Watchmen: The End is Nigh

I loved the Watchmen movie; I can’t say I was the biggest fan going in as I only read the graphic novel after watching the movie but it’s become my favorite comic book movie since. That being said I was looking forward to the Watchmen games but I’m sad to find I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up. Watchmen: The End is Nigh is short, repetitive and not very fun. The game appears to have had a relatively high production budget compared to other downloadable games but not much went into making it fun.

 The End is Nigh is set before the movie and instead of focusing on the whole group, it focuses on Night Owl and Rorschach. Their personalities are polar opposites, and it can lead to some halfway funny conversations as well as their opinions on social problems. Surprisingly enough the actors from the movie provide the voices for them as well. Through the game they are chasing a singular bad guy while beating up on everyday thugs. The story is ho-hum but I was very interested in it regardless; if you’re not that big a fan of the source material you probably shouldn’t even bother with the game. Between levels comic book style cut scenes fill in the story, they’re barely animated but this isn’t that much of detraction due to the roots of the game, I really liked them. Since the story revolves around two protagonists, it lends itself well to co-operative game play but it is poorly executed.

 The game does have a co-op mode but it is limited to local play only, no online co-op. A lack of co-op moves is also disappointing. Seeing as how the game only has two characters and a co-op mode, the lack of any team up attacks really disappointed me, as a result, the game play breaks down to just mashing the attack buttons. There are a few puzzles as well but they never amount to more than both players pulling a lever or hitting switches. There are some unlockable moves and combos to find and these spruce the fighting up, like countering incoming attacks, combos that can stun and progressively more specific attacks for each character. When you get an enemy dazed and nearly dead, a button icon will pop up above their head and if you hit it, you’ll be dragged into a quick cut scene that shows a brutal finisher.

 For a downloadable game, the graphics are top notch and even some of the best now, but this seems like a pretty shallow qualification considering you can download full retail titles on the PC and the graphics of a downloadable game aren’t much of a factor looking at all the casual games that find success without pushing this area. Nonetheless, many of the game’s environments are set outside in the rain and the watery reflection looks great. Each level is unique but within them there is much repetition to the overall design. I thought the character animation was great, from stringing attacks on one enemy to attacking a whole group even though navigating the group felt kind of random; I especially liked the finishers although there aren’t many so they tend to repeat.

 The End is Nigh could’ve been a fun co-op brawler but it disappointed me. Even playing with a friend the game got tiring and a lack of meaningful cooperative play lessened the reason for me to even play with a second person. The story provides an interesting look into the past of Night Owl and Rorschach but only fans of the source material will get enjoyment out of it. The game looks great, but the repetitive and simple game play bring it down and I can only recommend this for people who can find the retail release with both games for cheap like I did.