Penguins of Madagascar (Wii U) Review

There is a common belief that all movie game tie-ins are generally unpleasant. Usually they are rushed to meet a deadline and are typically pretty derivative without much originality or thought put into the design. Not all movie tie-ins have to be awful - every once in a while there are some real surprises that are great for children. Pretty much every LEGO game is an okay game amongst children and offers countless hours of enjoyment. The Cars 2 and Toy Story 3 games are other examples of surprising high quality tie-in games. Sure, it is easy to just squeeze out a haphazardly made product and quickly get it on shelves for the unsuspecting public, but this kind of short-term thinking will only hurt in the long term and ultimately damage the branding and future of potential tie-ins. The fact that there are examples of successful quality movie games for children means it is a viable option. Why does Penguins of Madagascar have to be so awful? It has a perfectly fine videogame premise of spy penguins, which naturally leads itself to a stealth game. The cheap finish this game emanates upon booting it up, though, makes it very clear that Penguins of Madagascar clearly had no intention of being an enjoyable game.

First thing noticeable is that there are no options, just a prompt to start. The second thing is that the game has zero voice acting - none at all. While this should have been apparent from the fact the game download was only a tiny bit over 500MB, it is just very shocking that a game made for small children would expect them to read all the text, which is also delivered in an ugly font. Why this game isn't voiced is truly mind blowing, especially since the goofy antics and line delivery of the penguins is a main draw. This is alike an amateur move that would be expected in the early days of PlayStation games from the 90s, but in 2014 with the latest advancements in storage media and hardware it seems like a huge embarrassment to release a 500MB game on a Blu-ray format system. One silver lining gleaned from this is that it makes for a very fast download should users choose to go the digital distribution route - but why would they? After about 20 minutes, most will want a refund for Penguins of Madagascar, and the current model with digital distribution denies all consumers the right to a refund or the opportunity to trade-in a game.

The nicest thing that can be said about Penguins of Madagascar is that it is nowhere near as much of a catastrophe as the recent Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric. No, credit must be given where it is due, and Penguins of Madagascar manages to not be the mayor of glitch-town. Thankfully, it is a game that seems like it was at least play tested.

While it may not show up to little Johnny's birthday totally drunk with snot and vomit running down its face, though, it does act like a cold and heartless curmudgeon who refuses to have any fun at all. The gameplay is vaguely like Lost Vikings, where each penguin has a designated special ability and the player can switch between them on the fly. Each ability will be used to continue through levels and comes with a kind of mindless mini-game that is basically Simon Says. Collect cheese doodle snacks, all the while evading security cameras and the gaze of octopi who patrol the areas. The octopi have the absolute worst reaction time and give up pursuit after what seems like maybe two or three steps. Truly, these are riveting and exciting chase sequences that Hideo Kojima himself would feel the need to pay homage to in his next Metal Gear game…

Although this could have been an amusing game for youngsters, the whole execution is just the most banal and pedestrian it could be. The level design is tedious and so boring, compounded by some really stiff and unresponsive delayed controls. Exploring is pointless and an agonising affair where all trails lead to more cheese doodles. Penguins of Madagascar is great way to put any obnoxious hell child to sleep effectively. This is a game that would probably turn little ones off from games for a long time, if not forever, due to how excruciatingly dull and tedious everything is. Level assets are as Spartan as it gets; everything looks and feels cheap, too. One aspect that is worthy of mention, however, is that the character models of the penguins and enemies look fine and have some decent animation to them. While Dreamworks might have cared that their characters were properly presented, it feels like it also had a joyless old man design the game.