Shrek The Third

Ask any elementary student who their favorite character is and one is bound to answer Shrek.  The Dreamworks franchise is a ludicrous series that continues to reel in new fans with every new movie.  Relying on humor, wit, pop culture references, and outrageous characters, it’s easy to see why Shrek has become the phenomenon it is today.   Thankfully – especially for video game fans – the movie, Shrek the Third, has a new game to go along side it.  Titled after the movie, Shrek the Third is the routine movie-based game and is available on virtually every console and handheld this side of the Mississippi. 

Following in the footsteps of the movie, the game picks up after where the second movie ended.  The kingdom of Far Far Away is seeking a new king and Shrek wants no part in becoming the heir to the throne.  So, it’s up to Shrek and his ragtag crew of outcasts per se to embark on an epic quest to find Fiona’s cousin, Arthur, to take the throne. Arthur, inspired by the Knights of the Round Table version King Arthur, has competition with the conniving Prince Charming who wants the throne to himself.

7 Studios, the developer, didn’t exactly try to create an original game, but rather they followed the undemanding instructions of how to create a movie-based game.  For the most part, brawling with enemies is where a majority of the time is spent.  What’s great to see is that the combat is simple in nature for everyone to pick it up and play.  Children will have no problem with playing Shrek the Third, which is a definite plus.

If you have ever played an arcade-brawler, you’ll remember that they usually include: basic attacks, strong attacks and then of course the special attacks to resort to.  The special attacks will change when you reach a new level.  Blocking is integrated, but it’s not needed in order to advance through the levels.  Actually, I barely had to block any of the attacks since the enemies are worthless.  What the enemies will do is move at a constant fast speed and rush to attack you.  Realistically though, completing the levels without even fighting the enemies isn’t the most entertaining way to play Shrek the Third.  In terms of recommendations on how to play Shrek the Third, I strongly recommend not using the strong attack that often since it’s too slow of an attack. 

One great feature for fans to enjoy is the ability to play with a wide variety of characters.  Using Shrek will give you the advantage of his raw brute strength.  Meanwhile, Fiona has finesse on her side and Sleeping Beauty can charm foes to combat each other.  There are many others found in Shrek the Third that are available to use, but I don’t want to ruin any surprises for those who haven’t watched the third film yet.

Technically, Shrek the Third isn’t a full out button smasher – there are adventure aspects thrown in to find and collect items.  Unlocking items in the game’s gift shop is a noteworthy addition of replay value.  There are also mini-games and puzzles to put your mind to a test.  In total, there are six mini-games that consist of: collecting frogs, shuffleboard, throwing tomatoes at your enemies for as long as you can, and a few others.  The puzzles are quite basic with jumping and finding your way around an object.

Typically, like in all other games, 7 Studios added in the ability to slow down time, ala the Matrix.  The controls are used with the mouse and keyboard, WASD to move and the arrows for different attacks. Then of course, the space bar or right mouse button is used to jump.  If you end up falling off the level, don’t worry, you’ll respawn at the spot where you fell to your death.  You can remap all the attacks to particular keys if that’s your sort of thing.

What are the benefits for buying it on the PC?  The game looks better than every other version besides the Xbox 360 counterpart.  The graphics are decent, but do feel rushed.  The characters, such as Shrek and Puss in Boots, look great – the same cannot be said for the enemies.  There are a lot of jagged edges and blurry textures, so be prepared to jump in a time warp to 1999 when that was still popular.  The animations do feel stiff, like a pole is up their shirt making them walk like Frankenstein, but it’s not a gargantuan problem.  

The PC version does support higher resolutions up to 1600x1200.  The PC version probably one of the better versions of the game you’ll find in stores compared to the rest (outside of the Xbox 360 version of course).  The framerate is for the most part, stable. A few pre-rendered cutscenes can be found to move along the storyline.  Regrettably, you cannot skip the pre-rendered cutscenes to hurry along with the game.

The soundtrack and audio is superb – it ties-in with the movie perfectly.  Sadly, the actors don’t return to represent their characters in the video game.  Activision did a good job at finding actors that can pull off impersonating Mike Meyers, Antonio Banderas and others from the cast.  The best part of the audio is that the humor is all there by means of the dialogue.

While it isn’t the best representation of the Shrek the Third, the game does an overall good job at finding the right things to do and things to say.  There was no risk used in creating this game, but they didn’t need to reinvent the wheel to sell copies of this game.  Shrek the Third has got the humor, it’s got the title characters, and it’s got cuteness written all over it.  This should be a nice pick-up for your children to spend their summer months playing video games.

Minimum Requirements:

Windows XP Operating System

Pentium(R) III 800MHz or Athlon(TM) 800MHz or higher processor

512 MB of RAM

3 GB of uncompressed hard disk space

Direct X 9.0

NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 64mb

or

ATI Radeon 8500 64mb
 

Gameplay: 6.9

Shrek the Third offers 20 various levels to play through – some that are from the movie, some that aren’t.

Graphics: 6.8

Incomplete animations hurt the graphics along with the inclusion of jaggies.  It isn’t the prettiest game on the PC market.

Sound: 8.0

The music creates a new level of authenticity for the game.

Difficulty: Easy

The hard level of difficulty isn’t that hard.  Think of it being retitled from the normal difficulty. 

Concept: 6.5

There’s nothing too exciting to see here; just another run-of-the-mill movie-based game.  Though, the idea of playing several characters from the franchise is interesting to say the least.

Multiplayer: 6.5

Multiplayer is basic and is limited to the mini-games for the most part.

Overall: 7.0

There is a demo online for PC gamers to test it out before playing it.  I’d personally recommend that route for older gamers.  Younger games will eat this up like candy.