PSP World

Ben 10 Protector of Earth Review

You would think kids have enough things to deal with these days. Dealing with school, parents, chores and just trying to survive, but for Ben Tenison his life just got a lot more complicated. All of a sudden you get a nice gift from out of space that turns you into ten different super powered aliens. However with every great gift; there are always great problems. Based on the hit cartoon series; Cartoon Network Interactive and D3 Publisher presents Ben 10 Protector of Earth for the PSP.

We shall begin this review with a little bit of a backstory for some that might not know it. You have Ben and Gwen Tenison cousins who go on a summer road trip with their Grandpa. During camping Ben spots a fall star which of course the young man investigate and boom to his surprise the weird alien tech jumps up and attaches to his arm. In this installment Ben is sound asleep and a little bug alien starts tapping into the energy of the omnitrix taking some of the crystals. Of course when you exit the RV you are greeted by some of the minions of the bug that stole from you and now you must get the aliens you had back into the omnitrix.

You start off with two main aliens and that is Four Arms and Heat Blast which is actually two pretty good heroes to start off with. To be honest this game is a beat em up platformer with action. You can choose either to play as Ben to take out the baddies, which is not that hard if you have tactics on your side. square button is for light attacks, triangle heavy, circle is for special abilities. The shoulder buttons are for blocking and transformations while the D-pad swtiches through monsters. At times you will need to transform to battle the higher leveled enemies. The combat system and special moves are different for each hero.

Your objectives in the game are pretty simple, which is to get from point A to point B without getting defeated. There are some hidden items for example the sumo slammer cards that you will need to collect through out the levels. You can of course come back to the levels once you unlock certain heroes to get to special places that only they can reach. This brings some good replay value to the game if you thinking about it. That comes to the next point of also finding your crystals which unlock more of the monsters that you need to get.

The animation between cutscense was well done, but I think it would of been better if they used cartoon animation than 3-D work. It felt too stiff and unwanted watching the cutscenes. The graphics of the game are impressive even though it is a 3-D side scroller. You can upgrade the characters during your gameplay, but at one at a time so choose wisely on which hero you want to be super powered.

The bad elements of the game is that the gameplay can get boring at times and repetative with enemies respawning and nothing really challenging to offer with the boss fights. Honestly this is a great game for your kids but they will defeat it pretty quickly, however since many kids are fans of the series they will bug you until your ear falls off and ask for the next game that is coming out anyway.

Okay kids sit down and listen up, because we are going to finalize this for you. So you have your omnitrix options of many different heroes but first you have to find the rest of them. Cutscenes are good, but full animation from the cartoon would of been a better assest. Upgrading the characters is always a nice addition to any game especially when dealing with different aliens in your watch. The combat is pretty good, you can do combos and initate super power attacks. The heroes are on a power limit so reverting back to Ben is a good idea while the watch regenerates. I would have to say this is a good decent title for your kids. I will give Ben 10 Protector of the Earth 3 Aliens out of 5.