Wall-E

A foul wind, heavy with the fetid stench of a trillion tons of human refuse, blows across a desolate cityscape. Eternity stares into your cold, robotic eyes, as a never-ending obstacle course stretches out before your dirt-stained, rusted treads. And it only gets worse from there.

As the adorable Pixar robot Wall-E, you must navigate jumping puzzles until madness takes you, flip around like a trash-compacting Tony Hawk, shoot enemy robots, and when in doubt, throw a box at something. Whether you use WASD or a gamepad, moving Wall-E is a constant struggle against clumsy controls and a rebellious camera. One wrong step or bad camera angle will send Wall-E careening to his doom. Since the game uses infrequent checkpoint saves, long, difficult sequences destroy your morale as you are forced to play them again and again. Hotseat multiplayer modes let you and your friends play inane minigames, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Wall-E’s passable graphics don’t begin to make up for its other flaws, like a musical score that relentlessly repeats the same two tracks. You might have played some bad games before, but few are frustrating enough to create the soul-crushing hate that boils from within those unfortunate enough to have experienced Wall-E. If this review reaches you too late to prevent your purchase of this wretched alleged game, you’re probably groping around for a suicide button about now. Wall-E may be rated E for Everyone, but no one should be forced to play it.

PC Gamer scores games on a percentage scale, which is rounded to the closest whole number to determine the GamesRadar score.

PCG Final Verdict: 22% (don’t bother)

Aug 27, 2008