For fans of the extinct awesomeness that is Firefly, you’ll recognize the moment; Cap’n Mal, stark naked, sitting on a rock at the beginning of “Trash.” He issues a resigned utterance regarding his newfound state of undress, and we flash back seventy-two hours to events recalling the eventual divestiture of his captainly raiment.
One of the most likable things about Nathan Fillion’s character is the casual, pithy aplomb with which he handles dire situations; whether under torture by psychotic crime boss Adelei Niska in “War Stories” or with his tenders exposed to the weathering elements, Mal’s composure never falters. He might waver a bit under duress, but he never gives in. I like that.
So as I find myself disconcertingly disrobed of cynicism and snarky, smartass soliloquy by spending a weekend with Kung Fu Panda on the PS3, I remain mindful of Captain Reynolds’ stalwart example and solider on, although forsooth, Armageddon surely approacheth. ‘Tis written, “when the moon becomes as cheesecloth and the rivers run with strawberry Quik, be ready: for the time of reckoning is at hand and those called Luxoflux shall bring forth a movie tie-in that not only raiseth the bar for others of its kind, but smacks them with the bar right in their ugly, yapping gobs. Verily, bitches.” Some kind of reckoning must certainly be at hand, because Activision and Luxoflux have produced not only a fine movie-tie in, but a worthy game in its own right.
Kung Fu Panda is not without flaws, chief among them being length. At fifty clams for just under six hours of first-run gameplay it’s too short to recommend for purchase, but if pointless collection is your thing you’ll be able to stretch the experience out to perhaps eight or ten hours in replay.
Where most movie games completely piss all over themselves is in pandering to the lowest common denominator. Satisfied with being straight-D students, they offer a shallow, largely forgettable, by-the-numbers experience that comes as close to providing decent gameplay as it does to accurately portraying the source material. Kung Fu Panda adroitly deflects this stereotypical missile by offering entertaining, autonomous gameplay while remaining satisfactorily faithful to the story on which it is based.
Perhaps the most useful diagnostic question you can ask yourself while playing a movie tie-in is, “could this game exist without the movie?” Assuming everything else is equal, and that the game doesn’t simply suck itself right out of the box, does it transcend the limitations inherent in the translation from film to code? Most games don’t. They try to follow the movie too closely, and as a result end up as a murky, indistinct puddle on the floor, with racing segments and timed button-mashing segments and half-assed adventure segments and flying segments and, for you Wii enthusiasts, random gratuitous controller-jerking segments, all coming together in a bouillabaisse o’ shit that you’re left to sop up with day-old crusts of incredulity because you were stupid enough to buy the thing in the first place.
This is not…the greatest swamp in the world.
Kung Fu Panda does occasionally suckle at the dewy teat of Samba de Amigo nostalgia by introducing timed button-pressing segments, but these are mercifully short-lived and far between. It also flirts a bit with the increasingly pervasive mechanic of rapid button-mashing to accomplish a single, simple task, but these too can be forgiven for their scarcity. Harder to excuse is the lame attempt at padding the game with collection artifacts that unlock nothing more than self-congratulatory concept art and character videos.
I could give less than a moldy ferret turd about concept art, or more accurately, “shit that didn’t make the cut.” Seriously. If the item I’m trying to reach by jumping across six flaming moving platforms doesn’t affect the in-game experience, I pass. Thankfully, Kung Fu Panda encourages the collection of coins by offering several useful skill and ability upgrades for purchase, lending to it the merest soupçon of RPG flavor, though anyone but the most ardent Monk devotees might be discouraged by the numbing uselessness of the other collectibles. So you’re looking at six, maybe seven hours of gameplay, total.
Easily the most entertaining portions of the game are those played as the titular Po, as he first clumsily stumbles and swipes his way through enemies, then learns how to unleash ursine ass-kickings of Kodiak proportions. Less engaging are the segments in which the player takes control of supporting characters, such as Tiger and Crane, as they seem like little more than filler. Playing as Master Shifu, Po’s teacher, is fun in its own way, though combat with the red panda is somehow less satisfying than with his oafish giant student.
Due to its obscenely short length, I can’t recommend that anyone rush right out and purchase Kung Fu Panda, though it’s easily the best game that I’ve reviewed here thus far. Unless you’ve got a preternatural aversion to Jack Black or bamboo-scarfing carnivorous herbivores, you must play Kung Fu Panda, if for no other reason than you might have at one time considered playing The DaVinci Code.
Tags: Firefly, Panda, PS3, Samba de Amigo
