I’m not entirely sure why I bought this game. I mean, I previewed the damn thing and declared it a horrible GTA rip-off, stating I would most definitely never buy it. And then, a few months later, a parcel arrives through my letterbox containing this, this festering pile of awful that I had foolishly parted money for. So, after forcing myself to complete the game to 100%, I have finally decided to review it before I hand it over to my girlfriend to destroy. Here goes then. Planet 51: The Game.

As you might have imagined, this game is a movie tie in to the popular (was it popular? I never saw it) kids movie, which puts a spin on the alien invasion story by placing a human being on an alien planet, and all the mad hi-jinks that occur because of it. Although, the game seems to not really care about any of this, and decides that it has to throw totally random missions at you to try and stretch out the life of a game that starts dying before it even gets going.

It starts with the gameplay, really. It’s your typical sandbox game, complete with cars to jack, people to mow down and missions scattered across the map that you can take at any time you like, should you get bored from aimlessly wandering around. Sadly, with it being a kid’s game and all, you can’t mow anyone down, they simply duck under the hover car. And instead of jacking fools, they simply let you drive their car, because you’re “such a good driver”. And there are missions all right. But you’re not gonna want to do them.

Each mission usually boils down to “drive to this location” or “run through this obstacle course”. Aside from that, some missions have their own mini-game attached to it. After completing the mission, you’re given the opportunity to do it ten more times in a row (if you quit out at any point, you have to start again), with the mission getting slightly harder each time. Fun, right? Couple that with the fact that several of these side missions are IDENTICAL to others and you have a truly uninspired set of missions to slowly kill yourself to.

At least the car handling is good though, right? Well, it depends. In one sense, the developers have successfully managed to capture what it would be like to drive an alien vehicle. The only problem with this is that the handling sucks. Since you’re driving a circular hovercraft, turning in any direction means you have to spin in that direction, which is awful for cornering, and since most of the game sees you trying to get from A to B as quickly as possible, not being able to turn a corner basically ruins the game. Cars don’t even go quickly; either that or the map is far larger than I anticipated.

The graphics are, annoyingly, probably the best part of the game. Everything looks crisp and clean in a cartoony fashion, which matches the movie well. Cars take damage quite well, with bits flying off when you slam into a wall too hard, and light scratches appearing in places. The animation can sometimes be a bit disappointing; lip-syncing is totally non-existent, and there’s more clipping than the floor of a hairdresser (man, I suck at analogies). Although, naturally, all this hard work and effort is for naught when clips from the film are played, showing off far better looking graphics than the game could dream of displaying.

The sound in this game are horrifyingly bad, to the point where I turned them all off because I just couldn’t stand to listen to it any more. Voice acting is badly done across the board, with none of the original cast members lending their voice to the game, and the delivery of the lines in game is often staggered, leading to awkward dialogue that just sounds stupid. Add that to the fact that every alien on the planet listens to the same country radio station that plays the same piece of music EVERY TIME you pass their car, and the total lack of any other background music, and you have a thoroughly disappointing sound section.

And yet, despite all my criticism, there’s something just so… hypnotising about Planet 51: The Game. Despite hating every single part of it with every fibre of my being, I couldn’t help but carry on playing it non-stop for about three days. It’s nearly impossible to put down, but when you do, you’ll sit back, exhale, and wonder what the hell you’re doing with your life.

Score: 3/10

Know a kid who loved this game? Wondering why you bought it too? Let us know in the comments!