astro boy |

Publisher: D3

Developer: High Voltage

Release Date: 10/20/2009

Available On

You all know Astro Boy, right? Well, probably not, since he is a lesser-known comic superhero. A boy is caught in a scientific experiment. This game is based on a 3D movie that will come out soon. The best Astro Boy game is by far Omega Factor on the GBA, and I have to say, from looking at the screenshots for this game, I thought it would be much like that aforementioned, but it’s just another movie tie-in cash cow.

Everything starts off great with Toby flying through the air using his laser, guns, and various other weapons. Killing enemies gives you orange orbs that charge your special meter, and these can be stacked up to ten. Using the latter moves using one of those bars, even healing. That sounds great and all, but the game relies on this way too much, and you deplete your special bars way too fast. Most of the enemies are hard to kill, even from the start, so what do you do? Use your laser or punch them. The problem with punching is that it’s slow and unresponsive since you can’t punch while moving. Once you hit the button, Toby stops dead, and you have to wait for the whole animation to play out. Not a very good thing in a fast-paced game at all. If you think that breaks the game, the jumping is even worse. Using a double jump makes Toby fly in one direction instead of just double jumping. Single-jumping is slow and pathetic, like you’re on the moon or something. This makes instadeaths constant and very frustrating.

While the story has potential and the game looks and sounds good, the game is killed by the terrible controls and badly thought-out design. You can upgrade your powers, but you probably won’t get far enough to do that before hurling the game out the window. Astro Boy is supposed to be fast-paced and fun, but all we get is a sluggish, hard, unresponsive borefest. Think of a delicious-looking piece of candy. It looks yummy, has a great color, and shines on it, and when you bite down, it tastes like vomit. That’s Astro Boy in a nutshell. If you really liked the movie, just go play Omega Factor on GBA or even the other mediocre Astro Boy that came out a few years ago on the PS2.