Finding Nemo – Review

Pixar have created several very funny, beautifully animated and all round well crafted pieces of film entertainment over recent years, and commonly with each film they create, a computer game is composed – and usually, it’s not the best end product to be more than fair. A Bug’s Life, Toy Story, Monster Inc, and the more recent The Incredibles – all brilliant films, but the games are severely lacking in quality, depth and originality, and most important of all, genuine unadulterated entertainment. They’re just not that fun.

Finding Nemo is another one of the movie>game spin offs being churned out recently, and whilst it’s aimed at a young target audience, the quality of gaming still has to be very good. Age does not excuse poor quality, the kids of today are quite demanding when it comes to games, you know.

Unfortunately, the crossover from animated film to computer game isn’t that promising from the outset. The first level is kind of dull, but does ease you quite easily into what to do in the game, it does also, however, pretty much portray the rest of what is to come.

You first take control of Nemo, but also get to control His dad Marvin and also the loveable and very forgetful Dory. Along the way you can swim through green rings and collect shells, and occasionally have the opportunity to play underwater football. Well, almost, what you actually do is bounce a beach ball off your head and try to knock it through blue rings, collect them all and you gain a star. On each level, if you manage to swim through all green rings you are rewarded with a star, if you defeat a number of certain enemies in a certain way; you are once again rewarded with a star. When you collect the stars for each level, you then unlock a bonus game from the main menu. An ok idea, one that has definitely been done before, but it’s one that still adds a little more than just a “story mode” to the game.

The gameplay itself is essentially a cross between a 3d and 2d style of platforming game mechanics. The environments are 3d, but you yourself move on a 2Dimensional path – either left, right, up or down. It does work well, and people who have played a lot of the playstation1 platform games will feel very at home with the controls. There are also intermissions between general platforming and collecting with the crash bandicoot style run-from-the-big-bad-monster levels. You know the score, there’s a giant enemy behind you, and you have to run – or swim – as fast as you can away from it. Dodging obstacles and its attacks. The other gameplay feature is kind of the same, only you race, rather than run. You are often pitted against someone and have to try and cross the finish line before them, again dodging underwater dangers such as nasty octopi and geysers which spew hot bubbles at you. Finding Nemo bases its game entirely around these 3 game modes. All major events in the film are in some way or other transformed slightly to fit either one of the three methods.

Some of the puzzles in the platform sections can actually be quite a pickle, especially the picture slide ones, where you have one segment of the picture missing, and can only move a connecting segment into the blank space. If you don’t get it right away (there is usually a quick 7 or 8 move way to do it) then it’s quite tough to get it back to how it should be. Apart from those, though, the puzzles are generally very easy, and consist of being patient more than a test of your intelligence. Even the ‘ickle ‘ens will find them a doddle I’m sure.

The game is also very short; the story mode itself took a mere two and a half hours to complete. Probably one of the shortest platforms I’ve played personally. Even with the added bonus levels, it won’t ever top 6 hours for most gamers, I’m guessing.

As for presentation, whilst the game isn’t in any fashion a technical beauty, it does look very lush and cutesy at times. The little fish move and flow very nicely, and generally all characters have a good likeliness to those in the film. Cut scenes at the start of levels are taken directly from the movie, so that adds another little something to the presentation. The underwater effects have also been implemented well, everything is nice and colourful and it does feel like you are swimming about in the sea. Word of warning though, platforming sections can sometimes be very vomit inducing due to often shoddy camera work. It sometimes spins, and moves in quite a queasy way, and I found also that the game gave me quite a bad headache after an hour or so. So maybe for the queasy types, it’s best to keep gaming down to short bursts.

In terms of female gaming aspects, there aren’t any really. Finding Nemo is targeted at pretty much everyone. Women, men, children, parents. It’s an easy going game that can be played by pretty much everyone. That said, even this animated kiddie game features – as usual – male playable characters. On the upside of this aspect, Dory is playable also.

The sound is your usually platform-esque stuff. High toned looping tunes that play along in the background, and blip noises and whatnot every time you collect something. The voices are taken directly from the film though, which is definitely a good thing. As for deaf gamers or those with hearing difficulties – there isn’t much to be lost. Cut scenes have subtitles, and playing with no in game sound wouldn’t hinder your progress. A few of the snappy retorts the characters say during gameplay may be the only loss.

Overall Finding Nemo is an already done to death game, but on the upside is graphically and technically solid. Gameplay can be quite tedious at times, but I’m sure it can be enjoyed by a portion of children or Nemo fans. The length of the game is its most major let down, though. Only buy this if you see it cheap, else it’s only worth a rent.

Review by Leyla

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