PlayStation 2

Ice Age 2: The Meltdown

No PC, os controles são um pouco confusos, principalmente na hora de manusear a câmera, mas nada sério. E, na verdade, essas questões muito pouco influenciam ou comprometem o resultado final, que é um jogo para os fãs de "A Era do Gelo 2" interagirem com os personagens e levarem a diversão além dos limites da telona.

Ice Age 2: The Meltdown is worth your attention if you’re a platformer fan who isn't also a platforming snob. The game delivers a fairly conventional adventure packed full of collect-a-thons and tried-and-true, been-here-and-done-that challenges. But it does them well. Control is tight, levels varied, and there are some genuinely funny moments, which is an uncommon trait of any videogame, let alone a so-called kids' game. Best of all to Ice Age fans, the entire experience is wrapped in a package that perfectly capitalizes on the license, from movie snippets and voice acting to bonus features and funny in-game animations. This is a charming little platformer.

For me, though, it's hard to qualify whether or not this game is ultimately enjoyable. As I already stated, it's not really targeted towards my age group, so many of the flaws that I notice may not matter to those who'll end up actually playing it. And, honestly, though it sounds like I'm totally bashing it, there's little to say about a mediocre game like this beyond what's wrong with it. Either way, the presentation is fairly good and it's free from the poor technical design that most movie cash-ins fall victim to. This is certainly no "Enter the Matrix." I guess, in the end, a little more involvement with the actual events of the film and some tweaks applied to the level design could've gone a long way. As it is, it gets points for being relatively decent, but it's nothing more than a conventional romp as far as actual gameplay goes.

At the end of the day this is the kind of game that actually gives industry cross-overs a good name. This is an extremely good use of a license and is frankly one of the better children's games that I have played in a long time. The charm of the film and its characters is all over the place here from start to finish thanks to the graphics and audio. Unfortunately the lack of innovation on the part of gameplay hurts the experience a bit. We've all played games exactly like this before and having a different coat of paint on the game isn't going to change the feeling of "been there, done that." Fans of the movie franchise will definitely want to check this one out, but if you're sick of traditional platformers then you'll probably want to skip it.

Don't get me wrong, Ice Age 2 The Meltdown is a fun game. The gameplay is solid enough for platformer fans and the license is implemented well enough for Ice Age fans to enjoy. But it's also rather short, and with only the license setting it apart from every other generic platformer on the market, there's no reason to buy when a simple rental will suffice.