Ben 10 - Alien Force

The cartoon's whole tension came from a ten-minute limit: Ben gets one alien, one window, then he's a kid again. The PS2 game throws that out. Hold a shoulder button, the action slows, and a wheel of aliens opens up for you to pick from at will. Swampfire, Humungousaur, Big Chill, Jetray, Spidermonkey — each with its own attack set, each swappable mid-fight as often as you like. It is a sensible choice for a licensed brawler and a slightly deflating one for anyone who watched the show for the ticking clock.

What that wheel is really for is puzzle-gating. Progress stalls on a wall of ice, a vent too small for a human, a gap that needs flight, and the answer is always to cycle to the right body. Humungousaur shoulders through barriers, Big Chill freezes water into platforms, Spidermonkey climbs webbing. Papaya Studio built the levels as corridors punctuated by these small locks, with arenas in between where DNAliens pour in and you clear them out. The combat is three-button simple, with a charged special per alien and a lock-on that does most of the aiming for you.

It was aimed squarely at children who had just watched the Alien Force season premiere, and it plays like it. Enemy encounters end when the counter empties rather than when you have outfought anyone, checkpoints are generous, and the camera is the most consistent opponent in the game, especially in the vertical climbing sections where it swings wide and loses Ben behind geometry.

Still, the alien roster is handled with real care. The character models are chunky and readable, the transformation flash is quick enough not to interrupt a fight, and the voices are the television cast, which mattered enormously to the audience this was made for. Sixth-generation cartoon tie-ins rarely got that far.

As a brawler it is thin. As a toy box of five bodies to try on and knock things over with, it does the one job it was hired for.