Despicable Me: The Game

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Despicable Me: The Game
You will have a bad bad day after playing this despicable game.
Protagonist(s): Gru Genre(s): Action Platform Platform(s): PlayStation 2 PlayStation Portable Wii Release Date: NA: July 6, 2010 AU: September 2, 2010 EU: October 1, 2010 Engine: Vicious Engine 2 Developer(s): Monkey Bar Games Publisher(s): D3 Publisher Country: United States Series: Despicable Me

Despicable Me: The Game (known as Despicable Me in Europe and Australia) is a 2010 action-platform game. It was released for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and Wii. Based on the movie of the same name, it was developed by Monkey Bar Games and published by D3 Publisher.

Gameplay

For most of the game, you travel through environments based on the movie (like Vector's Lab and the Bank of Evil) while solving puzzles using a specific amount of Minions in order to progress. You could collect blueprints to help you out on the Minion puzzles, and raise your Despicable Meter by messing with items throughout the level like paintings.

There are also shooting sections where you talk control of Gru's ship to protect the Minions' ship from missiles and rockets and make sure their ship you're protecting doesn't die.

Why It's Despicable

1. Much like Toy Story 3 and the FIFA games from 2010-13, releasing a game on the PlayStation 2 in 2010 is a very bad idea, especially since the PS2 already died out in popularity in North America, and was starting to die in Europe. and worse yet, there were no Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, making this worse.
2. Hideous graphics with some horrifying models such as Minions, who often lack emotion, there are also some noticeable polygons, which makes the characters models look like something from a 2001 PS2 game than a 2010 game.
3. Has a weak grasp of the source material. Firstly, the girls Gru adopts never appear in this game, secondly, the sections where Gru has to protect the Minion's ship never happened in the movie, and thirdly, Vector doesn't have that much of a role, only being in the last level and the ending.
4. Garbage voice acting (except Gru, thanks to Steve Carell reprising his voice), the replacement actors sound nothing like their movie counterparts. Dr. Nefario sounds like a bad Australian impersonator, Vector sounds weak all the time and lacks the charm of his character in the movie, and the Minions are obviously pitch-shifted high to make them sound like the movie, but they still don't sound like the Minions, and somehow, they can speak only in perfect English, which makes no sense, since the Minions can speak in a mix of their made up language and English in the movie.
5. Generic and forgettable soundtrack; it's easy to forget the music even after playing a level.
6. Awkward control scheme; for example, to aim with Gru's weapons, you use the control stick to move up and down, which can sometimes cause you to tip toe off the edge and die, and like M&M's Adventure, to perform a double jump, you have to press the jump button immediately after pressing the first jump, causing many cheap deaths in the process.
7. Bland and simplistic platforming sections; all you can mostly do is freeze the platforms, then continue on, rinse and repeat, and even with some obstacles, they are still easy.
8. The other gameplay style, the shooting sections, are worse than the main game, as not only are two of them escort mission-like, but there is little to no indication on when you’re being hit by the projectiles, unlike other games where the controller might rumble to let the player know they’re being hit, but this game doesn’t have it, which can sometimes screw you over.
9. While they are generous, there are way too many checkpoints in the levels, practically being on every section of a level, which can murder the difficulty or challenge of this game. However, some of them you will definitely need as due to the terrible control scheme and level design, some of these sections have a high difficulty spike, so much so dying enough times allows you to outright skip them.
10. The European age rating is incorrect; for some reason, it is rated PEGI 12, even though this game has no violence that would land it as that rating. While Shrek on the Xbox and the console and PC versions of The Incredibles: The Video Game may have had a T rating, it was during the time when there was no E10+ until 2005, but this game has no excuse for the 12+ rating.
11. Every time you die, you're forced to hear Gru say quips on how bad you're playing (except the Minion sections). This gets annoying real fast, and there is no way to disable it.
12. For a Wii/PSP/PS2 game released in 2010, there is so little content to worth justifying it’s $45 price tag, there are only 11 levels in the game which aren’t memorable, the unlockables aren’t even satisfying to earn, only being a few costumes for Gru, and it is very short, only clocking around 2 hours worth of a game.
13. It is nothing more than a shameless rip-off of the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series in terms of its gameplay.
14. Towards the end of the game, the time limits become so tight that the levels are nearly impossible to complete, even for a kids game. This is because on some of these levels, it barely gives you enough time to complete them.
15. In some levels, it even tries to flip the screen upside down, making it an insulting move to provide challenge.

Minion Mayhem

1. It is nothing more than a shameless rip-off of the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series in terms of its gameplay.
2. Towards the end of the game, the time limits become so tight that the levels are nearly impossible to complete, even for a kids game. This is because on some of these levels, it barely gives you enough time to complete them.
3. In some levels, it even tries to flip the screen upside down, making it an insulting move to provide challenge.

Not-So Despicable Qualities

1. At least they got Steve Carrel to reprise his role in this game, and he still gives an excellent performance as his character.
2. The Minion puzzles are well designed, and some require thinking to solve, instead of either being way too easy or way too hard. In fact, the DS version focuses specifically on the puzzling aspects, in the likes of the Mario VS Donkey Kong games made since the Nintendo DS era.
3. The DS version is significantly better than this game despite its few flaws.

Reception

Despicable Me: The Game received mixed to negative reviews from critics.

On Metacritic, it received a score of 55/100, indicating "mixed or average reviews", Nintendo Life gave it a 5/10 stating "While its main components aren't bad, the whole thing's repetitive and ends up evening out with about as many flaws as it has positive features."

Both The Guardian and Nintendo Power gave it a 4/10, with The Guardian stating "With better controls and collision detection this would have a pretty decent Wii game – especially considering how little is expected of this sort of licensed offering." and Nintendo Power stating "Unfortunately, all of the goofy personality of this movie tie-in is quickly trampled by irritating level designs and an inconsistent difficulty curve."

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