Review of DESPICABLE ME
By X-34 minus 5R1-6X36
In The New York Times last week, a reviewer noted that Zach Galifianakis is on the verge of either major stardom, or of overexposure. I found this to be apt. And I think this assessment may apply equally to Steve Carell, who, like Galifianakis, is a funny and talented guy who may be spreading himself a little thin lately. His live-action film Dinner for Schmucks opened within a week or so of the feature-length animated film Despicable Me, on which this PSP title is based. And, of course, since the big money these days is in the ancillary properties – not so much the movie proper – Carell’s contract surely provided a handsome sum for him to provides the voice of Gru, the main character in the film, in this game and, surely, other ancillaries. Spinoffs, anyone?
And Carell is a funny dude, no doubt. His wisecracks are among the highlights of this game, which falls somewhere between “pretty good” and “you know, for kids.” Should you, as the gameplayer, steer Gru toward a fiery – or watery, or spiky, or whatever, as the case may be – death (well, failure is more like it – this game is for kids, you know), the game responds with one of a series of Carellian insults (“There is a tutorial, you know!”), which more than once made me chuckle. I found the game to be pretty solid, but found myself almost wanting to kill Gru because I looked forward to Carell’s witticisms.
Witticisms do not a game make, however, and, while the game is pretty diverting – I plan on finishing it – it suffers from a few drawbacks. For one thing, the controls are rather counterintuitive. Switching weapons is pretty cumbersome, but not as tediously button-intensive as deploying the “Minion” characters (about whom more in a moment), which is itself not as annoyingly difficult as aiming the gun, a skill essential to certain tasks. I just never got into a rhythm of actually operating this game. I also found the “flying” mode – in which Gru pilots a little pointy spaceship/jet thingy (perhaps this is in the film, which I have been meaning to see). There, the controls are simply inadequate: the little slidey textured button on the PSP does not offer particularly supple control over this craft.
The game is sometimes quite easy (the “you know, for kids” mode) and sometimes surprisingly challenging (the “pretty good” mode) – it seems to me that the designers didn’t quite know which segment of the market to target. Or perhaps they were aiming to have this game cross over market segments – surely that was the intent with the film: Carell for the grown-ups, animation and the little Minions for the kiddies. Anyway, the platformer-type action that makes up the bulk of the game’s action is usually fairly straightforward: dodging flying obstacles, jumping at the right moment, and so forth. The tasks are of varying difficulties, but you can master every one of them if you get the timing just right.
Some of the puzzles, though, really caught me off-guard by their complexity. The puzzle portions of the game are the parts in which you deploy the Minions: the cute little yellow dudes in overalls that are the focus of the film’s ad campaign. When you require them, you can summon the Minions from offscreen (via a sort of cannon, manned by yet another Minion), and stack them into various arrangements, each of which possesses certain specific qualities: the Minion stack can be used as a bridge; the Minion “wheel” can be spun for use as a fan, and so forth. Between the permutations of Minion arrangements, the various ways in which you can control or alter them with your various pieces of weaponry, and the often-clever arrangements of movable gates, doors, and the like, many of the puzzles really do require some forethought and repeated attempts. It surprises me to do so, but I will recommend this game to you if you like a good brainteaser – if you don’t mind the other, less challenging, bits of the game.
