Up review

I had my first experience of 3D cinema the other day when I watched Up. Once my eyes had adjusted I was initially impressed but then I sort of got used to it. It’s the same with videogames. Next-gen machines come out and everyone goes ‘whooo’ but then the bar has to constantly be raised in order to impress. It’s a pity then that not only does Up have average graphics, but it’s also a very average platform game that’s of little interest to me.

You mainly play the game as Carl and Russell as you move round the 3D platform levels attached to your floating house. Similar to the Lego games, you can play with a friend and must work together to get round the environment. For example, Russell can shimmy along ledges and use Kevin the bird to reach new heights, while Carl can use his cane to climb up ledges and keep wasps and spiders away with the screeching of his faulty hearing aid. In single player mode you hit a button so switch between them which sometimes works and can sometimes be frustrating when the AI takes over and moves characters precisely where you don’t want them.

Most of the time you’re just platforming and collecting coins and artefacts as you go. Combat is extremely limited to swinging your cane at things or picking up items to use against the inhabitants of the forest. Occasionally you also get a boss fight but the action throughout is all rather slow and cumbersome. What do you expect from controlling a geriatric and a boy scout?

To break things up a bit you can also take to the skies and literally dogfight with the talking dogs. For some reason this is also the first thing you do in the game which is odd as it’s set in a scene right near the end of the movie.

Young children may enjoy playing as the characters from the film but this doesn’t offer anything for the older gamer. It’s an average platform game so it gets an average score of 5 out of 10.

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