WALL-E Review

Costas Stephanides’s Review

This game isn't stupid.

One of these days I'm going to have to pinch myself and see if I'm dreaming or not. It's summertime and that means sun, sea and sitting in cinemas seeing the silver screen. Usually the games that accompany these films are less interesting than the adverts before the film but this year the movie games are fast approaching a decent level of quality.

WALL-E is no exception. The game about the robotic cleaner is naturally launched on the consoles as well and will aim to follow plots from the film and give the gamer an extra dimension to the brand. THQ Wireless could have created a toned down version for the mobile with a short but profitable lifespan. We would have whinged and grumbled our way moaning about studio execs and we probably wouldn't have blamed the developers too much. Thankfully, WALL-E the mobile game bears no relation to its high def big brother and is a cheeky little made for mobile game.

It's a kind of puzzle platform game where, as WALL-E, you scoot around finding certain bits of trash to collect. It starts off as a simple game aimed at a simple audience but as you continue unlocking levels and items you soon realise there's a decent game here. The game starts with only a couple of unlocked levels and only a fire extinguisher to fill WALL-E's curiosity. As you collect more and more extinguishers, new collectibles are unlocked together with better abilities and levels.

WALL-E does the sort of things that you would expect any space cleaner to perform. Pressing left moves left and right moves right. Apart from jumping up with 2 the only other button you need is 5 which lets you grab items. Space is a dirty place and you can pick up piles of trash and compact them to form blocks. You can carry one block at a time and throw them to create platforms or activate switches to move around the level and ultimately find your special item. As you progress, a number of different blocks become available and while this should make life easier, it gives the level designers more ways to create cunning solutions for you to find.

The level design is one of the game's best features. There are only 15 levels in the game but as new items and skills become available you will yourself playing through the levels a second and a third time. The beauty of the game is that the new skills open previously inaccessible parts of the level. While you may be repeating the levels, you are rarely repeating the same paths. The levels appear to be randomly opened which further reduces any feeling of repetition.

In all, WALL-E is a cunning game that maximises what little resources are available and it should keep you busy for a few hours. There is also a scoring system based on your times so there is even a limited replay value here.