Review: Clash of the Titans

Platform: PS3/Xbox 360

Developer: Game Republic

# of Players: 1-2

Official Site

Rating: T (Teen)

Score: C+

While Clash of the Titans is far from gaming perfection, you have to at least give developer Game Republic credit for their lengthy, overly ambitious take on the usual too brief licensed movie game experience. There's an arcade-like combat system here that's simple enough for anyone to pick up and play along with a bit of depth for the obsessive thanks to the ability to grab and acquire dozens of upgradable enemy weapons. On the higher difficulty levels, some enemies and bosses can be quite tough to take down in a timely manner. However on the easiest setting, skilled players can breeze by plenty of maps before they run into anything really challenging.

Still, unlike a great deal of movie-based games, there's a lot of work do before you see the ending. With at least 20 hours of action here, only those willing to sink a good deal of time into the game will see everything it has to offer, particularly if you're into collecting Achievements or Trophies. There are a few very light RPG elements, over 80 weapons to collect, a few co-op oriented missions and even a Challenge mode that requires you to beat down bosses you've previously bested. As long as you go into this one not expecting to be wowed by stunning originality all around, the game can be strangely compelling in an old-school fashion.

The really pesky part about COTT is that it can be fun in spurts, but in the end it tries too hard to be accessible at the expense of any sort of character or plot depth. It almost seems as if Game Republic started the project as a more tightly focused Action/RPG experience geared solely toward one player, but along the way some ideas (such as complete co-op play throughout the main game) didn't gel completely. You'll get loads of side quests that revolve around hoofing it through large environments and killing waves of enemies before you can grab the item you're sent to retrieve.

Granted, this sort of chase 'n chop questing has been par for the genre course for ages. At the end of the day, don't expect the game to blow you away with anything new and exciting. You're just beating down yet another pack of angry beasties before they do the same to you, collecting your reward and moving on to the next NPC in need. In terms of controls, moves aren't hard to pull off at all and the game can be fun when everything works as it should. The problem is, the negative points get in the way of enjoying much of the game to the point of overwhelming the experience.

As you go through the game, you'll be able to choose an AI partner that has something of a short attention span combined with the ability to get killed at the most inopportune of times. While calling over a buddy and plugging in a second controller sounds like it's a great way to solve that particular problem, not every mission in the game is co-op or AI partner enabled. That and both players are confined to one screen, making something like decent camera control a wee bit impossible. It's not as if Game Republic hasn't been around long enough (and hasn't made a few respectably solid games) to know how to deal with these camera and ranged weapon issues. It's just a bit surprising to see this mostly simple but fun game experience hampered by stuff like this.

At least the game looks fine and in fact, other than a few not so attractive NPC character models and one or two goofy-looking enemy designs, what's here is quite respectable in terms of a licensed game. Levels are large, varied enough and have nice background details, but some sort of decent compass system or quest direction indicator would have been a nice addition. I personally have a good sense of direction navigating 3D environments, but I can see some players getting frustrated at having to beat a path through a bunch of enemies in most areas and head into a series of more fights and platform jumps only to be faced with a dead end and a bit of backtracking. The audio is fine, packed with solid voice acting and sound effects.

As a whole, the game can be quite enjoyable as long as you judge it on its own merits and not compare it to other games on the market. Unfortunately, that's what's going to happen with pretty much any action-based game that even remotely resembles a certain bigger-budgeted PS2/PS3/PSP exclusive franchise. As a gaming old-timer, I actually see more comparison to ancient arcade classics such as the Rastan or Rygar games, Dungeon Magic and a few other oldies I can recall spending way too much money on trying to beat in single sittings.

In the end, whether or not reliving the days of yore is worth sixty bucks is completely up to you, dear reader. I certainly enjoyed playing through Clash of the Titans once (plus a bunch of Challenge missions) and I'll probably whip it out and go through it again at some point down the road. Granted, the remake wasn't the most spectacular of cinematic experiences (but it was certainly more fun to watch than the original), but at least the game fits that mindless summer fun mold almost to a T.