It has become one of the gaming industry’s staple clichés – game and movie tie-ins produce some of the most shockingly abhorrent, broken messes of code and graphics that many of us refuse to even acknowledge as a part of our favourite pastime.
Rango, following on from Nickelodian Movies’ CG Animated movie of the same name, I figured, would be no different. Equipped with a smug, resolute expression on my face, and a plethora of scathing adjectives at my disposal, I popped the disk in and got down to it. And as I expected, the game is…wait… it’s not that bad? Wait, what? In fact…it’s not bad at all.
Let’s clear one thing up right at the start: Rango is a game for kids; though the actual content, much like the movie, has enough slyly placed references and allusions for us “grown-ups” to appreciate, and enough character and charm to stand on its own as a competent platformer.
Following its own narrative thread, Rango kicks off some time after the events in the movie, with Rango, the eccentric misfit to the Mojave Desert, settling into his role as Sheriff in the town of Dirt. Everything is as it should be – that is, until one of Dirt’s unfortunate residents finds himself seemingly vaporized by a mysterious green rock at the local Saloon. Of course the comically inept Rango has a good idea of what’s going on, and jumps at the opportunity to present his over-the-top (and moderately embellished) tales of the preceding week’s events.
Each new tale Rango presents a new and wonderful level to play through, with Rango’s ill-placed adjectives and penchant for dramatics providing some hilarious narration and making each set-piece fit perfectly into this spaghetti-western world. Whether it be chasing down that dirty cur, Bad Bill, through the bone yards; racing a road runner through the canyons as you close-in on a hijacked train; or even blowing up an onslaught of zombies as they bombard your barricades – you can’t help but appreciate the polish the developers have put into designing each level.
The later levels, in particular, are a visual wonderment – drawing some inspiration from Batman Arkham Asylum’s Scarecrow encounters and more than a little reference to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
What makes Rango a game “for kids”, though, boils down to the gameplay. Even on the highest difficulty, the game doesn’t present that much of a challenge to a typical player. The button-punching melee combat is pretty standard platformer fare, and your popcorn shooter gun essentially removes any challenge at all by providing you with unlimited ammo with a brief “reload” time (which can be subsequently upgraded to be a negligible wait).
Thankfully, there is enough variation in the enemies you face to not want to gouge your own eyes out from boredom. Some enemies will attack you from afar, while others will get all up in your business at close-range, requiring you to find the right balance and order of elimination to acquire the biggest combo streak.
A bigger combo streak means more sheriff stars. Yes, this is a platformer, and as such it has collectables; let’s just be thankful that it isn’t fruit, for a change. The sheriff stars you collect can be spent to upgrade your health, your shooter and the duration of the shooter upgrades you get throughout the levels. Funnily enough, you can also use the stars to upgrade the amount of stars you actually get after killing enemies, breaking crates or mining.
Each level has a certain amount of mining spots and fishbowls for you to find, being the proverbial “precursor eggs” of Rango’s world – providing bonuses and extra content such as concept art, character models and new outfits. For the most part, sticking with the “for kids” theme, these “hidden collectables” aren’t, well, that hidden and only provide a brief distraction.
But it’s not all just button-mashing combat – there are segments to some levels where Rango will “rail grind” – where you’re expected to jump and duck and dodge obstacles in your path; or perhaps he will play a mini round of golf, where you need to club an explosive bug at the required target. The real gem of these mini-games, though, is the “golden bullet” – where you take control of a special bullet in slow-mo, and direct it towards a number of successive targets, getting “bullseye!” bonuses along the way.
The only place that Rango well and truly falls short, even from a kid’s perspective – is the disappointly short play-time. Even a seven-year-old double amputee should be able to play through Rango’s entire story in about 6 hours. The higher difficulty may extend that by a couple of hours, but even then, the level of quality in the game just begs for much more. And as a full-price title, you simply expect more from it.
You want to see more levels, more of the special set-pieces and more of a challenge – and you definitely want to see more of the characters – especially the Mariachi Owls, whose sing-song scorn are a welcome feature throughout the levels.
Rango doesn’t break any new ground; it’s not going to redefine a genre and it’s definitely not going make up for every movie-to-game adaptation that has burnt us in the past. But what it will do, in the criminally brief time it gives you, is charm the brassiere off anyone who gives it a chance. With simple, solid game-play; memorable characters; excellent audio and voice acting – and some literally out-of-this-world level designs – Rango kinda makes me wish that I was a kid again.
