I’m not sure what’s left to say about bad videogame/movie tie-ins that hasn’t already been said before. But if any of you out there were holding on to hope that Kick-Ass would be a worthwhile PSN game, then I’m sorry to say that it falls into the usual category of poor movie-to-videogame tie-ins. The monotonous and unbalanced gameplay, glaring technical issues, and short playtime do nothing to justify the $14.99 price tag.
It’s such a shame, too, because basing a beat’em-up-style action game around the recent film Kick-Ass sounds like a perfect match. And it’s clear the developer, Frozen Codebase, took the time to include some neat things in this game, such as the clever iPhone/Facebook menu system, cool looking cel-shaded graphics reminiscent of Crackdown, and a good soundtrack. But all these things mean nothing when the game itself is no fun to play.
Players will have almost the exact same experience playing through the game’s eight levels no matter which of the three characters they pick (Kick-Ass, Hit Girl, or Bid Daddy). The fighting system, if you could call it that, has only two attacks — normal and heavy, plus the ability to execute a special ability. Changing up these few attacks never really becomes necessary, since it’s possible to make through most of the game by just spamming the same buttons.
Pummeling my way through wave after wave of identical goons grew old quickly, as did fighting with the camera and dealing with the uninspired animations. Also, the slowdown is just unforgivable. How a game like God of War III can run so smoothly while this game chugs along with a handful of blocky enemies on the screen is downright unacceptable.
Players will gain experience points throughout the game, which comes in the form of orange orbs dropped by defeated enemies. Players can then upgrade one of three categories: attack, defense and special ability. I found that placing all of my experience points into attack and defense made a considerable difference in my abilities. But I suppose it doesn’t really matter, since you can re-allocate your experience at any time throughout the game. So if you’ve decided to overload your special abilities but find yourself getting killed over and over again, you can simply adjust those points over to your defense level to help make things easier.
In the end, Kick-Ass is an under-produced and clearly rushed game that could’ve been much more than it is. It falls into the old cliché of a poor movie tie-in that should be avoided. The quality of other PSN titles ensure that this will be forgotten quickly, and fans of the Kick-Ass movie and comic will likely be disappointed.
