Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Ron Burke

While the game-to-movie translation has been less than pleasurable given the last 10 years of examples, movie-to-game translations are often pretty decent.  Activision and Dreamworks have been working as a team for a while now, and their newest movie, Over the Hedge, is getting a game adaptation for the Xbox, Playstation 2, GameCube, PC, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo GBA. 

The storyline of the movie features RJ the raccoon (Bruce Willis), Verne the turtle (Gary Shandling), Hammy the squirrel (Steve Carell), and Stella the skunk (Wanda Sykes).  The animal crew, in the movie, find that while they were hibernating the humans had encroached on their forest and built suburbia (including a giant hedge) right in their backyard!  RJ, the ‘street-wise’ raccoon helps the all-star cast as they try to battle suburbia. 

Unlike many game translations, Over The Hedge is not based on the movie of the same name.  Instead, the game picks up just after the events of the movie, giving the folks at Activision some great latitude to create a game that doesn’t have to adhere to the movie script.  The game lets gamers play some of the moments in the movie, but also heads to 10 new locations.  Can Activision, Edge of Reality, Beenox, and Vicarious Visions strike gold once more with a movie property?

Over The Hedge is an all-CGI movie by Dreamworks – you know it is going to have beautiful graphics.  What comes as a surprise is how well the folks at Edge of Reality of captured the look, mannerisms, and overall personality of the characters.  Hammy looks like he could jitter out of his squirrel-skin any second, his tail flicking about constantly.  RJ on the other hand looks more laid back and relaxed.  Verne looks panicked and almost surprised to even be there most of the time.  Stella looks more confident and cocky than RJ and tends to hand out attitude by the handful. 

The colors in Over The Hedge are vibrant and bright, representing the landscape of suburbia well.  There is also a great sense of scale.  Since the characters in the game are small animals, the levels seem absolutely huge in scale most of the time.  While the textures throughout the level are rather flat, there is a great amount of detail present in most of the objects.  For instance, the folding army shovel has a twist handle, and the hockey stick has writing near the top of the grip area.  Even the backpacks that power the helmets that are driving the other animals nuts has 30V clearly written on the battery packs on their back.  Again, the areas are rather sparse, but the models inside the areas are very well done.  The Xbox version was the sharpest of the console versions, showing the bright colors and clear lines best.  Thankfully, framerate was not an issue in any area of the game.

The movie for Over The Hedge features some big-name talent including Bruce Willis, Steve Carell, William Shatner, Nick Nolte, Eugene Levy, Wanda Sykes, and more.  Obviously, it isn’t feasible to bring in those actors for voice work on the game, so Activision and Edge of Reality brought in some very convincing sound-alikes for the job.  The guy who stands in for William Shatner delivers some comedy gold.  In fact, this is probably the best set of sound-alikes in Activision’s stable of movie translation titles.

The sound effects are as bright and slapstick as the graphics in the game.  Similar to the graphics, most of it works, and some of it does not.  Some of the lines feel forced or simply aren’t funny.  It is an A for effort, but a B- for execution.

It looks like Edge of Reality was shooting for a game that can be picked up by anyone at a moments notice to play the game with little to no learning curve.  Movement and precision aiming is handled by the left analog, the right thumbstick is unused in the title thanks to some set camera angles.  The A button handles jump and double jump.  The X button is a melee attack, or will throw an object you have in your paws.  The Y button performs an energy attack, which is different for every character, and the B button allows you to interact with objects.  In addition, the right trigger allows you to sneak, and the left trigger switches weapons. You hold B in and you can wind up your ranged attack. Again, the controls are very simple and very easy to pick up regardless of skill level.   The controls are equally simple for the minigames, so I’ll spare you the trouble of spelling all of it out again. 

It is this simple control scheme that sets this game up perfectly as one that can be played by parents and their children.  Without the need to worry about complex moves, or bizarre button combinations, parents can quickly and easily master the control scheme and participate in their children’s gaming habit. 

As I mentioned, there are set camera angles in the game.  This presents the game exactly as the programmers intended, but it does present some issues.  Occasionally, your characters will be forced into some tough corners where you can’t see them at all, or clipping and collision issues will present themselves as you try to navigate at the very end of the field of view.  Both of these issues would probably be solved by a semi-variable camera system.  I believe that the objective was to offload the control of the camera out of the hands of kids for ease of use. 

Over The Hedge focuses on RJ the raccoon, Verne the turtle, Hammy the squirrel, Stella the skunk, and a host of woodland creatures who come out of hibernation to find that the Suburbs have moved in right next door.  This brings opportunity for the creatures as they now have access to the neighborhood garbage.  All is not well for the woodland creatures though – Gladys, a human who runs the Homeowner’s Association, has enlisted the help of Dwayne the Exterminator to remove the animals from the surrounding area.  Since this picks up after the movie, there is some creative license in how Dwayne goes about this task.  He uses some conventional methods, as well as slapping spaghetti-strainer mind control helmets on other woodland creatures to force them to hunt you down. 

To combat Dwayne and his army of mind-controlled critters, you will use a host of special powers and weapons unique to each character.  Stella uses a toilet plunger and Frisbees, Verne uses a golf putter and golf balls, Hammy uses a lead pipe and boomerangs, and RJ handles the golf driver and golf balls. The characters can use these weapons to execute a light, heavy, ranged, or special attack, in addition to a powered-up charged attack.   If you jump just right, you can even stack on top of each other for a combined attack move. 

As you move through the levels you are assigned some primary and secondary objectives to complete.  These can be as simple as finding a certain amount of food, to disarming a home security system.  Some of the levels will require some hack and slash action, while others will require a bit of stealth.  One level will have you breaking into a home, disarming the security system, and sneaking past motion sensors and cameras.  Some are more simple and involve pushing boxes, switches, or basic jumping puzzle elements.  The levels are quite varied, and there are over 30 of them.  There is plenty to keep you busy, even if you don’t replay them with the other two characters.

Your characters post in a clearing that acts as the central hub of the game.  Here you can select levels that you’ve completed, play the minigames, and change characters.  Most levels culminate with some sort of boss character that the players will have to defeat to complete the level. 

The minigames are one of the big highlights to the game.  Golf cart racing is essentially destruction derby with four players.  You can pick up shield powerups, spikes, armor, health and more.  It reminds me of a cross of Mario Kart and Demolition: No Exit. 

There are a lot of fun things in Over The Hedge, and the action is fast and frenzied for the most part.  I did find myself losing track of my character every once in a while due to the whiz-bang effects of combat, which may be more difficult for smaller kids.  Overall though, the game is fairly forgiving and gives you enough junk food to stuff your face full, keeping your energy and health high. 

The value of the game is highly dependent on the type of gamer you are.  With the game being made as a 2 player affair without Live support, you’ll have to have a friend over to get the most out of the title.  The game is aimed at an ‘in-between’ age group – not quite young kids, and not quite teenagers, but the minigames are fun for any age.  The 30 levels and the three unlockable games will keep the entertainment going for a while.  The RC racing game plays like something akin to Mario Kart, and Bumper Karts is just bumpercar fun at its finest.  Off the kart, you get to play a little golf.  All of these things combined mean that the title will fit almost any casual gamer or relatively young kid.  The levels are varied, and cooperative multiplayer just makes for a fun little adventure title. There is a lot to like about this title.  The old-school minigames are fun for all ages, and being able to jump in and out of the game at any time as the second player is pure genius.  This is the kind of game that you can play with your kids and not be bored to death.  It is light co-op arcade fun that delivers on its promise.

Gaming Trend Score

81

1. Graphics: 83
2. Audio: 80
3. Controls: 79
4. Gameplay: 81
5. Value/Replay: 81
6. OVERALL:81