POSTED 24/1/11


SPARE PARTS

EA
PS3/PSN (also on Xbox 360/XBLA)

Take ToeJam & Earl, defunkify them, clone another Clank, bung ’em in a 3D platformer and BAM! We call it Clank & Clank; EA call it Spare Parts.

Hey, that’s probably our most succinct game summation ever! This download title does have something that helps it avoid a crust of averageness forming on the hard drive space its 1GB+ wallows upon though, Simon Pegg. Yes, he who had red on him voices a spaceship computer named Conrad, which sounds like pretty much any other spaceship computer (save for Red Dwarf’s Holly). He has some fun with it, providing guidance – and shitloads of excuses for inability - to your character, a generic, Number Five-like bucket o’ bolts called Mar-T.

You can trudge through the game’s five main zones solo, or call upon a local or online partner who’ll grease up Chip and go co-op with you. In fact, if you want to complete things properly you’ll need to buddy-up, something that always makes us emit a grunt like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino.

Story? The premise really is reminiscent of the first outing of SEGA’s seemingly forgotten megastars, the aforementioned ToeJam & Earl – crashed spaceship, search for parts. That’s it.

We have to balance that, in Australia, Spare Parts is a reasonably affordable $15.95 downloadable title (although it’s only $9.99 in the USA – hello McFly, parity?!) with our opinion that, ultimately, it’s also just average. It’s pretty in a PS2 kinda way, but suffers from the worst malaise that can infect a 3D universe – zilcho control over the camera, which leads to more cheap deaths than a Steven Seagal marathon (and the right stick equipment menu making innumerable unwelcome appearances).

Spare Parts isn’t shocking, it just needed more screwdriver.

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