I rarely hold my breath for movie tie-ins and I have to say, DC's The Green Lantern has not been an exception to that rule.
This is probably because as a comic-book geek, I’m not as familiar with The Green Lantern as I should be and the last time I played a movie tie-in was GI Joe – and the memories of that experience are still very, very painful.
Starting off with a cutscene, it is established that the game is set some time after Hal Jordan has acquired the power ring which gives him his special abilities to conjure up green stuff. Sadly, we learn little more of how this happened as Hal is quickly thrown into battle against a bunch of intergalactic androids, known simple as The Man Hunters.
The other thing that we learn is that this game suffers from framerate issues and as the animation stutters along, it doesn’t really give the player a good first impression.
Fortunately, this problem doesn’t hinder the gameplay. However, the uninspired mechanics do.
Essentially a hack and slash game, much of it relies on you beating up the various robotic nasties before you can proceed to the next section. It is literally a case of go here, beat them up until the invisible wall disappears and then repeat the process again.
Every now and then the game will give you an object, like a door or some rocks to smash through, but that’s about as varied as it gets and when it does, it rarely makes it clear what you should be doing and at times it can take a little while to solve.
Despite the mundane level design, the combat does bring some redeeming features to the game.The controls are quite responsive and there is a healthy amount of combos for Hal to perform that should keep the average hack and slasher fan busy for a little while. Slinging the mechanical enemies over cliffs is actually quite satisfy.
The game also keeps the combat quite fresh by rewarding the player with various upgrades, new combos and constructs (glowing green weapons that Hal creates). The ability to assign them to your preferred button is quite intuitive and offers a bit of customisation.
Visually, the game is a bit a mixed bag. While the cut scenes are marred by the frame rate issues mentioned earlier, the levels themselves are vibrant and colourful with lots going on in the background.
The audio is suitably cinematic, featuring an orchestral score (possibly from the movie) and the voice of the actor Ryan Reynolds, who also lends his likeness to the game.
As I mentioned earlier, I’m always weary of movie tie-ins and The Green Lantern: The Rise of the Machines has done nothing to change that.
However, I have played some pretty bad movie adaptations in my time and The Green Lantern is no where near the worst that I have played.
Verdict: 6.5 out of 10
The Good
Good controls
Engaging combat
Easy to pick up
The Bad
Boring level design
Framerate issues
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