It’s such a pity that this unabashed cash-in on the cinematic release is as bad as Megamind is blue, because Dreamworks really had a solid opportunity to turn the tide on the history of dismal movie-tie-in games. When I first learned of Megamind: Ultimate Showdown I anticipated something that could easily become a hit if done properly. To my disappointment what actually ended up on the shelves was a wretched pile of many things putrid and I still believe that things could have been different (and far better for Megamind fans) if the developers had perhaps followed a direction I was hoping they would go - but more on that later.

Megamind is an extreme grind

I am going to assume that you know a little bit about Megamind the movie and all its creative personalities and subtle wit. If you don’t know the story it’s not going to have any bearing on the game anyway so don’t worry, but here’s a quick update: Megamind is a blue brainy alien antihero with a destructive intellect. For his 2-I-C he has a robotic-suit-clad talking piranha aptly named Minion. Since Megamind lacks any discernible super powers apart from his potent mental prowess, he uses his intellectual aptitude to create inventions to compensate for his superhero shortcomings: if he can’t fly he’ll build an army of miniature flying robots that can carry him. For acts of might he has a giant power suit. To help get him through the daily grind of being the bad guy he has an invisible car (and for Megamind being a bad guy actually can be a real grind).

The bad guy thing was something Megamind just fell onto as a kid and he’s been stuck in that pigeon hole ever since. His awkward nature and clumsy antics often land him in even worse predicaments than he deserves and for all of Megamind’s intelligence he lacks wisdom in equal doses. Such is the formula for an outplay of hilarious circumstances as Megamind’s fumbling character interacts with the people of Metro City in his narrow-minded focus to live up to being the best Criminally Gifted guy he can be, even if he never really wanted to be the bad guy in the first place. That’s the long and the short of it and you now have a better idea why a Megamind game has (or rather, had) potential.

Rarely have I encountered a game that is so horrendously repetitive and uncreative that I find myself hating the developers for wasting the world’s time. Despite my sincere efforts to salvage something endearing to say about Megamind: Ultimate Showdown there really is nothing I can muster. Only misery, repetitive platforming, and an occasional brain bleed awaits you if you choose to play this. Megamind is just simply the worst game I’ve played this year and even though there are eleven months still to go I don’t think it’s going to be pipped at the post for this dishonour.

As far as concept goes, there is simply no limit to what Megamind can build to achieve his dastardly objectives and herein lies the promise for some hilarious and wild inventions. Combine this insidious inventiveness with Megamind’s eccentric persona and you have the formula for great comedy and whacky adventures. At least, that’s what you get in the movie - the game release lacks all of this and instead provides you with a blandly repetitive shoot-em-up platformer with absolutely no quirky inventions or dialogue.

With support for Drop-in, Drop-out, I vote for Drop-out

Simply put, Megamind: Ultimate Showdown is a platformer with not very many puzzles, not very many bad guys, and not very much in the form of challenges. There are ten levels in the game and each level takes around ten minutes to complete. That means roughly two hours of total gameplay! There are some unlockable mini-games along the way but they’re not worth the time to play. I can’t even say the drop-in drop-out co-op revives the monotony. The second player is simply nothing more than an afterthought. First off you don’t even get to play Minion (which you’d expect to) but instead an anonymous tiny Brainbot that can only shoot and collect BINKEY (the in-game currency).

The co-op is so dismal that the camera doesn’t follow or even wait for the second player, so even when two people are playing Megamind can run through the entire level without involving player 2 at all! Maybe on paper it was a great idea for a kid’s game: the little one plays the drone and the apt gamer carries the kid through the story and infuriatingly difficult crate hops by playing Megamind, but it doesn’t execute at all well and player 2 simply doesn’t feature. In fact, the value of a second player is so negligible that even in the majority of mini-games player 2 can’t do anything besides shoot, and when there’s nothing in some levels to shoot, well…

What is this vile villainy?

There are three minor villains (bosses), each in charge of their own three levels of the game themed to their villainy. At the end of each section you will fight that section’s boss and after you complete all nine levels you will go straight on to “fight” the major villain (“superboss”). Megamind can never actually die so the boss battles are no challenge at all. In fact you can’t even call them battles at all because they’re actually time trials (you don’t even shoot the bosses, you just avoid their attacks for long enough to interact with an environment item to deal damage: three rounds of this and you win), so the battles are all based on timers, and since you can’t die, well…

Repetitive repetition reportedly repeats itself in every facet

It would be misleading to suggest there’s absolutely no-one to fight in the game because each minor villain’s section has a handful of goons of one of two types (which brings a total of six different goon types that you fight in the game). Each villain’s pair of goons consists of one long-range goon and a melee goon and they’re functionally the same goons redressed for each villain. Sound-wise there’s probably a total of ten canned comments that get dished around repeatedly and none enhance the game experience or are even remotely funny. Minion pops up around every thirty seconds to state the obvious (“don’t fall,” “here come more goons,” “the city’s on fire,” and so on) and the frequency and unhelpfulness of the comments makes Minion become annoying VERY quickly.

One thing Megamind the movie teaches us is that to be a successful villain you have to consciously be bad. To its credit, this game does a great job of capturing what it means to be bad, although I’m not quite sure it’s done in the way the developers had intended. I’d suggest if you want to try out what it feels like to be a villain then give someone this game as a gift, but no-one else besides Dreamworks and THQ Australia can come close to being the real villain in this story. Megamind was obviously rushed to market to capitalise on the timing of the movie release. The mini-games slightly showcase what COULD have been done in the main game and, perhaps if they had decided to include the mini-games and powersuit challenges into the mainstream story, it could have helped to break the monotony a bit, but even a brief respite from the repetitive gameplay wouldn’t have improved things much.

Knowing how bad this game is in its current form I stand by my initial wish that Megamind: Ultimate Showdown had been developed in the same vein as a LucasArts adventure with plenty of humourous dialogue and a larger canvas for Megamind’s bumbling social ineptitudes. In my opinion Megamind suits the Guybrush Threepwood role a lot better than he does action hero.

Megamind: Ultimate Let Down

I’m really disappointed but at the same time grateful that Megamind: Ultimate Showdown only wasted two hours of my life. I’m aware this is a kids’ game but even so it’s far too simplistic for the older kids and far too challenging for younger ones (I don’t see kids who are young enough to overlook the repetitive nature of the game being able to successfully navigate the jumping puzzles). Please don’t waste your time or money on this: if you want something to entertain your kids, hire the DVD or Blu-Ray because it will last as long as the game and be far more worthwhile.

The Good: I have to give this one star so it goes to the power suit mini-game.
The Bad: Co-op; rehashed goons; lame boss “battles”; not the right platform for a movie tie-in.

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