A fun romp through the Ice Age universe for all ages.
I'm not a big fan of the Ice Age series, the humor falls flat for me, but then again it's obviously not made for adults either, so I can't gripe about that too much. Going into the review for this game, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, I wasn't exactly thrilled to say the least, but I came out of this pretty surprised to find a decent platforming experience that I think both adults and kids will enjoy, even if it's a tad easy and short.
The developers behind this title, Eurocom, are well known for making games based on film and TV licenses, they've been around since the NES days, so obviously they've done pretty well for themselves. That said, what I've played of their previous titles I found to be pretty middling in quality, but Ice Age manages to buck the mediocre trend they've developed over the years.
The storyline of the game holds pretty close to the film, introducing a few new characters to the cast, and it's filled with small cutscenes and voiceover bits to appeal to the younger crowd. The gameplay is mostly from a platforming angle, but there are quite a few variations tossed in, like a Monkey Ball style stage, a side scrolling ‘shump, and a few early Crash Bandicoot-ish chase sequences. They're not all fun to play, the chase bits in particular were more frustrating and cheap than entertaining, but certain areas are quite a bit of fun, like the 2D style platforming sections involving Scratch.
The controls are handled well, they're not too complicated for the younger age ranges the game is aimed at, but there's enough variety between the different sections to keep you entertained and coming back for more. In addition to the various levels, there are a lot of optional challenge stages attached, including some limited multiplayer modes. The challenges in particular were nice to see, mostly timed and score attacks, with a few that I couldn't even hit the achievements on in the short time that I played. I imagine they'll keep kids busy for a bit, so it's nice to see a licensed title pay a little attention to having some kind of replay value attached.
Visually, the game isn't quite as impressive as you might think, since I've seen better efforts for CGI based film licenses as of late, like with Disney's Up. The textures are flat and lacking much in the way of detail, and the individual characters suffer from the same lack of detail outside of the cutscene stuff. This stuff isn't a game killer for me, but it would have been nice to see something a little closer to the big-screen animation represented in the game.
The voice over work is well done, and while I'm not sure that it's everyone from the film reprising their role here, they're close enough that it's pretty hard to tell the difference. That said, only a few characters really get a lot of talk time in the game, mostly Sid and Buck are featured, but everyone gets a little bit of screen time at one point.
Sid and Buck also make up the majority of the gameplay, both of their sections are 3-D platformers, and while the ideals behind their levels are pretty similar, they have a few different attacks and mechanics between themselves. Sid's more of a scrapper, with swipes and a prolonged spinning attack to take on enemies, while Buck makes use of his vine whip to assault enemies and latch onto swinging points spread out amongst his stages. They both have a series of weapons available, most of which are upgradeable by collecting the various berries that act as this platformers coins, which can also be used to upgrade your available life. The weapons come into play as a quicker way of dispatching certain enemies for the most part, but a few are based on some really basic puzzle solving that's a bit sparse to be considered a major part of the game.
The level layouts are pretty varied from location to location, and the game is divided up into two sections based on the overworld ice that plagues the planet at the moment, and the hidden tropical paradise that the characters discover midpoint in both the game and the movie. There's a pretty decent variety of enemies as well, but the boss encounters, outside of the final fight, are pretty lame and uninspired.
All together, it's a really decent effort at making a fun kid's title that both parents and kids will enjoy, but it's not going to replace your favorite platformer anytime soon. Still, it's a better effort out of Eurocom than I've seen in the past, and I really hope they expand upon that for their next licensed title. If you're looking for a fun, family friendly title to pick up this summer that you can play with your kids, then you can't do better than Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. It's definitely enjoyable, just not as polished as a AAA title might be.
