens in the drop zone you have left them at.
So far the game isn’t that impressive but I have played a lot worse, yes I am looking at you NBA Live how I hate you with a passion, the 1st level clocks in at around 10 minutes or so-so its pretty short, hopefully all the other levels aren’t this short otherwise there is going to be a lot of people gutted they bought a game they can complete in a couple of hours.
Next up its the second level, your on some mountain pass with little rooms offset from the path, its not looking to good so far as I am just doing the same thing over and over again, with no change apart from one enemy threw a grenade or something, hooray its not the same after all after about 3 rooms you enter a massive courtyard where you get to fight roughly 5 enemies at a time as they come out of the building at the end.
So I have beaten the first five what’s next I hear you ask well there is another 5 to defeat, then another and another.(Do these guys not realise if they all come at me at once they could probably kick my ass?) A short easy boss fight and its onto the next level, one good thing about this level is it took about 1 minute more than the previous one. So if you have bought this game instead of renting it then things are looking up as the last level may last a whole hour if there are about 30 levels.
(Please don’t let there be 30 levels, I am not sure id be able to cope)
I’m still unsure how to get the drop zone features to come on and keep doing it by accident, they really should explain how to do it, maybe they did and I skipped it in my attempt to play the game.
Level 3 sees me in some pyramids for reasons I am not sure of, maybe I am looking for pirate treasure, and you know how sneaky those guys can be. I’m chasing some bad guy while enemies keep blocking my way and closing doors that magically open once they have been defeated just like in real life. Surprise, surprise its exactly the same as the last few levels only this time you fight against two guys at the end instead of the one, this level is actually slightly harder than the last two with the bosses being a bit of a pain in the ass.
Level 4 and in terms of gameplay nothing has changed just more generic button mashing. I am really struggling to remain open minded now, as it’s just the same thing over and over again, but not in an enjoyable way, this is now getting tedious. The teleportation doesn’t come into play at all in the game apart from places where you have to do it to proceed, this is looking a rental at best four levels in and I have not got anything to say.
There is nothing much to say about level 5 either as its just more of the same, the only exception this time the boss seems to have way to much energy, and you can’t actually beat him, which seems stupid but there you go, you also visit levels you have already played on as well, I guess they were saving the budget for a decent game.
Now onto level 6, at least I think its level 6 I stopped counting as it just all seems to blur into one large pile of nonsense, this sees you inside the building in the courtyard from earlier on in the game, you just hack your way up until the boss, who I may as well add is a lot easier to beat than the previous one, then that’s your lot. Once beaten you can replay the entire game from the continue option on the main screen with the last weapon in the game if you picked it up, if you wish to, all though you will probably fight the urge to unless you want the full 1000 achievement points.
AUDIO – 5
The voice acting was bad,the music was ok and the sound effects were of your average standard.
Graphics – 4
Seen worse,but also seen a lot better 2 years ago,Looks a lot like an original xbox game with a bit of a polish.
Game play –6
The controls while working ok,sometimes seem down to luck and i still not know how the drop zone thing actually works.
Very linear to say the least and not much to keep you playing apart from wanting to get the game finished.
Lifespan – 5
Once you have played it once,there isnt really much reason to go back through it and play it again.
If your going to get this rent it,not worth buying in my honest opinion,in my lying opinion buy 15 copies of it as its awesome.
Bottom Line – 5
I really tried to like this game and be as impartial as i could,but this is your usual lackluster game of a movie and it just doesn`t cut the mustard.
If you want to play i stress again rent it,buying it would be a rather large mistake.
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