Disney's Bolt review

Andrew Williams

Disney's Bolt is just about the biggest family film around at the moment, but does the game stick to its audience?

Published on Sep 3, 2009

CGI films and family films, or kids’ films if you prefer, have virtually become synonymous with each other. In the summer season, you can hardly walk into a cinema foyer without tripping over a gargantuan cardboard cutout of a colourful CGI character.

Although not released in the summer season, Bolt is a character in this vein. He’s a TV star superdog, but where in his film you see him in the real world without his powers, this game takes place from within the TV show.

Therefore, you get to take advantage of his super-bark special move and unlikely strength. It’s a bog-standard platformer set over three worlds and twelve levels of running, jumping action.

The action rotates between allowing you to move freely around the environments and turning into a timing-based game where Bolt runs automatically. In these sections, you just need to jump, duck and dash at the right moments to get through the level.

It’s standard practice with these family film adaptations to make the gameplay very easy, mushing the game into so much baby food that’s easy to digest for the entire film’s demographic. Bolt bucks the trend here, but in doing so falls on its face.

There may be frequent continue points that mean you’ll always be able to trudge on, but that is largely what you’ll be doing- trudging. The timing sequences demand a precision that is made simply too frustrating because of the clumsy, unresponsive controls.

Apart from the occasional level where the game lets up a little on the difficulty front and hence becomes enjoyable, you’re left feeling like you’re working against the game, a one-on-one fight to see who is going to beat whom into submission.

It’s a pity because had Disney produced a bright and breezy platformer, as EA did with Kung Fu Panda, Bolt’s cinema audience would likely have been entranced. This game, on the other hand, is more likely to cause tears at bedtime.