Charlie's Angels

Charlie's Angels (video game)
Hello. "Good morning, Angels!" Good morning, Charlie. "This game sucks!" Yeah, I know... — GameSpot
Genre(s): Beat 'em up Platform(s): PlayStation 2 Nintendo GameCube Release: PlayStation 2 EU: July 4, 2003 Nintendo GameCube NA: July 8, 2003 EU: July 25, 2003 Developer(s): Neko Entertainment Publisher(s): Ubi Soft Country: France

"For years, I've been calling games 'ass'... but here's a game, that's literally... ASSSSSSSSS!!!"

— The Angry Video Game Nerd

Charlie's Angels is a 2003 video game released for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube to coincide with the film series of the same name, which is based on the show of the same name. It was developed by Neko Entertainment and published by Ubi Soft.

The Microsoft Windows, Xbox and Game Boy Advance versions were planned, but were cancelled due to the game's negative reception.

Plot

The Angels must stop a group of of people called Monument Thieves from stealing national monuments.

Gameplay

You go to areas that have enemies and beat them up until they are defeated. You can use punches, kicks, and weapons to defeat them. As you progress, you unlock new moves such as strong attacks and a grab move. On rare occasions, enemies will drop extra lives for you to collect when they are defeated.

Why It's More of a Devil Than an Angel

1. Outdated graphics even for 2003 standards, that are similar to PlayStation 1 or Nintendo 64 game, the worst offender being the character models: Natalie's face look like the Joker's and Dylan's face look like Chucky's.
2. The fighting is dull as it consists into nothing more than just mashing buttons and the enemies block a large percentage of your attacks, worse you are the only one who can't block.
3. The plot is really dumb and nonsensical, as mentioned above, it involves a group of people called the Monument Thieves that somehow can steal monuments like the Statue of Liberty, which makes no sense and isn't possible, How can you steal monuments that are hundreds times larger than any human size?
4. The enemies, aside from different clothing dont differ much as they all fight the same.
5. Poor camera system that you have no control over it. For example, you'll see an enemy in the distance, you'll start running to jump-kick him, and then, suddenly, the camera cuts to a different angle. The camera also isn't zoomed out far enough to see everything meaning that you're likely to get hit by an offscreen enemy.
6. Annoying sound effects and voice-overs, with the Angels usually making grunts every time they attack or are damaged, with Natalie making a goose grunt whenever she gets hit.
7. Generic stage music (though thankfully, it has the Charlie's Angels theme).
8. False advertising: Despite what the game's descriptions on GameFAQs and Metacritic show, Bernie Mac does not reprise his role as Bosley in the game. Instead, his replacement actor just vaguely sounds like Bernie, and he's voice acting sounds bad.
9. It was discovered by Rerez, that the developers didn't lip-sync the characters for the English voice acting. Instead, they lip-synched for the French voice acting since Neko Entertainment is a French company, but this doesn't make sense since the game is based on an American franchise, the actors and the main audience are also Americans.
10. Gameplay outside of fighting enemies is incredibly slow and boring. For example, it takes the Angels approximately thirty seconds to just climb up a ladder, and it's a bad version of the ladder climbing from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
11. Invisible walls constantly appear behind you every few steps to the point where it's impossible to backtrack through the level at all to collect any items that you missed or explore any of the lifeless environments. Obviously, invisible walls are common in beat-'em-up video games, usually on the edges of the screen but most of the time they follow the back of your heels, they can also sometimes get in you trouble like getting stuck somewhere.
12. The animations are laughably bad: like the Angels' idle animations and the aformention ladder climbing.
13. The most infamous game-breaking glitch on the GameCube version causes one of the levels to repeat endlessly if you play without a memory card plugged in. JonTron encountered this glitch in his review of the game, much to his confusion.
    • The PS2 version is even more glitchier almost to the point of being unplayable.
14. Finding all the collectibles isn't worth it since the reward is just photo albums that you can find online.
15. Not only that, you just fight random people half the time in the first level, most of which are normal beach-goers and construction workers that have no affiliation with the bad guys, not to mention it was said that you were supposed to be in disguise.
16. There are only four boss fights and the fights are no different than fighting a normal enemy and they're just as easy.
17. The cherry on the crap cake is that if you beat the game, you can't keep playing the file where you beat it and there is no stage select screen. and it's even worse if you missed an collectible.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The GameCube version is the most playable version as it doesn't have as many glitches as the PlayStation 2 version (note that the GameCube version is the one that came to the US and not the inferior PAL PS2 version). However, the GameCube version has a game-breaking glitch where if you play without a memory card, the game will repeat the first level endlessly.
2. The controls are responsive for the most part.
3. Natalie, Alex & Dylan each have their own individual health meters.
4. The main actors for the Angels repraise their roles and their voice acting is actually good.

Reception

"What were they thinking?" The Shit Scale Games that are debatably bad High level of shit contamination The very high category The severe zone Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Major code red 👆 This game/console belongs to the "Very High Category" category of the AVGN's Shit Scale.

Charlie's Angels was met with Overwhelmingly negative reception from critics and fans upon release. The GameCube version of the game received an average score of 23.74% at GameRankings, based on an aggregate of 23 reviews and an average score of 23/100 at Metacritic, based on an aggregate of 42 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". On GameRankings, the GameCube version of the game holds the lowest score on the site. GamesRadar ranked it as the 50th worst game ever made. The staff commented that the game was even worse than the movie it was based on. JonTron (who reviewed the game) panned the game, stated that Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis was more fun, and even pointed out that one level looped over again (as stated above, this was due to a glitch). James Rolfe (in his Angry Video Game Nerd persona) reviewed the game, calling it "literally ass" due to things in the game involving the Angels' rear ends.

The game is notable for being panned by critics and has been regarded as one of the worst video games of all time.

Comments

Loading comments...