This cat has no lives.
It's funny how things attract to you. For some reason I tend to get a hold of really bad games. Or is it that I actually am meant to receive them? Providence? All I know is that the more I see it, the more it makes me laugh. EA have done it, yet again, and brought out a totally inept, shocking, and yet at the same time hardly surprising, computer game. Catwoman the game is about as good as the film, if not worse. This means, incase you are still not with me, that this game is one bad damn creation.
Here we have a classic case of the old formula - bad movie = worse computer game. But here the game is so bad it takes my memory sweeping back to the days of... The Mummy Returns! Charlie's Angels!
Catwoman is a third person action game. You play as the cat herself and get a whip. The Halle Berry factor is the "only" reason to consider picking this crap up. If you really like her then go see the weak movie. If you totally worship her, fetishistic-style, then maybe buying this game is worth it. This is simply due to the fact the main effort here it seems was put into modeling her body, and particularly her rear department.
This effort ended at this point. I guess EA went to the developers who created such evil pieces of gaming dung such as The Crow from the 1990's and asked them to do it again - make a lacking, flimsy, excuse for a game and get it made fast, ready for the movie release. So, those developers done it for EA again and made this infidellic mash, whilst likely doing pot and seeing the green triangles.
Where to start with this game... if it wasn't for the total lack of a challenge and absolutely terrible, totally linear, map design I might have given it more than 15 minutes of my time. But unfortunately the bugged, and wholly frustrating, camera system added to me grief, as did the lack of acceptable enemy A.I, and the boring locations. The game starts with a brief FMV sequence which explains the story to Catwoman and tries to make the implausible plausible. This sequence is probably as good as the film, it's the best bit of the game that's for sure.
You will find yourself sneaking around dark backstreets in this game within linear maps with no exploration factor. The third-person view is cursed by an example of a poor camera angle system. This is yet another game that fails to let you control the camera Splinter Cell style and this is totally stupid since the actual automatic camera system is so bugged you often can't see what your doing. It will spin around on a vertical pan and then stop, zoom in, and halt behind a corner of a wall your 're behind.
You will get to use a whip to hurl at parts of the terrain in order to swing around. This is one good factor and it can prove quite fun using it to glide around. But even this is hardly sound for the game requires you to negotiate some tough jumps. If you fall from a jump and die, you start again! After moving around a linear map for 10 minutes and then falling from a small jump from a box onto the floor and starting again you soon give up with this title.
The enemies you will encounter come straight from the selection of stock "streets of rage" punks, thugs, and random fat bosses. Why Catwoman is taking these guys on is not something you need worry about, or question! It is hardly clear, maybe the movie ties it all in? But you can't actually fight them freely. Instead you use the analogue stick of whatever of the consoles you play it on and the direction determines the move - kick, throw etc. The moves look impressive but the system is downright naff.
Not that the punks straight out of EA's designer bad guy catalogue need fancy moves to flaw them. The A.I is bordering on being taken away in a white van. These guys are dumb. They seem to be on some form of highly inducing drug. Even the bosses seem stoned, either just standing around doing nothing or running into you... and doing nothing.
But the stoned punks (the developers I mean this time) have one other card to stun gamer with. In Catwoman you can't kill the bad guys. Instead "EVERY" time one of them is stunned enough to not get back up you see a cut-scene of them scratching their head and either running away or somehow seeing the error of their ways and fading into non-existence. If you hurl one off a building they get back up, every time. If you beat one to a pulp (and you are dressed as a Dominatrix after all) they just recover.
The animation is fluid but this really is no big deal in the modern day scene. We want gameplay! (EA take note). There is a system in the game called Cat-Sense. Here you can go into a first-person view and paw icons or prints mark clues around the view you have within the map. These are meant to act as guidelines to what it is your meant to be doing. Personally I didn't need some eccentric system to tell me that I needed to "go to that door and open it", "swing from that obviously blatant pole", "push that big RED button" or just proceed down a linear and simple path!
The Cat-Sense feature seems to me like some pointless display in the games own simplicity. The developers have basically said to the gamer "hey look at how simple and basic this map is... see my linear creation in all it's clarity".
You collect "Bling" items whilst moving around Sonic style (rings). Why is another question, maybe to convince you there's a point to it all. Bling is a funny name to use too, word up da hommies' gonna get dem jewels yo!
This game is trash. It's total trash. The graphics are purely average, the sound is very poor with hideous music and a small amount of sound effects. The only reason I can see to why this might be worth buying is because you want to look at a digital Halle Berry's behind. Word of advice... subscription sites are a better deal than dishing out the cream for this cat.
SUMMARY
+ Ass'tastic
- Linear
- Buggy camera
- Boring gameplay
- Weak combat
- (Crap)
1.9/10
I'm a dog man
I'm a dog man
By Joey T 2004
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