N-Philes

Disney's PK: Out of the Shadows

Posted by Archived.

Something very strange has happened recently in video games; Disney characters are popping up all over the place. First was the Squaresoft-developed Kingdom Hearts, an RPG with everything Disney. Konami proceeded to release a whole line of Disney Sports games, including football and basketball among others, for the Gamecube and Game Boy Advance. Following this trend, Ubi Soft released a game based on Donald Duck as a superhero, Disney's PK: Out of the Shadows. As odd as the concept may sound, it is in fact based on an Italian comic book series. In North America, however, PK is still a duckling, new to this world and still has to prove himself worthy.

Story

Before Donald was PK, he was a security guard. While sleeping on the job, like any good security guard does, he has a dream that he is a super hero. He wakes up, still thinking that he is dreaming, as a computer called One is offering to turn him into a super hero. This is no dream though. Without getting the chance to say no, Donald is transformed into PK (short for the Latin "Platyrhynchos Kineticus" which in English loosely translates to Duck of Energy). One is about to start him on his superhero training, but before he gets the chance, an alien race called Evronians attack the earth. It is up to PK to stop the Evronians and save our little green planet.

Gameplay

Saving the world is not an easy task for any ordinary duck, but PK doesn't fit that description. With the help of a special gadget that he wears, PK traverses the worlds and levels set before him in hopes to repel the Evronians and send them back to where they came from. Just defeating the Evronians won't stop them, as they have also kidnapped scientists. Unless PK rescues forty of them, Earth will still be re-colonized by its enemies. How exactly these scientists change anything is a conundrum of its own, but that is how it is, and so PK must do it or else face an Evronian Earth. Saving the scientists is no simple matter -- as there are tracer beams, and if PK is detected, a timer will start counting down. PK must save the scientists in range of that specific tracer before time runs out or the scientists will die. It is not that big a deal as there are sixty scientists total and PK only needs to rescue forty. If he happens not to be able to save twenty of them the world will still be a safe place to live in.

Actually defeating the Evronians is a varied matter as there are various types of Evronians, some being easier to defeat than others. The easiest ones have to be shot four or five times, while the more difficult ones have to be shot fifteen or twenty times. Some carry shields, and the only way to defeat them is to power up a shot which will subsequently break the shield, at which point PK must shoot them ten times. There are also flying Evronians and more evasive Evronians; but yet again, all it takes to defeat them is to shoot them when they stand still. PK also gains access to different ammunition as he progresses. The problem is that the strongest one is used first, so there is no option to save up heavier ammo for stronger Evronians. Even if PK was just shooting a panel to open a door he still must use the best ammo he has, which is a huge waste since it is limited, unlike the most basic weaponry.

As for other upgrades PK has, they are all recognizable from another Ubi Soft franchise: Rayman. PK has a hover move by opening his cape, which will allow him to glide; similar to Rayman's helicopter move, although some of the jumps can be frustrating. He also gains the ability to hang off of and swing around on little balls that hang in the air, yet again akin to an ability in Rayman. Even the way he shoots is very similar, as there is a pause between shots and powering up shots will make him stay in one place. Unfortunately the game is not as much fun as Rayman. There is a low same amount of variation with only one mini-game throughout the entire game. In this mini-game, PK has to direct Rex, a small hovercraft released from your X-transformer, through a maze of sorts. By making left and rights, PK must direct Rex to a panel that will open a door for PK to proceed through. The real problem is that each left and right is a 90-degree turn, so executing the turns are very awkward. If the character was actually controlled fully this could have been an interesting mini-game, but it was not to be.

The entire adventure isn't that long and probably can be completed in one night. It isn't very difficult and is very straightforward, with no real alternate routes or missions on the side. Even getting all the scientists the first time through is not difficult. If one is missed though, it is not possible to go back to that specific level, so the only way to get all the scientists is to completely restart the level. Even with the fact that the scientists are all fairly easy to get, problems still crop up due to some problems with jumping. Those instances were the only times I missed scientists, when I couldn't line up the jumps correctly. There are also green orbs to collect, but these are for checkpoints only, with no real indication of how many there are in an entire level. There is a counter in the bottom of the screen, but this is only for how many you need per checkpoint, fifteen, and the counter can exceed that number if more are collected before a checkpoint is reached. In fact, the counters are strange, as they don't count how many scientists there are, but rather how many you need. The counter after each level shows X/40 scientists, but this number can be exceeded by collecting every scientist. Other than perhaps replaying to try and get all sixty scientists, there is no reason to re-play this game and nothing special given after it is beaten.

Visuals

Following the comic book style that Disney's PK is based on, the game uses cel-shading to convey a similar look. In general, the look is quite good and vibrant. This isn't steady enough still, as a lot of the enemies looks very comparable to each other and aren't assorted. The same problem can be said about the worlds and levels. While the beginning of each level looks different, once you get into a world it seems to be the same basic metal dungeon type setting. Otherwise, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of anything special going on.

The other point to be made with the visual aspect is in the cinemas. They aren't consistent at all, some being cel-shaded with others being 3D animated. There seems to be a steady problem with the use of cel-shading in the cutscenes in the first place, as I never saw a good one. The one positive thing to be said about the cutscenes is that they follow a comic book style by having different smaller boxes not filling up the whole screen. The colors in Disney's PK are flat and drab, and the artwork is horrid. The mouths aren't on synch with the voice at all. It looks more like lips flapping than speaking. On the other hand, when the characters are 3D animated it's not much better. The character models are made very simplistically, and have boring texturing.

Audio

The music in this game is actually fairly good. It has a good beat, doesn't get too repetitive, and most importantly, doesn't get annoying. It's not epic for a superhero story in the least. The same can be said about the sound effects. Shots from PK's X-transformer, footsteps, and other effects are done well though.

There is one big downside to the sounds of Disney's PK, the voice acting. It starts off sounding fairly decent in the opening few minutes. Whoever voiced Daisy was too over the top, but Huey, Dewey, and Louie are voiced fairly well. The best voice, though, is Donald. Whoever did that voice got it perfect, with his talk-squawk. Where it all goes wrong is when Donald meets One. One is voiced well enough, a fine generic performance. When Donald turns into PK though, he gets a new voice. It's not a variation of a Donald voice, even, but a brand new normal voice. It's awful and ruins the whole fun of playing as Donald Duck when he speaks. If he would have sounded like Donald the whole time, it would have been so much better.

This game gets an N-Philes score of D-.

Disney's PK is a simplistic platformer meant for kids. As a kid's game it isn't too bad. The levels are easy enough to get through and not overly frustrating. In the end, the game is too short and not enough fun to be recommended for anymore than a desperate rent. You might find it entertaining for a short time if you are a huge fan of Donald.

Posted in: Reviews

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