Product tie-ins, and brand spin-offs are nothing new in the world of games. Everybody from the Seven-Up Spot to the creepy Burger King has had their due in some form. The tastefulness they display while communicating their brand message usually goes a long way towards delivering a satisfying gameplay experience. If the player feels like he's being beaten over the head with an extra value meal, chances are he's going to view the game for the advertisement that it is and discard it. On the other hand, if the branding exists merely as the base from which the rest of the game is designed, there's a potential for success there. Lego games have traditionally enjoyed the good fortune of falling into that second category; utilizing the unique heritage those little blocks have had in rearing generations of young boys. Bionicle Heroes is careful to tow this line, and it gives the game an edge over other, similar offerings. For those unfamiliar, Bionicles are a series of gun-toting humanoid robots that have helped underscore Lego's effort to woo the hearts and wallets of young boys (and men, let's be honest here). Bionicle Heroes puts the player on an island where he is tasked with blasting his way through six levels of block-busting madness to recover six elemental masks from the evil Paraka, and get back the Mask of Light. The narrative itself leaves quite a bit to be desired, especially considering none of the game's characters are capable of speech, but it sets the stage reasonably well for the action that's to follow.

The game is basically composed of six separate zones, aligned with a specific element and accessible via a system of portals very reminiscent of Crash Bandicoot. Within each zone there are four sub-levels, each of which follows a familiar pattern leading to a fight against that zone's evil Paraka. To get through each level, you have to collect a certain number of Lego pieces to put you into a "hero mode," which gives you the ability to animate a series of golden piles of rubble and turn them into various large creatures who will then clear away obstacles and allow you to continue on. You can collect Lego pieces by destroying objects in the environment or bashing enemies to bits. The whole game, including most boss fights, follows this pattern, and players will become adept at gleaning the maximum possible number of Lego pieces from a battle to get to that hero mode as soon as possible.

Combat is waged from an over-the-shoulder perspective, which curiously has a bit of a learning curve. All of your weapons are of the projectile sort, and are simplified to a large degree by the automatic lock-on system. Instead of giving you free reign to aim and shoot as you please, you're more or less locked on to whatever you're pointed at for any given time. It's generally not a problem, but becoming accustomed to the system, especially when in combat with two or more enemies at a time, is a bit of a challenge. The different elemental masks give you different combat abilities. For instance, the green mask enables you to fire a beam at multiple enemies at once, where the rock mask enables you to fire powerful rockets.

In addition to governing your weapons, the masks also act as your life system. When your life drops down to zero, whatever mask you are wearing at the time is destroyed. Picking up a new mask will restore all your health, and also act as an additional life. You start each level with three masks, and can pick up more as you go along. Each mask has a secondary ability that allows you to traverse terrain or complete obstacles, so they're distributed fairly generously in areas where they are necessary for getting by. In fact, during most boss battles, there are masks available, and they respawn if they get destroyed during the fight. The sum of all this is essentially that it's impossible to die in this game without a concerted effort.

When you look at it, it's pretty clear that this is a game aimed at kids. The masks system is extremely forgiving, the levels are rigidly linear, the zone system is pretty repetitive and thus easy to follow, and the game has a sense of humor that, though amusing to adults, is clearly aimed at children. So as strange as plainly obvious as it seems to be saying this of a Lego game, I'll say it anyway. This game probably isn't for adults. There's a lot of fun to be had in Bionicle Heroes, and the price is definitely right, but ultimately this is a game you should be picking up for your kid brother for Christmas, and not for yourself. It's a game that's great at what it does, but put against the Gears of Wars of the world, doesn't pass muster.

Score: 70%

Dec 17, 2006 | 0 comments
Chris Chester