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IGN Review of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs is the predictable game tie-in to the animated film that was released this Summer. It played to mostly positive reviews and you can read all about it on our sister site Rotten Tomatoes. Like most tie-ins targeting a younger crowd, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is a simplistic nod to the movie that will temporarily entertain most children.
Gamers take on the roll of Flint Lockwood, a wacky scientist in search of a great invention. His latest creation is a satellite that materializes food and rains the portions down on his hometown of Swallow Falls. When the food generator gets out of control its up to Flint (and you!) to dig his hometown out of the mess and save the day. There are some supporting characters, but the game doesn't bother to elaborate on the story or provide context. In fact, if you aren't familiar with the film, the game will feel extremely random. But since children rarely need a story to make sense to enjoy it, this minor complaint hardly matters.
There is one other character besides Flint that adds significantly to the game and that is his pet monkey Steve. At any point during the adventure, a second player can jump into the game as Steve and play alongside Flint. Drop-in/drop-out cooperative play is a must for children's titles, it allows parents to help with a difficult section and then walk away from the TV without ruining the game. It's just as useful in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs as it is in LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Batman.
The game has an extremely short introduction in the style of a retro-game slideshow. The art and icons of the menu system all looks like it was pulled from a Nintendo Entertainment System circa 1988. The decision is cute, minimalist, and a good choice considering the amount of money and time put into this project. Following the prologue, players are dropped into the ice cream covered town of Swallow Falls with nothing but a modified hair dryer and a white lab coat.
Flint has transformed the hair dryer into a heat gun, that he then uses to melt obstacles composed of ice cream and other frozen treats. The game starts players with only one tool, but eventually gives them access to as many as three, including an extendable boxing glove and a giant mechanical fork. The rest of the game is spent picking the right tool to manipulate food based obstacles, which sometimes requires a little thought.
For example, Flint might need to jump up on the roof of a house, but can't reach the ledge. He can use the fork to pick up a pad of butter and place it in front of a giant hamburger. Then melt the butter with the heat gun, turning it into a slick goo. Then he can use the boxing glove to punch the burger into place. Not many puzzles get more complicated than this, but Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs does include some remedial problem solving. In short, this one is not for toddlers.
The characters all resemble their cinematic equivalents, but the real stars of this show are the edible items that fall from the sky. Some of the food is quite cartoonish, but other items are rendered realistically enough to be slightly grotesque. Maybe it's just me, but there is something off-putting about giant chunks of sushi and cuts of meat lining the street.
The game's graphics aren't award-winning, but they are attention grabbing enough to keep a yougin' enthralled for one of the 20 minute stages. Add in a bunch of items to collect in the form of destructible snacks and the game's total length is somewhere around 6 hours. This is just long enough to cut things short before the repetitive nature of the gameplay drags the experience down.
The only major annoyance in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is the repetition of the sound effects. Flint has a number of chuckle-inducing one-liners that he'll throw out in certain situations. Unfortunately he tends to repeat these lines multiple times in a very short span of time. It gets annoying quickly. The accompanying music is largely forgettable, but won't cause you to turn down the volume like the aforementioned voice acting.
©2009-10-02, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Gamers take on the roll of Flint Lockwood, a wacky scientist in search of a great invention. His latest creation is a satellite that materializes food and rains the portions down on his hometown of Swallow Falls. When the food generator gets out of control its up to Flint (and you!) to dig his hometown out of the mess and save the day. There are some supporting characters, but the game doesn't bother to elaborate on the story or provide context. In fact, if you aren't familiar with the film, the game will feel extremely random. But since children rarely need a story to make sense to enjoy it, this minor complaint hardly matters.
There is one other character besides Flint that adds significantly to the game and that is his pet monkey Steve. At any point during the adventure, a second player can jump into the game as Steve and play alongside Flint. Drop-in/drop-out cooperative play is a must for children's titles, it allows parents to help with a difficult section and then walk away from the TV without ruining the game. It's just as useful in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs as it is in LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Batman.
The game has an extremely short introduction in the style of a retro-game slideshow. The art and icons of the menu system all looks like it was pulled from a Nintendo Entertainment System circa 1988. The decision is cute, minimalist, and a good choice considering the amount of money and time put into this project. Following the prologue, players are dropped into the ice cream covered town of Swallow Falls with nothing but a modified hair dryer and a white lab coat.
Flint has transformed the hair dryer into a heat gun, that he then uses to melt obstacles composed of ice cream and other frozen treats. The game starts players with only one tool, but eventually gives them access to as many as three, including an extendable boxing glove and a giant mechanical fork. The rest of the game is spent picking the right tool to manipulate food based obstacles, which sometimes requires a little thought.
For example, Flint might need to jump up on the roof of a house, but can't reach the ledge. He can use the fork to pick up a pad of butter and place it in front of a giant hamburger. Then melt the butter with the heat gun, turning it into a slick goo. Then he can use the boxing glove to punch the burger into place. Not many puzzles get more complicated than this, but Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs does include some remedial problem solving. In short, this one is not for toddlers.
The characters all resemble their cinematic equivalents, but the real stars of this show are the edible items that fall from the sky. Some of the food is quite cartoonish, but other items are rendered realistically enough to be slightly grotesque. Maybe it's just me, but there is something off-putting about giant chunks of sushi and cuts of meat lining the street.
The game's graphics aren't award-winning, but they are attention grabbing enough to keep a yougin' enthralled for one of the 20 minute stages. Add in a bunch of items to collect in the form of destructible snacks and the game's total length is somewhere around 6 hours. This is just long enough to cut things short before the repetitive nature of the gameplay drags the experience down.
The only major annoyance in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is the repetition of the sound effects. Flint has a number of chuckle-inducing one-liners that he'll throw out in certain situations. Unfortunately he tends to repeat these lines multiple times in a very short span of time. It gets annoying quickly. The accompanying music is largely forgettable, but won't cause you to turn down the volume like the aforementioned voice acting.
©2009-10-02, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved