Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Ron Burke

Activision has their hands full with Spider-Man 3, one of the most anticipated movies of this year, but that doesn’t mean that they have forgotten about one of the other big-name movies – Shrek the Third.  Without ruining the story, Shrek the Third is the continued story of Far Far Away. The kingdom needs an heir to the throne and the most promising candidate is Fiona’s cousin Artie.  Shrek, Donkey, and Puss in Boots set off to find Artie and bring him back to the kingdom.  With Shrek and the boys away from the kingdom of Far Far Away, Prince Charming has seized the opportunity to try to retake the throne by force.  It is here that your story begins. 

There are four primary characters that you’ll control in Shrek the Third – Shrek, Artie, Puss in Boots, and to a minor extent, Donkey, but you’ll be meeting up with many more as you progress through the story.  You’ll meet up with Fiona, Sleeping Beauty, Prince Charming, a Cyclops, Pinocchio, the three blind mice, Gingie, and many other characters as you work your way back to the castle with Artie in tow. 

The folks at Vicarious Visions have worked very hard at bringing 3D environments to life utilizing the dual screens of the Nintendo DS to its highest potential.  As with previous games, and the Spider-Man titles that they’ve built, Vicarious Visions has utilized a full 3D world with your characters side-scrolling on a 2D plane.  The game uses both screens, so this 3D world extends vertically as well as horizontally, with most of the action taking place on the lower screen. 

You’ll be controlling Shrek, Artie, and Puss and Boots throughout the game, often simultaneously.  To do this, you’ll be linking the trio via a small vine at the bottom of the screen.  The interface at the bottom is simply a character portrait of the two characters you aren’t actively controlling at the time with green arrows pointing at each of them. 

None of the levels in Shrek the Third are plain.  From the start of the first level you’ll see a great amount of detail from the 3D trees and dense foliage to the fantastic shimmering water in several of the levels.  There is a similar attention to detail in the character models.  While they are small, you can clearly tell the difference between them, including Puss and Boots’ signature hat and boots to Shrek's dark brown tunic and trademarked suction cup ears.  In fact, the only character that looks rather plain is Fiona’s cousin Artie. 

Overall the graphics are pretty good for a portable title.  There are some larger bosses that extend beyond the height of the first screen, once again putting the top screen to use.  The use of color fits with the movie, and the level cutscenes are well-handled in a storybook fashion.  All of the portable eye candy isn’t without price though, I did run into a couple of framerate issues in the game, as well as an odd glitch.  Sometimes switching characters is as simple as touching their face, immediately shifting your focus to that character.  Other times, and without rhyme or reason, the screen will fade to black and then you’ll switch to that character.  It doesn’t seem to matter if they are on screen or not, but it can be somewhat distracting.

There are some good points and some bad points to working with licensed properties.  When a movie does well, the game automatically gets attention as fans rush out to buy the tie-in to continue the adventure at home.  On the other hand, movie tie-ins are constrained by the original property and often don’t get the development funds or time that they need.  This extends to voice work and music as well.

The Shrek games have all used sound-alike voiceovers to play the parts of Shrek, Donkey, Puss, and the rest of the gang, and this game is no different.  The sound-alikes do a decent job as usual but the weakest performance is the most prevalent – Donkey.  Between levels, the game treats us to a storybook-style setup for the next level as narrated by Donkey.  In true Donkey fashion, he doesn’t often follow the text on the screen, instead putting his own spin on things. Donkey does the voice-over intros, Donkey gives you all of your hints, Donkey makes comments throughout the game. In fact, Donkey just won’t shut up, just like in the movies.  He does have some great lines occasionally (“If the evil trees attack you in the forest, and there is no one around to see it, does our insurance cover it?”) but he is not channeling Eddie very well this time.  It isn’t terrible, but it is impossible to ignore.  On the other hand, the other characters in the game have very little to say, often saying the same thing over and over during combat.

On the other side of the coin is the music.  The music in Shrek the Third is whimsical and fun, lending a lot of personality to the game.  The levels all have their own music, so you probably won’t have to use the included music volume control to kill it. 

For any game aimed at kids, the control scheme has to be simple, tight, and effective.  The game uses the D-pad in conjunction with the touch screen, L1/L2, and the microphone.  You’ll use the D-Pad to move your team left or right, and you’ll use the touch screen for almost everything else.  To attack, simply tap your target.  If you want to do an uppercut with Shrek, drag your stylus directly up above his head.  If you want to have Shrek butt-smash the ground, drag your stylus straight down.  These are the most simple moves and they are intuitive enough to be mastered within a few minutes.

Later in the first batch of levels you’ll learn some more movements that require a little more precision.  For instance, Puss can jump to the side of a wall, then by dragging the stylus in an upward diagonal motion, jump to the wall opposite even higher. This creates a ninja-like effect and allows you to scale the more vertical structures.  This opens a lot of puzzle gameplay elements so it is something that has to be mastered fairly early on.  It is pretty easy and Puss will slide all the way to the bottom of the wall slowly if you don’t execute it properly – fairly forgiving for what looks like something difficult.

There will be moments where you need to cross a river, and for that Artie and his shield come in quite handy.  Mounting his shield, you can surf across bodies of water by holding L1 or R1 and then blowing into the mic.  It breaks up the action pretty nicely. 

Overall, the controls are very simple and quite forgiving.  It should be easy for anyone to be able to pick up and play without difficulty.

Shrek the Third puts Shrek and the gang on an adventure to save Far Far Away, but Vicarious Visions has moved away from the usual beat-em-up formula in favor of a more puzzle centric flavor.  This means less screen tapping and more thinking, which is a good thing in my book.

The puzzles are fairly straightforward in the beginning, requiring only one special move to complete.  Each character has their own powers, so simply choosing the right person for the job is the hard part initially.  Puss can wall-jump as described above, Shrek can butt-slam weak floors as well as shoulder-charge weak walls, and Artie can block almost anything with his shield, including attacks from above.  As you progress through the levels they will get longer and increasingly complex.  Some may require Puss to scale a large structure to pull a lever while Shrek bashes down cement walls.  Artie can throw his shield Captain America style to hit magic switches that are often far above the heads of the characters.  The puzzles never become unreasonable, but they will make you think for a few moments to figure out where each character should be and how best to get them there.

During your quest you’ll encounter some boss monsters.   These creatures won’t go down in the usual manner, so you’ll probably have to rely on Donkey’s magic to get you through.  By pressing L1, you’ll enable Donkey to cast a spell on your target.  When fighting a Knight it’ll make his shield disappear - when fighting a spearman, it’ll cause his shield to drop, even if not completely.  Some bosses can only be hit in certain areas such as the head, so learning the various powers of your team is important. 

Shrek the Third does a great job of bringing the funny on a portable platform, while simultaneously telling a story parallel to the upcoming movie.  The shift to puzzle elements may broaden the overall audience, but the combat is still rather repetitive.  Often while you are busting your hump to destroy some angry tree, your companions will stand around and fart, literally.  It would be nice if there was some level of AI present, but this game requires a bit more micro-management than that.

The other thing that plagues movie tie-ins is that developers are charged with expanding a movie that lasts an hour and a half into something closer to a dozen hours.  To that end, Shrek the Third features 20 levels with boss battles punctuating each area.  You’ll visit the Dwarven Mines, the Maze of Spades, Cannon Harbor, and even Castlehoff.  As you go through the level there are coins and fairies that you can collect; 84 and 26 respectively.  These serve to extend the gameplay a bit as even some of the most simple levels have a hidden coin somewhere just out of reach.

In addition to the fairly robust (for a portable) single player game, there are also six multiplayer mini-games that you can share with a friend in Demo mode.  Castle Attack, Shrekleboard, Frog Herder, Shooting Gallery, Catacombs Leap, and Ships Ahoy.  These minigames support up to 3 players, and can be played locally.  You have to have friends to play the multi portions, so don’t expect to rack up a truckload of practice before you take on your friends.  The minigames are all fairly self explanatory, but simple enough to be a quick bit of fun while you are on a lunch break or the like.

I would like to mention that the game supports 3 save slots, meaning that you can share this game with your family without having to use the same save or risk having it erased.

Shrek the Third does a great job at capturing the feel of the Dreamworks picture by the same name. Whimsical music and sharp-witted writing are the highlights of the title, with the puzzle-centric action keeping adults entertained as well.

Gaming Trend Score

81

1. Graphics: 80
2. Audio: 80
3. Controls: 87
4. Gameplay: 80
5. Value/Replay: 80
6. OVERALL:81