THQ recently announced that they will flood the market with yet another game, based on yet another animated film, from those purveyors of animated eye-candy that have made an art out of making money. This time round it's WALL●E which has the tagline "What if mankind had to leave Earth, and somebody forgot to turn the last robot off?" My question is, do we need to take a CGI film and turn it into a "a fast-paced adventure based on the upcoming film?"

First off, the film may or may not suck. If it does then we will have a host of games based on it that suck as well. As with all these types of games it will be released "across all major gaming systems" which means everything. In this case, the development time, money, and energy will show up on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, PSP, Wii, Nintendo DS, Windows PC and Mac, as well as wireless devices. So basically we can expect one less good game for all of those platforms this year because this game which will most likely be mediocre at best will take up a slot in the production schedule.

But what really baffles me is the fact that these games generally follow the plot of the film. If you saw the film then you technically know what is happening, and what should happen in the rest of it. So why do we need to play it if there's a film based on it? See this was the interesting thing about Enter the Matrix, even though the game was lackluster at best, it was outside the plot-line of the film but still tied into the film. It is also what makes games interesting, not knowing what is coming next. That is why Bioshock and Assassin's Creed were so successful this year. It's why The Simpsons Game is decent, and why the Half-Life series is classic. We didn't know what was coming next. Even with all the game trailers and promotional pieces that are used prior to the game launch we still wanted to know what was coming next.

In a game based on a film, if you have seen the film then, especially in the case of these CGI films, you have seen the game.  They are now sharing graphics, motion captures, scripts, voices and more. So basically they take the film, add in an element of interactivity and presto chango! It's a video game. 

So you can see the motivation can't you? Why make one product when you can make ten for only twice the money. They don't need so many animators, graphic artists, script writers, actors and such because they have all the pieces from the already developed CGI film. So the profit potential for the entire project shoots through the roof. And frankly, I don't think they give a crap what the gamers think. They know that people will buy the games and see the film and that's that. They don't care if the game is a rehash of the film. They don't care if it's boring or redundant they just want to plunge their hands into the enormous pile of cash that might be generated and pull out fat stacks of cash to line their pockets with.

This game will be the second in a four property deal between THQ and Disney•Pixar, the first being Ratatouille. Will THQ break the mold and score a hit or will it be the status quo and leave gamers feeling flat and disappointed. The Golden Compass (PS3) is scoring a massively disappointing 38 on MetaCritic at the moment, Beowulf a 51 on the Xbox 360. Oh and Ratatouille? Somewhere between 56 and 65 depending on the platform.

Personally I think I'll continue my boycott of these types of games. Perhaps we will get some copies for review and we will gladly look them over. But if the trend that has emerged of late continues I imagine they will be panned by critics and gamers alike, as they should be.

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