Thor: God of Thunder

So here we are again, eh? That old "video-game to movie tie-in" scenario. Everyone's usually pretty quick to bash this type of game - and quite rightly so. There's been some shockers over the years, but then again, there's also been games like Batman: Arkham Asylum. Much like B:AA, the new Thor game is kind of a movie tie-in, but only in the way that it has the same characters. Unfortunately though, that's about all the comparisons that I can make with these two games. Let me make it simple, here's a list of the top five things I liked about Thor:

1. uhhh ...
2. ... hmmm, I'm sure I can think of one - OH WAIT I GOT IT--
3. hang-on, no, sorry that was another game.
4. Wow, this is actually really hard. I can't think of something I really liked about this game.
5. The disc makes a great coaster for the coffee table.

What I disliked most about this game was what an utter disappointment it was, when it had such a huge potential. They decided to piss-off the plot from the movie, which was a great move, as this means that they can delve into the huge mythology of Thor and grab some great plots from the comic universe. I would've loved to have write a review where the only complaint was that it was nothing more than a God Of War clone. Sadly, this is not the case. Strap in, sports-fans, this is gonna get ugly...

From the very start, there's a HUGE plot hole in the storyline that renders the entire game pointless. Allow me to indulge you all for a minute. I won't say "OMG, SPOILERS", because I know that you won't play this game. Okay, here goes...

For some strange reason that I'm not sure of, there are these dudes from a frozen world who call themselves the Jotin, or something (they're all Europeans, so they have really oddly pronounced names), and they're convinced that there's something at Thor's place at Asgard that they want back, so they invade and start fucking shit up at Asgard. Naturally, Thor comes along and saves the day, but not until they utilise that old cliche of "Thinking That The Bad Guy Is Dead, But He's Not Really, So He Fires One Last Time Before Dying, Killing An Innocent Bystander", who is some chick who that is important to Thor (it's never really explained who she is or why she's so important), so Thor's all pissed off and wants revenge for the Jotin for killing his woman, but Odin's like "nah dude, chill out bro". So Thor tells Odin to get stuffed and that he's going to go it alone, and they have a bit of a tiff, and Odin is like "seriously, if you run off and fuck shit up with the Jotin's, well, just don't do it" and walks away. Then your brother Loki, who's clearly the bad guy in all this is, says "naaah dude, don't listen to him. Just go and fuck the Jotin's shit up. Here, you can borrow my car". So he pisses off and goes to fuck shit up, then in the next scene Odin is talking to Loki about what a disobedient little shit Thor's being and just casually mentions to him that he can bring her to back to life anyway. HE CAN BRING HER BACK TO LIFE? Why the fuck didn't Odin mention this from the very beginning?? It would've save everyone SO much time, not to mention would've meant I wouldn't have wasted 9 hours of my life going through the single-player campaign. Even by the end of the game, when Odin realises that it's been Loki who's been the evil fuck this entire time, there's no resolution or punishment there either! Loki mentions something about how "we did it!" and Odin is all like "WE? Bitch please, even when I be sleepin', I know you've been the one fucking shit up, so you need to zip it, mister!", but that's it!

Actually, I should've just called it "the campaign" earlier, because there is no multiplayer. No, scratch that - you could probably call it "the single play campaign", because you're going to want to play this game once. If that.

So "the campaign" sees you controlling Thor along a linear path through a number of "worlds" exacting your revenge on anyone who comes your way. It's the same method you've all seen before: Run along a path, run into a large open space where a bunch of bad-guys show up. Kill them all, run down another path. Rinse. Repeat. The combat is basic and extremely clunky. There's a few different attack buttons and various combos for the pressing the right button sequence, yet the animations for each moves seem to go on for a little bit too long, giving this odd sense of disjointedness from the action happening on screen which also makes it hard to keep the combat flowing as nicely as you'd expect from a game like this.

The level design is also mind-numbingly boring, with each level seemingly no more than a re-skinned verison of the previous level you just played. Then at the end of every World is a big boss battle which, once again, is also exactly the same as the Boss Battle before it. They're all really boring and repetitive. Did I mention they're boring and repetitive? That's because they're boring and repetitive. Boring and Repetitive.

While bashing through the bad-guys, you gather "Odinforce" to pull off more devastating attacks, as well as the ability to increase the skills and unlock new moves. However, doing so doesn't seem to have too much of a noticeable effect, so you're pretty much find yourself just running through the levels spamming the X button. There are a few moments in the game where you can't do certain moves. This is really frustrating as it doesn't give you any explanation.

Oh, and another funny thing about this game is dying. It's impossible for Thor to die from falling off a cliff. If you're on a ledge and he falls down, he quickly flies back up on to the ledge again, and the words "HEROIC RECOVERY!" appear on the screen. I know it shouldn't be, but this is hilarious, if not slightly frustrating on certain levels where he can't seem to jump from one ledge to another that's no more than a couple of feet away, yet flying back up from a bottomless pit clearly isn't an issue. Also, when you're in combat and Thor dies, he doesn't actually "die", he just kneels down onto one knee looking all sad and emo.

The graphics are pretty ordinary too. If this was 2001, then I might be almost impressed at the graphics, but they're quite terrible. The cut-scenes are awkwardly animated, Thor's cape seems to be ironed with a little bit too much starch and all the character's facial expressions seem to be animated like it was an episode of Captain Fathom ... I'll give anyone under 30 a few minutes to Google that show ... Done? Okay, let's keep going... Actually, let's not.

PROS

- Chris Hemsworth does the voice-acting for Thor

CONS

- Boring gameplay
- Repetitive
- Bad graphics
- Short campaign (actually, this is probably a good thing)
- Crappy plot
- Earlier I used the word "disjointedness", which I'm not sure is even a word

SUMMARY

I can't even say that "this is one for the fans", because it isn't. I wouldn't wish this game on my worst enemy. This is quite possibly one of the worst games I've played all year. In fact, I'm going to go so far as to say that this will get my award for The Worst Game Of The Year ... and next year too. 

I'd rather get a prostate exam from a epileptic doctor with leprosy than be forced to play this game again.