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Catwoman review

Game: Catwoman
Platform: Xbox
Genre: Action
Developer: Electronic Arts

Reader review by lasthero

December 23, 2007

99.999% of the people reading this review have either seen or heard about the horrendous Catwoman movie, and are coming into this review expecting it to be bashed. Though I hope the great majority of people enjoy the read, know that I'm not aiming it at them. No, this is for the .001, the one soul on the planet that is seriously thinking about buying this game.

Don't do it, man. Don't.

Let me lay out an average level in Catwoman. You drop in the middle of jewelry heist - not to fight crime, of course, but to steal the jewels yourself. You take on the robbers, and out of reflex, you probably start pressing X. Because, you know, most games have you pressing buttons when you want to hit people.

But not Catwoman. Catwoman has you tilt the right analog stick in the direction you want to attack. Left kick, left tilt; right kick, right tilt. You don't even press the buttons to jump - no, you hit the right trigger for that. It's weird, but you get used to it. It doesn't seem like a big deal - at first. But then you go outside the building to escape the police, and the game asks you to do some platform jumping. And then a little realization hits: The right trigger and the right stick are what most 3D games would use to control the camera. So, f they're being used for fighting and jumping, how do you control the camera?

You don't.

You have to climb up walls, jump from fences, slide down power lines while a police helicopter's light beams down on you, and the camera moves completely on its own, sometimes even switching in the middle of a jump. There will be places that you have to jump to, things you have to do, and you won’t be able to do them because they’re out of view. If you slip up once, even once, you will plummet back to the ground, landing on your feet with only minimal damage sustained - but you'll have to do everything you did over again. And over again. And over again. All the while, Catwoman will recite a number of feline-themed one-liners, and while it would typically be my practice to give some examples of these, that would require me to play the game again for exact quotes - no. Suffice to say that, as you play this level, you will hear the same quotes as you go over the same territory. Therefore, very often.

After an hour, you will finally memorize the path you need to take and the buttons you need to press. You will finally complete the level. And, like me, you will scream in feral rage, because that was just the tutorial level.

I could go on about a lot of things. Silly things, like how glitter comes out of Catwoman’s feet as she runs. How the costume looks more like a mouse than a cat. Hell, I could write a thesis on what’s wrong with the plot - if you’ve seen the movie, know that it hasn’t gotten any better in the game; if you haven’t seen the movie, let things stay that way. I know the more professional practice would be to play this game all the way through, give it a chance, but man - three hours of this is enough for a lifetime.

It’s just so dumb. God.

Rating: 2/10

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