Walt Disney Pictures Bolt

The conceit of the 2008 Disney film is that Bolt, a TV dog star, truly believes his on-screen powers work in real life. The game built on it has a neat structural hook: it splits its time between the show's heightened spectacle and the more grounded, stripped-down trek of a dog far from the studio lot.

The Bolt sections are the draw. He fights robots and henchmen in an action-adventure framework, using his famous Superbark and a burst of super-speed to clear groups of enemies and get past obstacles. It is simple stuff, built for younger players, with combat that rewards mashing more than timing. But the powers give the levels a bit of punch, and the show-within-a-movie setting justifies the big set pieces.

The game also lets you control other characters from the film, including the cat Mittens, who relies on stealth and climbing rather than brute force. That variety is the right instinct, since a whole game of barking at drones would wear thin quickly. Mittens' sections slow the pace and ask for a little more care, though they are also where the design feels thinnest.

Like most licensed games of the period, it was made to a film's release window and a family audience, and it plays that way. The PS2 version is a modest sibling to the versions on newer hardware, with plainer visuals and limited ambition. Levels are short, challenge is low, and repetition sets in well before the credits.

Still, there is a certain honesty in what it attempts. It never pretends to be more than a companion to the film, and children who loved the dog will find a competent, forgiving game that lets them be him for a few hours. As an artifact of the tie-in economy it is typical, and as a game it is an easy afternoon that does not outstay its welcome by much.