Disney's Chicken Little: Ace in Action
Posted January 19, 2007
If imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery, Disney’s Buena Vista Games has just played a huge compliment to the people behind the highly successful Ratchet and Clank series. The company’s Chicken Little: Ace in Action could easily be mistaken for a simplified version of Ratchet and Clank, albeit with different characters. The game does succeed on several levels, though it is a relatively short experience and most gamers could see everything it has to offer in 10-12 hours. The game will likely have the most appeal to those who are big fans of either the Chicken Little movie or Ratchet and Clank games.
Gameplay:
Ace in Action is a 3-D platformer in which you pretty much want to shoot and smash everything in sight. As items are destroyed, they yield small golden pieces of currency that can be used to purchase upgrades to the characters’ health capacity and primary weapons, as well as entirely new secondary weapons. The majority of levels involve running around on foot, but a fair number consist of flying a hovercraft or driving a tank. When on foot, you will occasionally encounter doors that must be unlocked via a small mini-game. You will usually shoot enemies from afar, but when they get up close, you might take them out by swinging your gun as though it were, say, a giant wrench.
Despite overwhelming similarities to Ratchet and Clank, Ace in Action lacks the variety found in the games it so openly imitates. Only Ace’s main blaster can be powered up and he wields a mere 4 additional weapons, none of which really capture the cartoonish, overblown fun of many of the guns in Ratchet and Clank. The vast majority of the game is also below average in terms of difficulty. It is probably safe to assume that Disney was hoping to appeal to the target demographic of the Chicken Little movie.
While it fails miserably at originality, Ace in Action does provide an overall enjoyable gaming experience. In copying a proven formula, it fares better than would usually be expected for a game based on a Disney animated movie. Adam West voices the titular character and does an excellent job at keeping things somewhat amusing. As stated before, the game is relatively short, but that does help to keep things from getting too repetitive.
Ace in Action makes effective use of the Wii’s unique controls. Aiming is accomplished by pointing the Wii Remote at the screen. For levels on foot or in a tank, the Nunchuk’s stick controls forward/backward and side-to-side movement, while turning is achieved by pointing the Wii Remote to the side of the screen. This will likely become a fairly standard control scheme on the Wii and the game utilizes it well. Even more interesting, though, are the levels that take place in a hovercraft. While horizontal movements are achieved through the previously described scheme, vertical movement is controlled by tilting the Nunchuk forward and back. This is implemented very well and helps those parts of the game to feel a little fresher.
There are several sections of the game that do not utilize the motion sensing capabilities of the Wii’s controllers at all. Among these are several brief areas consisting of using the Nunchuk’s stick to aim a machine gun at incoming ships. For those that have grown used to an inverted y-axis, these parts of the game can be immensely frustrating, as there is no option to invert the control. It is annoying to the point that it is entirely feasible that some gamers would stop playing the game over it. There is really no excuse for such a simple oversight. That said, as terrible as those sections can be to play, they are mercifully brief and sparse.
The main story of Ace in Action is limited to 1 player, but the game does offer multi-player battle modes that allow 2 people to face off head-to-head in tanks or hovercrafts. These pretty much boil down to maneuvering around very small playing areas and trying to blow each other up. The simplicity of the multi-player would be a turn-off for many gamers, but kids might be a bit more likely to enjoy it. The first 2 multi-player boards are available at the start of the game, but the other 4 must be purchased with points earned in story mode.
Graphics:
At this point, one would expect just about any new game to support a widescreen display. For some baffling reason, Ace in Action does not. On top of that, the game’s graphics could have easily been done on any of the consoles from the last generation. While it doesn’t possess the raw processing power of its peers, the Wii certainly should be able to look better than games that came out 3 or 4 years ago.
While not technically impressive, Ace in Action’s graphics are enough to get the job done. In addition to playing a lot like the Ratchet and Clank series, Ace in Action also looks quite a bit like one of those games. Again, while this is horrible for originality, if they felt compelled copy a game, at least it was one that was well done.
Audio:
The music and special effects to Ace in Action are not really memorable, but they’re not annoying either. For the most part, it is a very average audio presentation. The one area that the game’s audio really shines is in the dialog. As previously mentioned, Adam West is great as the main character. The rest of the voice acting seems to be either cribbed from the movie or done by sound-a-likes that actually do a good job of recreating the character’s voices.
Overall:
If there was a group of people wondering how Ratchet and Clank would play with a Wii control scheme, their question has been answered. For Wii owners who enjoy 3-D action platformers, Chicken Little: Ace in Action is probably worth checking out as a rental. While it provides some fun, its unoriginality, length and relatively low replay value make it a bad title to purchase without playing first.
Gameplay:
Ace in Action is a 3-D platformer in which you pretty much want to shoot and smash everything in sight. As items are destroyed, they yield small golden pieces of currency that can be used to purchase upgrades to the characters’ health capacity and primary weapons, as well as entirely new secondary weapons. The majority of levels involve running around on foot, but a fair number consist of flying a hovercraft or driving a tank. When on foot, you will occasionally encounter doors that must be unlocked via a small mini-game. You will usually shoot enemies from afar, but when they get up close, you might take them out by swinging your gun as though it were, say, a giant wrench.
Despite overwhelming similarities to Ratchet and Clank, Ace in Action lacks the variety found in the games it so openly imitates. Only Ace’s main blaster can be powered up and he wields a mere 4 additional weapons, none of which really capture the cartoonish, overblown fun of many of the guns in Ratchet and Clank. The vast majority of the game is also below average in terms of difficulty. It is probably safe to assume that Disney was hoping to appeal to the target demographic of the Chicken Little movie.
While it fails miserably at originality, Ace in Action does provide an overall enjoyable gaming experience. In copying a proven formula, it fares better than would usually be expected for a game based on a Disney animated movie. Adam West voices the titular character and does an excellent job at keeping things somewhat amusing. As stated before, the game is relatively short, but that does help to keep things from getting too repetitive.
Ace in Action makes effective use of the Wii’s unique controls. Aiming is accomplished by pointing the Wii Remote at the screen. For levels on foot or in a tank, the Nunchuk’s stick controls forward/backward and side-to-side movement, while turning is achieved by pointing the Wii Remote to the side of the screen. This will likely become a fairly standard control scheme on the Wii and the game utilizes it well. Even more interesting, though, are the levels that take place in a hovercraft. While horizontal movements are achieved through the previously described scheme, vertical movement is controlled by tilting the Nunchuk forward and back. This is implemented very well and helps those parts of the game to feel a little fresher.
There are several sections of the game that do not utilize the motion sensing capabilities of the Wii’s controllers at all. Among these are several brief areas consisting of using the Nunchuk’s stick to aim a machine gun at incoming ships. For those that have grown used to an inverted y-axis, these parts of the game can be immensely frustrating, as there is no option to invert the control. It is annoying to the point that it is entirely feasible that some gamers would stop playing the game over it. There is really no excuse for such a simple oversight. That said, as terrible as those sections can be to play, they are mercifully brief and sparse.
The main story of Ace in Action is limited to 1 player, but the game does offer multi-player battle modes that allow 2 people to face off head-to-head in tanks or hovercrafts. These pretty much boil down to maneuvering around very small playing areas and trying to blow each other up. The simplicity of the multi-player would be a turn-off for many gamers, but kids might be a bit more likely to enjoy it. The first 2 multi-player boards are available at the start of the game, but the other 4 must be purchased with points earned in story mode.
Graphics:
At this point, one would expect just about any new game to support a widescreen display. For some baffling reason, Ace in Action does not. On top of that, the game’s graphics could have easily been done on any of the consoles from the last generation. While it doesn’t possess the raw processing power of its peers, the Wii certainly should be able to look better than games that came out 3 or 4 years ago.
While not technically impressive, Ace in Action’s graphics are enough to get the job done. In addition to playing a lot like the Ratchet and Clank series, Ace in Action also looks quite a bit like one of those games. Again, while this is horrible for originality, if they felt compelled copy a game, at least it was one that was well done.
Audio:
The music and special effects to Ace in Action are not really memorable, but they’re not annoying either. For the most part, it is a very average audio presentation. The one area that the game’s audio really shines is in the dialog. As previously mentioned, Adam West is great as the main character. The rest of the voice acting seems to be either cribbed from the movie or done by sound-a-likes that actually do a good job of recreating the character’s voices.
Overall:
If there was a group of people wondering how Ratchet and Clank would play with a Wii control scheme, their question has been answered. For Wii owners who enjoy 3-D action platformers, Chicken Little: Ace in Action is probably worth checking out as a rental. While it provides some fun, its unoriginality, length and relatively low replay value make it a bad title to purchase without playing first.