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Finding Nemo

Score: 60%
ESRB: Everyone
Publisher: THQ
Developer: Traveller's Tales
Media: DVD/1
Players: 1
Genre: Miscellaneous

Graphics & Sound:

Traveller's Tales is no stranger to bringing Pixar/Disney properties from the big screen to consoles having worked on both A Bug's Life and Toy Story. With this in mind, it's no surprise that they would once again be approached to bring Pixar/Disney's newest CGI masterpiece, Finding Nemo, to home consoles.

Visually, Nemo stays very true to its source material. Underwater environments are beautifully rendered and carry with them a sense that you're really underwater. Plant life sways along with the current and schools of fish swim around you. This gives the game's worlds a real sense of life. More watchful eyes will even catch smaller details such as water giving your character a slight pull or push depending on the current. Characters are rendered very cleanly and accurately. The in-game renders may pale a little after watching some of the CGI scenes from the movie (which are dispersed throughout the game), but they're pretty close.

A subtle soundtrack and effects compliment the game's atmosphere. Unfortunately, there are times when things get a little too subtle --almost to the point of being non-existent. If you're familiar with most kid's platformers, then you'll be intimately acquainted with Nemo's effects. There's nothing here you haven't heard, regardless of how nicely they are done. Music consists primarily of light, airy music that helps to give a certain peacefulness to the game's ocean environments. Things pick up during tense moments, such as when you're being chased by Bruce the shark. Though actor's voices from the movie are present during movie scenes, they aren't present in the game.


Gameplay:

As is usually the tradition with Traveller's Tales' other Pixar/Disney games, Finding Nemo does an excellent job of unfolding the story by including scenes from the movie between levels. I'm always a big fan of doing this for added flair, such as in EA's Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, but Nemo takes this a little too far. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say you could play through the entire game and see at least 80 percent of the movie. I was also disappointed that the scenes sometimes took more prominence than the gameplay. It wasn't uncommon to watch a 5 minute movie only to have 2 minutes of gameplay (followed by another 5 minutes of movie). This makes the game feel like more of an interactive movie at times.

Finding Nemo follows the plot of the movie exactly and allows you to play as three of the game's main characters: Nemo, his over-protective father Marlin and the absent-minded Dory (who provides much of the comic relief during the game). Throughout the game you'll even run into other characters like Bruce, the shark who has to remember that fish are friends, not food. The game's layout is very straight-forward. You progress through the game's levels completing various objectives in the world and finding the end of the level. You'll also be able to complete bonus objectives in each level such as defeating all the level's enemies, placing pearls in like-colored holes and swimming through all the bubble rings. By completing these tasks, you can unlock mini-games and other goodies like production sketches. The game also includes some very tricky slide-puzzles, which end up being among the game's more enjoyable aspects.


Difficulty:

Even though the game is geared more towards kids, or casual gamers who just happen to be Disney fans, it can become a little mind-numbing at time. The game isn't particularly hard; it's just frustrating and repetitive. This is especially true if you're trying to complete all of the game's objectives. Swimming through every ring can and will begin to wear you down after half an hour. To compound the sheer repetitiveness of it all, levels are divided into sections, meaning you can't back track to collect things you may have missed. After my third time through trying to find one pearl that eluded me, I ended up giving up all together.

Game Mechanics:

Finding Nemo is amazingly easy to pick up, regardless of a player's skill set. Characters are controlled with the analog stick and the face buttons let you interact with the game world (such as picking up objects) or giving you a little speed boost. The game uses a variety of play-styles in an attempt to break up the monotony such as side-scrolling and sequences when you swim towards the screen. One of the bigger problems with these sequences is that you rarely know exactly where to go at times. There were numerous times where I swam around an area with no clue as to what I had to do next. An arrow or some kind of indicator would have been helpful. One of the aspects I wasn't too wild about was that you can't die in the game. Now I'm not saying I was to see Marlin literally die in the game, but every time you take too much damage, your character somehow manages to escape. This may help to make the game kid friendly, but I felt it sucked most of the challenge out of the game. To me, this is one of the biggest problems facing so-called 'kids' games'. Sure you don't want to make the game overly complicated, but at the same time you don't want to insult their intelligence and take away the challenge. The challenge is cheapened even more by the inclusion of 'bodyguard fish' you can obtain, who protect you and extend your already infinite life even further.

In the end, Finding Nemo does a remarkable job of recreating the look and feel of the movie. However, it fails to catch the fun of the movie and ends up being a repetitive, if overly simple game. If you liked the movie, or are just one of those people that have to play every Disney game, give this one a rental, otherwise throw this minnow back into the ocean.


-Starscream, GameVortex Communications
AKA Ricky Tucker

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