PixlBit

          

      All week I was playing such serious stuff like Etrian Odyssey IV on 3DS and Mass Effect on Xbox 360, but for Monday, it was all cheap old easy games.

               

     I got Full Auto and X-Men: The Official Game and put them in my stack of Monday games. Then I got back to playing Open Season from last week.

              

      This game is surprisingly good. It's really easy but well designed by Ubisoft Montreal, the studio that does lots of serious games like Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell, Far Cry and Prince of Persia. It was so fun to play, that my friend next to me had me run out and get a copy for him too and we both played it in tandem to completion.

     The graphics are good with lots of greens and browns. It's a little cartoony, but still very attractive depicting forests in a mountainous region and hunter's camp sites. It made me think of the camp I went to as a teenager in New Hampshire's White Mountains way back when.

     The gameplay is varied and interesting. You move around in a linear way and have to scare, throw or assault with different animals the hunters camping in the park. There are also some minor platforming to do, first person shooting segments that reminded me of Rayman Raving Rabbids, one foot race, and segments where you have to navigate down a fast moving river and a snowy slope. There are also some minigames you can play, but they are not fun unless you play with real people. The AI made fast work of me on most of them. Then there are the collectibles that appear as badges throughout the game. Some of them you have to sniff out as they are concealed. Mostly though they are easy to find and didn't take me long to get them all.

     The voicework uses most of the voices from the movie and is excellent all around. Every character is very funny. The story is simple. You are a bear named Boog and a deer named Elliot who, quite by accident, gather a crew of animals to combat the hunters entering the park at the beginning of hunting season. You make friends with Squirels, Skunks, Beavers and Ducks and then clear the park of hunters, culminating in the final confrontation with the ultimate hunter, Shaw.

              

     I got through the main story in about six hours and then put in another three trying to get all the collectibles and perfect each level for all the achievement points. I came up just short of a full 1000 because there are two tricky levels: one where you roll like a ball down a snowy slope and have to do some platforming along the way, and another where you have to navigate fast moving rapids and hit jumps, catch fish and avoid rocks all at the same time. They are both really hard to get a perfect score on. The collectibles achievements weren't as difficult, but I did have to thoroughly comb a few levels using my sniffer to reveal the last few badges. After 9 hours total, I felt thoroughly satisfied despite not getting the last three achievements.

    And that took up all of my time on Easy Game Monday. I did start Eragon, but only got a few levels in before time ran out. I'll get back to that next week.