What could possibly go wrong, eh?
The news that Nintendo had brokered an exclusivity deal with the BBC to publish games based on Doctor Who was met with cautious optimism around Chez Craig. God knows the BBC haven't had the greatest track record with converting their properties into games in the past, as the myriad tiresome Robot Wars titles on PS2 will attest, but since the PC-only downloadable 'adventure games' turned out remarkably well, and given the show's status as one of the Beeb's most successful cash cows, I had some faith they'd find a good developer and give them the time and support they needed to come up with something truly special.
But, hey, I've been wrong before...
The game doesn't exactly start off on the right foot, as clicking on the disc channel on the Wii's front end brings up a static, low-res logo and plays the show's theme tune...from series 3. Y'know, with David Tennant and Martha and RTD as head writer. As opposed to what we have now. D'oh.
So, upon starting up the game proper (and being greeted by the current theme tune), we're thrown face-first into the plot by a cutscene - mostly created by static artwork shunted around the screen, motion comic-style. Cheap, but cheerful, I suppose. Matt Smith and Karen Gillan sound enthused on vocal duties, even if the script ain't the greatest, and hey, we're on a spaceship! Maybe I'm still suffering from the after-effects of RTD's "domestic life is so fantastic" mentality, but seeing a Who story set nowhere near Earth - and especially modern-day Earth - immediately gets my recommendation. Anyway, the Tardis lands on the outer hull of the ship, presumably 'cause the Doctor's forgotten how to park it properly again, and Amy gets sent out (in a rather cool spacesuit) to open the loading dock hatch. Let's play!
...Wish I hadn't said that. Forcing poor miss Pond to scarper across to a control panel whilst dodging a hailstorm of meteorites and keeping one eye on her O2 meter sounds really exciting on paper, but Amy responds to commands sluggishly, like there's a layer of cotton wool between controller and game, and the collision detection is spotty as hell; I counted four instances when Amy took damage by treading on a spot where a meterorite either had landed a few seconds earlier (and then disappeared without trace) or where one was planning to land ten seconds later. Oh, so these lumps of spinning cosmic rock are both heavily radioactive and plot their descent patterns with the aid of potentially-lethal landing markers? Why didn't the Doctor warn me about that?
Either way, I managed to make it indoors, only to be confronted by an even more terrifying menace...
OH GOD! That's the most horrible alien I've ever seen!
And why has it stolen Amy's clothes?! Wait...
Yeah, that's what Asylum Entertainment, the developers, think Amy Pond should/does look like. Quite why anyone would want to butcher this gorgeous face so badly is beyond my understanding - and, alas, the game continues to fall, to the point where even this can't be called the crowning horror.
Now on board the ship, I'm greeted by an unconvincing set design, all steel-grille flooring and minimal lighting to make the place look bigger than it is. Classically Doctor Who, then, but probably for the wrong reasons. Amy picks up some sort of gun - I mean, it's not a gun, because this is Doctor Who and all that, but, y'know, it shoots stuff - and a red crystal, guarded by a shy robot with a Mockney accent, which when launched at a nearby fire somehow puts it out. The Wii Remote aiming is...satisfactory, at least; there's no lag between the motion of your wrist and the pointer on screen. Before I can pass through into the next room, I have to complete a minigame, similar to those 'roll the ball through the maze' games you find in lucky bags. Luckily, the Remote's motions are used to direct a pointer and freeze damaging barriers in place rather than actually steer the ball, which is the sort of thing that usually makes me vomit.
The perspective shifts at this point to the Doctor, who's managed to get aboard successfully even after the Tardis was knocked off into space, something which doesn't seem to concern him all that much as he wanders into a deserted cafeteria. After gathering crystals from another shy robot, and grumbling darkly upon realising that even the Doctor himself is expected to shoot things to progress, the first real enemy rolls onto the scene, a rogue Maintenance Droid, resembling a motorised lawnmower with an LCD face, which generates the funniest exchange so far:
The Doctor: "Ah, a handy Maintenance Droid! Just the sort of thing I need right now. I wonder if you could help me - "
Droid: "Die."
The Doctor: "...help me die. What?"
Droid: "You will die. You will die. You will die."
The Doctor: "Okay, I take it back, you're not handy at all."
LOL.
Extinguishing another fire, I run into the next room, and find myself locked in a kitchen with a fancy elevator system and another killer Droid, not to mention more fires and more crystals. I am already getting sick to death of these fucking crystals.
Just to keep things equal between the two leads, Matt Smith's character
model resembles a hybrid of Edward Scissorhands, Timothy Dalton and
Robert fucking Pattinson. At least he has a bow tie. Bow ties are cool.
Upon trying to use the elevator, I find that it's actually part of a network of floating platforms that can carry the Doc over the top of the room to an upper floor, where another robo-Pez-dispenser offers up green crystals, needed to unlock a door at ground level...but first, I need to put out another damn fire, to reach a dispenser of purple crystals, which are needed to power up one of the platforms and force it to move. It takes me five tries to get this part right, as trying to score a direct hit on the target point for the lift when it's on the other side of the room, and the platform I'm standing on is moving back and forth, is pretty damn hard. (before you ask, no, there's no snap-to-target aim assist for younger players/idiots/the lazy) Eventually, I do get my precious green gems...and then somehow miss the door's shootable target three times at point-blank range, meaning I have to avoid the Droid and get across the platforms again.
Or, alternatively, I could turn off the fucking game and play something better instead. I took the latter option.
Y'know, I've played plenty of bad games in my time, but the ones that really get on my nerves are the disappointing games. The ones where you know they could have been so much more than they are. Doctor Who, as a property, contains all the necessary ingredients to make a genuinely brilliant game; it's fast-paced, funny, dramatic, clever, has well-defined and likeable lead characters, and a legion of kick-ass villains to draw from. I'd spent many hours since the series returned to TV in 2005 wondering what a Who game would be like; a puzzling adventure with survival horror components, like Capcom's underappreciated Zack & Wiki crossed with a PG-friendly Resident Evil. It would be amazing. It still could be amazing. But, in this case, the BBC let the accountants rather than the experts make the key decisions, and we've wound up with a halfhearted 'kiddy' platformer with insultingly simple puzzles, made on the cheap by a no-name, no-talent studio, because actually putting some thought into this would be too hard or something.
Final Rating: 0/10. If you're a Who fan, it'll piss all over your memories of the show; if you're not, it's still terrible.
Sitting in a chair like that all day would be infinitely more fun than
playing Return to Earth. Hell, actually being turned into a Cyberman
would be a laugh riot by comparison.
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