Anilrgowda

Believe it or not, there was once a day that saw children’s games dominating the industry. Heck, not only did they dominate the industry, but they were pretty much the only option available to gamers. Before long, the mature themed games of today took over, and in the blink of an eye the little tykes were kicked to the curb in favor of massive amounts of hemoglobin and brain matter.

Luckily, some developers are still taking notice of the youngest demographic out there, and every so often – especially during the Christmas season – we get a few child-friendly games. Bionicle Heroes appears to be this season’s best shot at delivering some light-hearted action, with simple control mechanics and plotlines that are about as offensive as a Barney marathon. The fact that the famous LEGO developer, Traveler’s Tales, is developing the game doesn’t exactly hurt either. The studio’s past efforts include the two LEGO Star Wars games that were as fun as they were kid-friendly. Can Bionicle Heroes pull off the same feat, or is the game too cute and easy for its own good? Take the lollipop out of your mouth and read on to find out. Overall Gameplay Impressions

There’s a good amount of fun to be had within Bionicle Heroes, supposing that you can get through the slightly annoying control dynamics. There are enough masks that the gameplay feels fresh for most of the time, and the variety of enemies helps as well. The different worlds bring their own unique feel, and the ability to replay levels to collect as many LEGO pieces as possible will please the perfectionists out there. Kids will like the bionic look of the characters, and parents will like the harmless action. As a standalone video game, Bionicle Heroes may not by the proverbial cat’s meow, but as a lighthearted children’s game, parents could do much worse.


Graphics

The visual look of Bionicle Heroes is actually slightly reminiscent of Microsoft’s Gears of War. The camera is pulled in tightly over the character, though still in a third-person perspective. The action is fairly quick, but won’t be problematic for younger players, which also helps keep the framerate nice and steady. The visual look of each of the worlds and the enemies stay fresh throughout the course of the game. An odd thing to mention is the use of motion blur. For whatever reason, whenever the camera swings around the environment the surrounding world smears around the hero. Now, we understand that developers are in love with things like motion blur and depth of field, but this is a bit much. Overall the visual feel isn’t bad, but it’s clear that this Xbox 360 game didn’t have a large budget.


Audio

Aurally, the game is a bit on the subdued side. Sound effects could use a bit more bang, but it’s understandable that the developers wanted to keep things unoffensive to young ears. The Piraka are well acted, with some cool evil laughter that is just lighthearted enough to not scare young players, but is still nice and diabolical. The musical score is respectable, but like the rest of the game, doesn’t exactly make you feel like you’re playing a high-profile product.


The Bottom Line

Bionicle Heroes is a fun game that will keep young gamers busy for a good while. There’s nothing for parents to be worried about, which might just be a selling point in its own right. While the game can’t really stand on its own, when compared to the rest of the childrens’ games on the Xbox 360 (there really aren’t any) Bionicle Heroes fares pretty well. The LEGO elements are just as fun as ever, and the advent of the masks provides solid variety. A few control issues notwithstanding, Bionicle Heroes is a worthy addition to a game library that is probably totally devoid of titles for the little ones of the house.





Fun and light-hearted action populate this one. Some odd control mechanics hamper the fun factor a bit.






The motion blur is a little annoying, but otherwise the game world is fluid and colorful.






The Piraka sound cool, and the music is decently pieced together, but the action effects seem a little muddled.






There’s a decent amount of levels to traverse, but beyond some nice unlockables, there really isn’t much else to do.






We’ve seen games like this before, but it’s nice to see a kid-friendly title make its way onto the Xbox 360.










Gameplay

The story of Bionicle Heroes should be taken lightly, as it’s not exactly a focal point of the gameplay. It’s nice having a guideline as to what you’re doing, but there aren’t any complex story arcs for the little ones to worry about. Essentially, you play as a Toa, who are the good guys. The bad guys are known as Piraka, and both races of creatures are going after something called the Mask of Life. The setting is the island of Voya Nui, which happens to house a world of LEGO-built objects, all of which can be destroyed, and their parts can be collected. The more LEGO pieces you collect, the more unlockables you'll get once the level finishes. On top of that, there’s also a meter that fills as you collect more LEGO bits, and once filled, you’ll don the Hero Mask, thus bestowing a world of awesome powers to the player.

In case you haven’t figured it out, masks are a large part of the game. As you traverse the game space, you’ll stumble across several different masks. Each of these masks bestows different powers on the player. They’re conveniently color coded in a way that allows you to pretty much guess the theme of the powers you’re going to get. The light blue mask gives you an ice ray, the red mask allows for fire abilities, and so on and so forth. There are also spots where only certain masks can build the bits of LEGOs into a final structure. You can easily switch between masks with either the bumpers or the Y button, so there’s always a bevy of weapons at your disposal.

Where Bionicle Heroes runs into a bit of trouble is in the basic action that you’ll be dealing with for a large portion of the adventure. First of all, there’s an auto-targeting mechanic that points a green laser at your next target. You can’t control the beam’s gaze at all, and sometimes it can fire at the wrong enemy. Then there’s the interesting choice of not allowing your character to strafe. For whatever reason, both the left and right analog stick turn your character when shifting from left to right. I’ve got to think, that even for kids, the dynamic of strafing would have been easy enough to grasp. As it stands, it can be a little trickier than it should be to get around the environment.

Just as LEGO Star Wars before it, Bionicle Heroes presents an easy to use level selection tool, something that is also conducive to replaying levels that you enjoyed. Essentially, there’s a common area that your hero can run around in, browsing through the different levels as you go. There are different worlds to discover, each of which has a final boss at the tail end that needs to be toppled.