Wow! I’m slow! There’s only (at present) two games out to review, yet I’m still only on Protector of the Earth… no, no, wait, I just got Alien Force so I’ll be reviewing that as well shortly. Well let’s get to it.

Set back in the time of the original Ben 10 series, we find young Ben (still on that long road trip of discovery and alien fighting with Grandpa Max and Gwen) having the life sucked out of his Omnitrix by a robotic mosquito thing, only for him to wake up with alien bots attacking and most of the power of the Omnitrix sucked away. Having to regain the Omnitrix’ powers, Ben and company go on a road trip to recover it (along with alien forms lost by the stealing of the Omnitrix power), all the while fighting the forces of both Season One villain whathisname… sorry, I forgot… and the forces of the Forever Knights (who should be on Ben’s side but keep getting in his way). And yes, the original voice cast reprise their roles in this game, which is a plus. Another plus is that the game features short animation clips from the show as unlockable bonuses… not bad.

On the

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downside the game is rather low on the intelligence scale, a beat em up Wiimote Waver and nothing more (though I would not actually wave the Wiimote too much as it seems, in this game, Ben 10’s greatest enemy is… gravity and long falls Wille E. Coyote style…). You do get to use the Omnitrix, but even that is askew in certain ways. For one thing Ben has 10 transformations in the show, but in this game he only has 5 (though the last one I am pretty certain is a new form I don’t remember from the show). Another thing is that once Ben drains his power he is supposed to be vulnerable… not good in a beat-em-up game so while you can drain Ben’s powers in alien form he can always recharge them by beating up the right aliens and gathering the right energy orbs. Also even if drained if you stay away from enemies for a few seconds you’ll find the Omnitrix recharges rather quick (only a handful of seconds to recharge as opposed to however long it is on the TV Series). This of course is perfect for the fast paced button mashing of this game, but not

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so accurate on series “mechanics” per se.

You have a few different boss battles, but for the most part the enemies are only a few sets of enemies (a lot of them repainted and rearmed over and over again to make different types of enemies out of a few basic archetype designs). So you’ll end up fighting the same robot enemy or same Forever Knight enemy quite abit, with only some standouts like plant creatures here or certain custon Forever Knight higher up enemies there (not much in the way of gaming variety).

And while the plat forming beat-em up format is a nice pace for an action game based on an action show, it also means this game has real little replay value once you finish it (though you are working hard to unlock a ton of extras which can’t be unlocked on just one play through of each level, so there is a level of replay in the game but only as long as you are working to unlock all the extras).

There is two player co-op in this game, but I personally can’t find a person to co-op play with so I guess if you live in a house with more than

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one Ben 10 fan this mode will actually be useful… not useful for me though, but I’m sure somebody will find co-op mode useful.

Overall the game is a basic beat-em-up and has a few merits, but just not enough for my taste. So average is as average does, but still a 3 out of 5. Why? Well first off the original voice cast is here, so that’s a plus. Then there’s actual animation footage from the TV Series (though all I see so far are transformation sequences and some cutscenes, though I do hope there’s more to this than just that if I plow further ahead in the game and unlocked more content). That and the game is alright for a plat former slash button masher, just not perfect.

Sadly I am sure the next game, Ben 10 Alien Force, is also a button masher plat former game but… well, we’ll see won’t we. When I review it. Otherwise Ben 10 : Protector of Earth gets 3 Oh My God What Are You Cooking?! Exclamations of horror at Grandpa Max’s cooking out of 5... No, really dude, what the hell is that!! Isn’t there some intergalactic ban on eating stuff like that?! DAMN!!