.............CONTENT
.Home
.News
.Reviews
.Previews
.Features
.Fun Facts
.Wallpapers
.Forums



.............MISC.
.Advertise
.Contact
.About Us
.FAQ
.Legal
.Privacy Policy



.............AFFILIATES
.insert credit
.DigitalBackSpin
.Rock, Paper, Shotgun
.The Wargamer

	Minority Report: Everybody Runs
	Developer: Treyarch Publisher: Activision Genre: Action / Adventure Players: 1 Similar To: Spider-Man: The Movie Rating: Teen Published: 01 :28 : 03 Reviewed By: Ryan Newman Overall: 3.5 = Terrible

Screenshots

- - - -

Intro
Steven Spielberg's Minority Report was an enjoyable film that mixed several traditional movie elements in a stylized vision of the future and a fairly enjoyable story. Treyarch is an accomplished developer who brought Spider-Man the game that he deserved, and was put in charge of bringing Spielberg's latest flick to the gaming scene. By all accounts, this should have been a great game. Instead, what we get is a sub-par effort brought even lower by monotonous gameplay that makes this one of the most unmemorable titles of 2002.


Gameplay: 3/10
In the future, three precogs - short for precognitive humans - are used to tell the future. While not able to envision all crimes, they are able to see murders and project the images of the crime on a screen for Precrime officers to see. Once two balls fall, where one names the attacker and the other names the victim, the conjured images are used to find out where the crime will take place and away the precrime officers go to stop the murder. If you have seen the movie, then this is redundant; however, if you haven't, this will be the only means to find this out if you decided to check out the game instead.

Something didn't seem right from the very beginning; the game's intro gives no back story whatsoever and little is shown to give any hint at the universe visualized by Spielberg. There is an option to watch a clip of the movie, but that will only serve to confuse people as Tom Cruise's image wasn't used in the game - which wasn't Treyarch's fault as he seems to not lend his likeness to anything outside of movies - but instead of recreating John Anderton as someone with a similar appearance, he is replaced with a middle-aged man who looks to be getting a few gray hairs. Bad feelings continued as I tried the training missions and was introduced to one of the most unwieldy combo systems that I have ever tried. There was an odd rhythm that was needed to pull the moves off, and no matter how many times I successfully performed a combo, I never got the system down pat.

Starting the actual game seemed to get it somewhat back on track. It began like the movie, going on a mission and returning to find yourself as the next assailant in the precogs' visions. Again, nothing is mentioned of the three people and how or why they're in water and can see the future. This is also when the game breaks with the movie as a character is completely absent and an officer takes the place of a quirky scientist. After this brief jaunt with similarity, Minority Report quickly spirals out of control into the depths of crappy licensed games.

The levels tend to be fairly short, but some still managed to be confusing as the confined spaces are dull and extremely similar, and navigation becomes difficult once combat disorients the player. They are also poorly designed with no visual flair like that of the movies, although there are plenty of Lexus ads that are faithful to the movie and are the only stylish objects. With a mix of indoor and outdoor areas, none are very large, negating the free-for-all exciting escape sequences of the movie. Each level is filled to the brim with enemies who must have taken part in a cloning experiment because they look exactly, completely, totally alike. They will have a second class of enemy, but those tend to be only slightly different; a chef-fighter will have another like him, but with a rolling pin as a weapon, or a mall cop will have a fatter version.

When fighting off the baddies, John will use money that is found in secret areas and on knocked-out enemies to purchase moves and weapons. As stated, the combo system doesn't work well, and there's only a handful that need to be done to survive, and one move in particular that can result in fairly quick victories. Combat does have some satisfying parts: the environments are destructible and tossing opponents as well as kicking them while they are done offer great moments of stomping on someone and tossing them through glass and over a ledge. However, the enemies tend to be packing and that makes hand-to-hand fighting a tedious affair. Oddly enough, weapons can be purchased in-game, like fighting moves, meaning that all it takes is a trip to the Black Market via the pause screen to purchase weapons that come from nowhere and magically appear in his hands. In a weird design decision, ammo can't be purchased, and only the amount that can be held can be increased, much as it is with health. Sick sticks make an appearance, as do vomit grenades, along with temporarily power-ups like a shield. The weapons provide limited entertainment as they never seem to last long enough to be fully appreciated.

Navigation is made difficult with a poor camera that is about as helpful as someone shining a bright light in the player's eyes. While adjustable and thankfully speedy, it became extremely difficult and aggravating to have to swing the camera to the side because a pillar was in the way, leaving an enemy to appear and pummel away. Some objects go transparent when the camera is close, but they would also overlap on some segments, leaving it as a nice idea that wasn't fleshed out. Using the jetpack can also be a pain, but it tends to function well most of the time.

What really kills Minority Report is just how boring it is. With around 37cutscenes in the game, players are forced to wait for a loading screen, then watch a sequence that could last as little as a few seconds, then wait through another loading screen to play through the level. The levels featured the basic 'find the key' formula and the endless amounts of bad guys - who knew a mall had so many cops? - made the extended amount of combos nearly pointless as just the quick and powerful moves were left as the only useful ones so they the enemies could be dealt with before being beaten to a pulp. Getting killed isn't hard, even with health upgrades, as weapon attacks took massive amount of damage off and deaths resulted in some of the oddest animations I had ever seen. This is just a disappointing release and made even more so considering the pedigree of both the movie and the developer.

Graphics: 4.5/10
Slightly edging out the PlayStation 2, with better textures, the Xbox version is still the best looking one of the lot - but that's not saying much. The future still looks like a cleaned up version of today, with all the stylish architectural designs absent, save for a few interior touches. The enemies are still bland clones of one another, some simply having a weapon to distinguish them apart, and everyone still shares the silly jelly-leg death animations that have vanquished characters seemingly collapsing on the weight of their own body. Some of the weapon effects are cool, but a lot of what's seen is reaching for average, and with the power of the Cube, that's just not enough.

Sound: 2/10
The voices are still hilariously overdone with dramatics seeping out of every line. The music is still generic and limited in scope, but not only that, I found voices during levels to be of extremely poor quality. During cutscenes the clarity of the characters was fine, but early on, it sounds like someone was recording the voices, and sound effects, in a bathroom; they sounded absolutely horrible. To be honest, I can't recall the problem being that big in later levels. To see if I was just imagining things, I restarted the game from the beginning, and surely enough, the quality was just as bad as I remember it. I guess I should be thankful it didn't sound that way all the way through.

Control: 4.5/10
The dreaded camera strikes again. With unresponsive controls and a poor view for a majority of the game, Minority Report takes way too much baby-sitting. The lock-on feature was adequate, but the whole game had a lite feel to it. The constant adjustment of the camera made combat needlessly difficult and traversing trickier spots, like small walkways and ledges, never felt very solid. On a brighter note, the jetpack is easier to use, thanks to smoother analog stick and quicker response.

Overall: 3.5/10
When discussing Minority Report with our own Nick Stewart, all I could say was 'Wow.' and 'Whew.' and that really describes my impression of it still. From such a talented developer comes a game based one on an imaginative movie that could've made an excellent game and the result is a title that I would hope to never play again. It's boring, repetitive, unimaginative, and strays so much from the movie that it could easily pass for another game - save for a few elements. And, if you're keeping score, GameCube version has quicker loading that the PS2, along with slightly better textures, and better control from the jetpack; in all, GameCube beats PS2, but both are beat by Xbox.

(Note* Screenshots from PS2 version. Don't worry, you aren't missing much of a difference)

[ top ]