Credit: Other Ocean Interactive/Paramount Digital EntertainmentWar of the Worlds is something of an institution in aliens take over the world lore. You’ve likely read the seminal H.G. Wells book, or viewed the original movie, or at least watched the Tom Cruise-vehicle-cum-remake. No? To all three? What’s wrong with you?
I can happily check all three boxes, and so I was well on board for the Xbox Live game once it was announced. That the game is an old-school sidescroller in the vein of classics like the original Prince of Persia, Out of this World, and Flashback made this an absolute must play for me. Patrick Stewart's lovely and authoritative voice behind the narrative was simply the icing on the cake.
Sadly, what plays out is another tragic story of a project rife with promise which went south and very quickly, in the execution. Three intimately linked faults conspired to sink WotW: the game is unevenly difficult, its controls are horribly inconsistent and counterintuitive, and checkpoints are set too far apart.
The result is a tribute to Wells, Mechner, Chahi and Cuisset (the developers actually named a level after the latter three), gone very wrong. WotW isn't exactly unplayable; the tense narrative and bleak, nearly monochromatic presentation does much to convey the hopelessness of the human plight in London in the face of merciless invaders. The alien conquest is quick and all-consuming, and the game does well to make us feel insignificant: Our "Arthur Clark" is a cockroach skittering breathlessly along seeking lost fiance and brother, among marauding steel giants who would crush him underfoot.
Comically, that's often not even necessary. Sometimes, we'll just trip over our own feet. And die. I'd be remiss not to let one particularly trying sequence serve as cautionary microcosm of the experience. Imagine it: you've escaped the madness on the streets, and sought refuge in some ruined apartments. There, a pseudo-sentient black fog belches forth from the ventilation shafts and threatens to suffocate you. You've got to stay ahead of it, use crates (in the middle of hallways?) to prevent it from flowing out when you have the chance, and find a gas mask (left by some fortuitous turn, on the ground?).
It’s more than likely that you'll send Arthur running up to the first crate and hit jump and he’ll simply come to a stop. Arthur may watch the crate for awhile as the smoke starts to catch up from behind. Arthur may then – wait for it – do a barrel roll into the crate and end up dead as if the crate had fallen on him, even though it was quite stationary and flush to the ground the entire time.
This is the stuff of broken games. Dying over and over in this fashion makes you want to kill Patrick Stewart for his maddening soliloquies which punctuate each and every restart, makes you loathe the drab backdrops, makes you seethe at being placed so far back. Amazing potential or not, well-intentioned tribute or not, palpable atmosphere or not – this is the stuff of broken games, and you should not be party.
