Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots

I must admit that I do love me some Nickelodeon cartoons. I find myself enjoying Spongebob, Fairly Odd Parents, Jimmy Neutron and other cartoons currently served up by the TV network. Maybe you can blame this on the silly humor of the shows that can be enjoyed by adults and kids, or that my son loves the shows. Regardless the shows are entertaining and I was interested in finding out if the latest Nicktoons' game could be as entertaining as the shows. While the same wit and humor of the characters are in the game, the gameplay falls short of creating a must-have title for fans of the shows.

You control a variety of Nick characters which have joined forces to stop the evil Professor Calamitous and his gang of Toybots. You start off as Spongebob Squarepants and soon start to meet other characters from various shows, past and present, that aired on Nickelodeon. Once you meet up with a character that character becomes available for you to use during the game.  The game even includes secret areas you can only unlock as you play the game with specific characters which does add a little to replay value of the game.

The gameplay can best be described as a side-scrolling action-platform title. You have a small assortment of attacks and moves you can unleash during the game, all of which are unique to the specific character you’re controlling. You have a melee attack, a ranged attack, a roll move and a duck/grip move to use during the game. Now the controls are not tailored to the motion-sensing capabilities of the Wii. Instead the game is controlled as if you used a regular controller. The control stick on the nunchuk moves your characters while the directional pad on the Wiimote is used for the primary melee attacks. You have no wiggle or swing moves to make with the controller in this game, which might have helped in forgiving the lack of gameplay.

The biggest issue I had with the gameplay is the inconsistency throughout each level. One minute I was crushing toy bears with ease but a second later I was getting mopped up by additional bears. Anytime I was hit I was sent flying through the air and half the time that resulted in falling off of the stage. After making several successful jumps to keep progressing in the game, I came across jumps that I would consider way too difficult for a kids' game. If the jump wasn’t timed just perfectly I would end up falling to the floor or hitting a spike on the stage, causing me to try the jump again. While the controls themselves were very response the game would always seem to try and screw with you by kicking you off the stage or killing your character repeatedly because you couldn’t hit a jump just right.

There are a couple saving graces for Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots, which are the options you get for this type of game. The game includes a two-player co-op mode that lets you and a friend play through three different levels in the game. Two of the levels are platforming levels while one is a Mech-Suit level (where your characters are equipped with a powerful robot-like suit). The other nice feature of the game is the number of Nickelodeon characters you can find in the game. Spongebob, Danny Phantom, Jimmy Neutron, Tak, Timmy Turner and many others can be found in the game. I must say that anytime Ren & Stimpy are even hinted at in a game I must give my approval. I just wouldn’t call Ren & Stimpy a kids' show.

In the end Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots is simply a game that tries to do enough right but has just enough issues to keep it from being a good-to-great game. If you are a crazed fan of the shows on Nick then you probably won’t mind the gameplay inconsistency. However, if you are just looking around for a game to get for your Wii, I’m not sure if this game would be the ideal choice. Besides the gameplay issues the controls are not optimized for the Wii. I know not every Wii game will make use of the motion-sensing features built into the controls but sometimes the “gimmick” of the swing and moving around does enhance the gameplay.

Gameplay: 5.7
The lack of the using the motion-sensing controls really hurts this game. If we could just swing or wiggle the controllers it would have made the rest more enjoyable. I know that seems strange but for a Wii game it really should be considered.

Graphics: 6.1
If you squint hard enough you can probably make out all of the detail in the characters since the camera is panned far away from the action. During the cut scenes some of the characters look spot on, such as Tak, while others just look strange. I never expected Jimmy Neutron to look this bad in a game, especially since he is a computer-generated character instead of a 2D cartoon.

Sound: 6.8
All of voice actors from the cartoons must have done the voiceovers because all of the characters sound exactly the same as in the shows. The rest of the music and sound effects in the game are virtually non-existent or get drowned out by the voiceovers.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
The game is rather easy but getting used to the inconsistent nature of the gameplay can make it harder.

Multiplayer: 5.8
The game does include a Multiplayer option, which is always a welcomed feature. The biggest problem with this mode is that you can only play select levels with two players. The entire single-player game lets you change characters at one time yet you can’t play the single-player game by co-op. Oh, there is no online option either.

Concept: 5.0
Where is my waving-my-hands-like-a-maniac motion-sensing controls? The game itself is the typical platformer we would expect from a kids' title.

Overall: 5.8
Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots might not be the highest-ranked game available but that shouldn’t deter fans of the shows. Sometimes we don’t need to read or hear the words of others to know that we can still enjoy something while others just don’t get it.