Genre: Action/Platformer
Publisher: THQ
Developer: Heavy Iron Studios
Release Date: June 26, 2007

I went into the review for Ratatouille knowing full well that it was a "movie game" and that, as such, there were certain concessions the developers had to make when beginning the development of the title. Movie games have a history of being underfunded and underdeveloped. One need only look so far as the Transformer game from last year to see how an IP that is practically designed for a video game can turn out to be quite mediocre. Armed with this knowledge, I still came away from Ratatouille thoroughly unimpressed. Heavy Iron Studios, like so many other movie game developers before them, effectively ruined an IP that could otherwise have been a decent children's platforming adventure. It's a shame, but it's not entirely unexpected.

Late last year, Disney/Pixar came to the big screen with their latest gold mine of a film, "Ratatouille." The story follows a rat named Remy whose sole desire seems to be to dine on exquisite foods from Paris. It's a fun plotline for a CGI movie primarily made for kids, but a difficult proposition for a video game that is loosely attempting to follow the same plotline. As such, there were certain niggling storyline problems, such as how to progress Remy's journey to becoming a chef without turning the franchise into a cooking game. It's a basic design flaw with the IP that makes for a difficult transfer to a game. Let's face it; the "Ratatouille" story line was not created with the intent of expanding into the video game arena, which might explain some of the problems that persist throughout the game. You can take nearly any Disney property and turn it into a half-decent platformer (Aladdin remains one of my all-time favorite Genesis games to date). Admittedly, making a decent game out of Ratatouille was a difficult task, but not an impossible one. Heavy Iron Studios wasn't up to the task, though.

Ratatouille is the few platformers available for the Xbox 360. With Call of Duty 4, Halo 3, Bioshock, and Half-Life 2: Orange Box all coming out within a few months of each other, the 360 is pretty much destined to be the "shooter" console of this generation. So it's actually kind of nice when we get a game for the console that is neither an FPS nor third-person shooter. Unfortunately, despite being in a genre that is largely non-competitive, Ratatouille still fails to find a place of its own. There are far better platformers to choose from on the Xbox 360 — Lego Star Wars immediately comes to mind. Despite being one of the few titles in its genre on the Xbox 360, Ratatouille still only manages to appeal to the most die-hard fans of the movie. Unless you go to bed wearing Ratatouille pajamas, in a Ratatouille-themed house, which happens to be located across the street from Disneyland, this game is probably not going to be for you. The basic principle stands: If you didn't really care for the movie, or didn't even see it, then this game has nothing for you.

Ratatouille starts off with one of the more intricate, and surprisingly fun, tutorials I have ever played. Tutorials are rarely fun, so it was quite nice to see the developers actually make this one into an adventure instead of a classroom. Unfortunately, the fun begins and ends with the tutorial, which starts off the game on the farm from the movie. Once in the game, you are immediately introduced to your father and brother, and your sibling proceeds to take you through the motions of the game. Typical tutorial fanfare events, such as how to jump and pick things up make the usual appearance, only with the added flavor of having the original voice actors from the movie. It makes for some interesting and surprisingly chuckle-worthy moments. All good things must come to an end, though, and once you're done with the tutorial, the actual game rears its ugly head.

Ratatouille loosely follows the story line of the actual movie, so you generally know what's happening throughout the game is pretty much what occurred in the movie. In doing so, however, there is a bunch of mechanics that come across as half-baked. One such mechanic is the double-jump ability, which is practically useless. While you get a taste for that displeasure in the tutorial, it's nothing compared to the real game, where the double-jump is required on a regular basis. On more than one occasion, I would need to double-jump to get onto this or that box, only to slide right back off. Only after a dozen or so attempts would Remy finally manage to grab onto the ledge and pull himself up. This might not sound like a huge issue, but when you are playing as a rat in an alleyway in Paris, you'll notice just how annoying this can get. There are boxes everywhere, and the entire "world" is as tall as it is long. Other issues, such as hit detection, also become an increasingly annoying issue. In a mission where you're required to lure away moths to get a light bulb, just being in the general vicinity of the moths will get you hurt, regardless of whether or not they're actually attacking you. Problems like these constantly plague the game and turn it from a fun-filled romp through Paris into a very frustrating experience.

Of course, everything has to have a silver lining, and Ratatouille is no exception. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the graphics and animation of the characters. While the graphics weren't on the same level as Call of Duty 4 or Gears of War they were definitely "next-generation." Remy and his brother each had a noticeably furry body, accompanied by slick textures in the alleyway, where most of your missions take place. If there is one thing that Heavy Iron Studios did right, it has to be the animations. Each of the characters in Ratatouille, especially Remy, moved very fluidly, as if they were from the actual movie, and I thoroughly enjoyed jumping around as Remy and watching him launch his way through the alley via the appropriately named "ratapult."

As good as the graphics and animations were, the sound was noticeably less so. Throughout the tutorial, I was quite pleased at the voice work of the actors. Patton Oswalt returned to do the voice acting for the game, which was quite a treat, but the developers didn't use him nearly enough, as a few hours into the game, I began frantically searching for the "mute voices" option in the menu. You see, Remy and his schizo-induced chef friend are constantly talking throughout the game, which isn't bad (in theory) because if a game is too quiet, it can start to get very lonely. What ended up happening was the developers kept recycling the same sound bites over and over again, which was enough to make me actually mute the game for long periods of time. The music was no better, either; while it's cheery and quite nice to hear the first time, it is, like the voice acting, very repetitive. The sound does Ratatouille no justice and it probably would have been better had the developer just neglected to include any sound at all.

Ratatouille is a mediocre platformer with very serious problems with its gameplay and sound elements. While the graphics are on par with an average Xbox 360 game, everything else falls well below that mark. The main game, coupled with a series of minigames, does absolutely nothing to add to the movie experience and comes close to tarnishing the film's memory. After playing the game for so long, I can't even fathom rewatching the movie right now — at least not until the nightmares pass of Oswalt telling me to go to Paris and eat cheese.

Score: 5.4/10