Publisher: Activision
Developer: Luxoflux
System: Xbox 360
Genre: Action Adventure
Release date: Available now
Review by: Ed Humphries

It used to be that licensed games were the bane of gamers. Once the mercury began to rise and the multiplex became dotted with a myriad of popcorn flicks, the companion software would follow suit, usually launching day and date of most high profile cinematic releases. While you could often see every dollar spent up there on the silver screen, the accompanying game usually seemed like nothing more than a cash grab. Over the last few years, there has been a subtle shift to this norm, with some real surprises releasing alongside their celluloid sisters. Now, that’s not to say that all licensed games have taken a turn for the better, but titles like The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and The Simpsons Game prove there are diamonds in the rough out there. This summer, slicing his way through a crowded field of crouching tigers and hidden dragons comes the Kung Fu Panda.

Kung Fu Panda is the companion game to the Dreamworks Animation film of the same name. Dreamworks introduced the world to Shrek and over the last few years has been giving Pixar some healthy competition in the computer animated circuit with a hipper, more irreverent take on its subjects. This summer, their big family flick is the Jack Black voiced Kung Fu Panda – a takeoff of those Hong Kong martial arts flicks usually found on midnight marquees. Both the game and movie follow the tale of Po, a roly-poly Panda who is content with living out a lazy existence before being selected by fate to become the legendary Dragon Warrior when the evil Tai Lung threatens the safety of Po’s Valley of Peace. Po then engages in a series of trials aimed at whipping him into fighting shape.

While Panda features its share of platforming, there is also a robust fighting engine at work that nicely plays off of the film’s martial arts theme. Through the course of Po’s travels, he accumulates coins which can be used to purchase new abilities that include bonuses for his health and chi (magic) meters as well as increasing the strength of his attacks and special moves. Players are able to choose where they would like to allocate the currency and thus build Po into a fighter that matches their particular style.

Po needs to buff up considerably in his quest against Tai Lung. As he journeys through the 13 levels that comprise the game’s main adventure, he finds himself under constant attack by all manner of war-faring wildlife including crocodile combatants and militant monkeys. Most levels end with a boss battle that sometimes employ puzzle elements requiring solution in order to discover a particular boss’s weakness.