Return to Earth Reviewed
The Doctor Who Wii game Return to Earth is released today in the UK we had high hopes that this would be a game actually worthy of the Doctor Who name. Reviews are now surfacing and, sadly, it’s not good news.
This extract of Official Nintendo Magazine’s review tells all –
Playing Return To Earth is a profoundly miserable experience. The story’s abysmal, an incoherent, contrived excuse to throw the big villains in.
The script is also bad – odd lines of excruciatingly awkward dialogue sandwiched between tech-babble whose only purpose is to explain the irrelevant, repetitive gameplay.
The story: Cybermen have commandeered a ship containing humanity. It’s your job, as Amy and The Doctor, to use your sonic screwdrivers on coloured smiley faces floating around the ship.
Hang on, Amy has a sonic screwdriver now? Floating smileys? What? But that’s all the game is: load your screwdriver with coloured crystals, and shoot similarly coloured floating faces.
Some levels end with a game where you roll a ball through a maze, or an asteroid blasting game. Some stages try to create a stealth element, but stealth only works if your enemy has an inkling of intelligence. These Cybermen love nothing more than staring at a wall.
Or how about this one from N-Europe –
Doctor Who: Return to Earth is not fun to play at all. It’s incredibly basic and yet frustratingly difficult for all the wrong reasons. The entire crystal/orb system is incredibly out-of-place and removes any feeling that you’re interacting with the environment. If I had to describe Return to Earth in one word it would be “evil”. Parents will likely see this game and, due to the fact that Doctor Who is on the box, will buy this for their kids as a Christmas present. It certainly feels as though Asylum know this, and have churned out any old rubbish as working hard on it won’t be much more profitable. Just think of all the kids that will be over the moon when they open this on Christmas day, only to have their hearts completely destroyed when they start playing it.
Well, at least there’s the fourth Doctor Who Adventure Game still to come.
If you’ve played Return to Earth, let us know what you think in the comments.
