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2005
was a strange year for THQ. Despite starting strongly with the likes
of Destroy
All Humans!, Juiced and Tak 2: The Staff Of Dreams,
recent months have seen the release of several mediocre THQ titles
such Bratz: Rock Angelz and the excruciatingly bad Spongebob
Squarepants: Lights, Camera, Pants! for the Game Boy Advance.
Although WWE
SmackDown! Vs. Raw 2006, Dawn Of War: Winter
Assault and Evil Dead: Regeneration have restored some of
THQ’s glory, most of their licensed games have left a lot to be
desired. The PlayStation2 version of The Incredibles: Rise of the
Underminer has been seen as a competent, although never
outstanding, Platform title, and having now been released for all
formats, with the home console versions likely to be very similar,
the technical restrictions of the Game Boy Advance and the unique
features of the NintendoDS mean that these adaptations could fall
into one of two categories; they are either great games built
specifically for the system, utilising its greatest strengths, or,
more likely, cheap and nasty cash-ins rushed to be completed for the
release of the PlayStation2 version. But before you write off the
NintendoDS release, it does feature Touch Screen support!
Oblivious
to the last few years of game development, The Incredibles: Rise
Of The Underminer plays like an old-school Platformer, in which
you play as both Mr Incredible and his buddy Frozone as they attempt
to thwart the obviously evil plans of The Underminer. You are given
a set amount of Lives to finish the game at the start and regardless
of the games’ Save feature, if you lose all of these, you will
have to start the game again. Usually when a game features a Save
feature, it means that the game will allow you start from that point
with a fresh quota of Lives after you die, whereas in The
Incredibles: Rise Of The Underminer, if you are dead, you are
dead and loading your most recent Save File means that you will
start at the last Checkpoint you passed, with the same tiny amount
of Health that you had just before you died. In some titles, such as
the NintendoDS’ feature Shoot-‘Em-Up Nanostray or the
original Super Mario Bros., this feature would be
invigorating – an influence spurring you on for progression but
not restricting you from the ideal that handheld gaming symbolises,
pick-up-and-play gaming with each and every of those few minutes you
have spare. A Save Game feature is almost essential in handheld
gaming, but when you consider the pitiful length of The
Incredibles: Rise Of The Underminer; ten short Levels and a very
poor end boss, and the standby feature of the NintendoDS, you wonder
why they bothered at all.
The
Incredibles: Rise Of The Underminer is reinforced with it’s
release on the NintendoDS by featuring Touch Screen support.
However, every action that can be performed with the Touch Screen -
jumping, Special Moves, attacks, even changing character - can be
performed using the Face Buttons and Shoulder
Triggers, and because of the awful calibration of the Touch Screen,
it’s almost impossible to use anyway. A prime example of this is
when you need to use Mr Incredible to lift heavy objects. To lift
these objects you are informed that you must either tap X repeatedly
or rub the Touch Screen upwards. If you attempt to rub the Touch
Screen upwards near one of these objects it is very unlikely you
will move the object, in-fact, what you will actually do is rub the
screen frantically for a while, then you will realise that it is
clearly not working so you will resort to hammering the X Button out
of desperation. But guess what? This will also not work, as the game
seems to lock itself in a loop as soon as you attempt the Touch
Screen method and only beating the X Button within an inch of it’s
life for upwards of thirty seconds will result in the movement of
the obstruction.
The
characters are responsive and aside from the awful Touch Screen
controls, the game is at least playable. But unfortunately there are
yet more problems; the game is incredibly linear, as you move
through the Levels you will notice they follow the same formula
almost exclusively - fight two or three enemies, then solve a very
easy puzzle that will typically involve freezing blocks with Frozone,
jumping on them in order to reach a ledge, changing to Mr Incredible
to pull a lever and fighting some more enemies. This combined with
the fact that the pseudo-3D Levels often obscure your view and allow
enemies to damage you without you even having a clue where the
attacks are coming from mean that this game is playable, but only in
the loosest sense.
The
Incredibles: Rise Of The Underminer seems less than fitting for
such a technically astute system as the NintendoDS. If the handheld
you held while playing this game was a Game Boy Advance, you would
be happy, but it simply isn’t; it is a NintendoDS and when you
consider that the likes of Nintendogs and Super Mario64 DS
are available, this game performs poorly on the graphics front. In
fact the shoddily drawn characters, especially Frozone, are barely
recognisable as the characters they are based on. There is also very
little variation in the enemy models and they are all the same
colour making the game feel bland and uninteresting, this effect is
amplified even further by the repetitive backgrounds and dull
colours. Apparently there are also sound effects and music, but they
are so boring and forgettable that the only purpose they serve is to
add another reason to avoid the title.
The
Incredibles: Rise Of The Underminer is somewhat similar to Viewtiful
Joe: Double Trouble, only the Viewtiful Joe series
represents not only great modern Platform titles, but also an
excellent showcase of third-party support for the NintendoDS. The
Incredibles: Rise Of The Underminer on the other hand, flies in
short of the NintendoDS’s Scooby-Doo! Unmasked; having no
redeeming features whatsoever. It is short, bland, buggy and
probably one of the worst examples of videogame production you are
ever likely to witness in your life.
 
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