A great cartoon and a great game?
If you have even turned over to Cartoon Network over the last month for even a minute, then you probably know all about Ben 10. With a live action movie set to air November 21st, the debut of the new season, and the hours of repeats of season two, Ben 10 is everywhere. It should come as no surprise to see that there was a video game for the scrappy young hero sitting amidst games for me to review. After all, the story is sound enough.
Ben 10 is about a young boy named Ben Tennyson, his cousin Gwen, and Grandpa Max at the beginning of their summer long camping trip. It gets into the meat of what the show is about when Ben is nearly hit by a space pod falling from the sky. Inside the pod is a watch called the Omnitrix. Ben, like any other curious child, investigates and the watch attaches itself to Ben. Much like the DC comic Dial H for Hero, with a turn of the dial head on the watch, Ben can transform into different alien species to combat evil. Oddly enough, the number of alien heroes he can transform into is ten. Thus instigating the shows lengthy subplots and usual villain of the week approach.
Ben 10: Protector of Earth picks up somewhere during the camping trip of the trio and has Ben losing many of the different transformation abilities to an unknown foe. Your quest to help Ben retrieve the power of the Omnitrix and restore himself to his hero status begins there. Along the way, you will encounter some villains from the show. The villains have, in sorts, combined to take over the Earth and destroy Ben in the process. Some of the villains you will face are Vilgax, Ghostfreak, Hex, and my personal favorite, Kevin 11, which is a basic combination of all of the heroes Ben can transform into. Having an assortment of villains to face off against is a great thing for a boy who can transform into ten heroes at any given time.
Unfortunately, this is my biggest problem with the game. The title on the box says Ben 10. The name of the show is Ben 10. Therefore, I don’t really understand why you can only transform into five of the ten. Yes, I understand that you have to find or unlock the heroes as you go, but still you should have been able to unlock all ten of the heroes eventually. To further increase my anger with this cut in half Ben, or Ben 5, is they claim that you can transform into the favorites of the show. While I’ll admit that maybe Fourarms, Heatblast, and XLR8 are among fans’ top choices for their favorite hero Ben to transform into, I need to know who decided that Cannonbolt and Wildvine were on that same list. Where’s Upgrade, Diamondhead, Wildmutt, Ripjaws, Grey Matter, heck even Stinkfly? I mean, to some Diamondhead is the most popular character next to Heatblast. Even though I have nothing against Wildvine or Cannonbolt, these forms of Ben were not introduced until later in the series and are considered more like additional transformations than reliable alien forms.
Being a purist aside, I still can’t get over the fact it is Ben 5 and not Ben 10, the transformations do work well. In the show, there is a time limit that Ben can be in these transformed states. It is the same here. However, it feels different for each character, mainlybecause using the abilities of the hero drains the time you can be them immensely. Unlike the show, the Omnitrix recharges at an accelerated rate. This was extremely helpful considering that if you are in the middle of a fight with nearly any group of villains, Ben has maybe two hits before it is game over. Moreover, it was very easy to judge which alien you were changing into by the picture on the dial on your display. If you made a mistake, you could switch back to Ben and wait a few seconds before changing into the desired hero. With the 14 levels you move through, it comes in handy to have them at your disposal as you retrieve them. However, there were several instances where you specifically needed someone more than the other. While this is nothing new to video games, it seemed extremely forced. For example, later in the game when you obtain Wildvine, you will have to use his “swinging” action to make it through certain areas. Since Heatblast is a flyer, this shouldn’t have been a specific thing to do, since Ben would have obviously used Heatblast to navigate instead of relying on Wildvine’s swinging ability.
This is also where some faults of the controls come into play. Conventional games of the past that use the swinging mechanic relied on the player pressing an additional button after they jumped to latch onto the grapple point. Here, not so much. You will have to rely on your instincts and hopes that Wildvine will latch on and swing himself, because there is no additional control to ensure your success. Unfortunately, the problems don’t stop there.
While small in comparison, the combat system claims to have several combos for you to learn and develop your heroes with, but quickly you discover there is no point in learning the combos as you will rely on your fastest thumb to defeat enemies more often than not. Ben 10: Protector of Earth does try to liven up the combat system with context sensitive events, akin to God of War when facing bosses. Unfortunately, this once exemplary combat system has become stale and uneventful over time. The two-player co-op doesn’t really bring anything revolutionary to the table either. It is just you and a friend battling it out the same way you would do it by yourself. Unless you have a friend dying to play it alongside you, just might just want to play it through on your own.
The in-game graphics were really nice as far as the character models go. Nothing completely over the top and they fit the show rather nicely. Having said that, the cutscenes really hinder the visual of the game, it’s almost like cel-shading but not quite as captivating. The character visuals will make you wish they had used footage from the show to fill in those cutscene gaps, whether it had anything to do with the plot of the game or not. The backgrounds are matted and bland for the most part, but they do their job for providing the backdrop rather well. Even the rain effects in one of the stages is handled nicely.
The voice acting here is probably the major star of the game. With the cast from the show providing the voices, it is easy at times to forget you are playing a game. While the voice acting is good, including the little quips by Ben and the rest, sometimes they do get repetitive and could potentially cause you to turn the volume down. The score for the game resembles that of the show almost to a T so there are really no complaints in that area either.
Simply put, Ben 10: Protector of Earth may not be the shining example of what we would like to see from a Ben 10 game, but I can see where they would have liked to go. It is because of that imagining that I can say this is a valid attempt. If you are a younger viewer of Ben 10, then this could please you for a few hours. On the other side of that, if you are viewing it from an older perspective, you might want to pass this one up and hope they deliver another installment that will allow you to become any and all of the variations of Ben Tennyson and his Omnitrix.
Features:
RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 2.9 Graphics
The cutscenes hurt this game more than help. The darkened lines and over the top rounding of the characters stick out more than the in game graphics that are decent. 2.8 Control
Simplistic by nature, but still occasionally falls short on precision. 2.7 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
The music get extremely repetitive, but having the shows voice cast helps tremendously. 2.7 Play Value
Nothing to really write home about with the pseudo 2D side scrolling and weak combat system. 2.8 Overall Rating – Average
Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.