Game #1025: The Mummy - Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

  Budget Uncharted.

 I went into The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor with 0 expectations and I found myself going through so many ups and downs. Sometimes this low-budget Uncharted wanna be can be so undeservedly fun only to find yourself playing through poorly thought-out segments. It got so bad I didn't even finish the game.

 The game follows the plot of the movie with the same name... I think, since I didn't watch the movie! It opens up with a very choppy reel of the movie but then all you get are in-game STILLS but with a cellshaded coat of paint on top. That said, the in-game graphics are pretty decent for a licensed game, the framerate holds up well 'n' all. That said, you can tell this was made with the Wii in mind, because there are a ton of dull first-person gimmick segments in which you must use the analog sticks to emulate opening doors or turning cranks. It's really dumb and adds nothing to the game.

 The game is a third-person shooter/beat'em up hybrid. You get dual guns, dual shotguns, an assault rifle and grenades, but you also get a weak attack button, a strong attack button and a grab. There's not enough ammo to kill everything with bullets, so you should be mixing in some close-quarters combat in between your gunplay. In order to entice you to keep it varied, you'll get upgrades to your guns by defeating X amount of enemies with melee, X amount with guns and X amount with grabs... somewhat. You aren't told of these objectives until the level ends... and for whatever reason after stage 3 you stop getting upgrades for melee kills. Would've been nice to know, because I always tried to get those upgrades first, which means I didn't get the other upgrades 'cause I was waiting for the melee kill upgrade announcement to pop up.

 Since the game wants to be Uncharted, you also get a few parkour climbing sections, super simple and super unexciting, but they are there. You get regenerating health too, not like modern games in which the screen gets redder and redder, but you actually have a health gauge that slowly refills over time. There's no cover system, so if you want to heal... just run away from enemies until you feel safe. It's... a weird design choice. Speaking of weird, you can only save AFTER you clear a stage, and each stage lasts about 30 minutes, so you're in it for the long haul. On the other hand, the game is only six stages short.

 The game's basic gameplay feels decent enough, fighting enemies isn't the most exciting thing ever, but it can be fun. But later in the game you are bogged down by overly-large enemy waves. And they keep respawning from the same points. For instance, Stage 3, there's an arena in which about 10 grenade-men respawn in the same place. And these guys can get you from anywhere, so you want to prioritize killing them, but they keep coming, and in-between you also have to deal with the other enemies that are both swarming you and shooting at you. It goes on for too long, and at some point you'll probably have to run away to let your health refill. And Stage 3 has an AWFUL on-rails shooting segments in which enemies can very well stunlock you if they get to shoot at you. And it's pretty much impossible to kill the grenade-men before they get you at least once.

 And then... comes Stage 5. After this AWFUL turret section in which you've barely got enough time to defeat the enemies coming towards you WHILE defeating the enemies shooting at you... You face one of the worst bosses I've ever fought in a videogame. It has a three-tiered life bar that goes on forever as you slowly chip away itse health. And there's no pattern, it could take a while before its shield goes down, and for how long it stays down is completely random. Now then, you must lock on to it in order to keep track of it and not to miss your shots, but you also need to jump over its shockwaves. But to jump you need to let go off the lock-on, otherwise your jump turns into a roll. You'll probably try to jump without moving, as not to lose track of the enemy.... so sometimes it loves to shoot two shockwaves that you must jump, but AS you jump the second shockwave it LOVES to attack you. And since you are in the air, if it decides to do so, there's no way for you to avoid it. And every single attack depletes like a third of your life bar. Look, I tried more than a few times, but after a while... my time is more valuable than this garbage. I gave up, and frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

 Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is another one for the bargain bin. It's a bit saddening, because the core mechanics aren't bad at all, but man, are some parts of the games just too poorly designed to the point that it becomes annoying.

 4.5