Ratatouille
From THQ

Ratatouille is based on the Disney/Pixar film and brings the fun and laughs of the movie to your Nintendo Wii. Ratatouille features an acrobatic rat named Remy who must balance his love for cooking with loyalty to his family. Features major voice talent from the film

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3298 in Video Games
• Brand: THQ
• Published on: 2007-06
• Released on: 2007-06-26
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platform: Nintendo Wii
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .57" h x 5.40" w x 7.51" l, .36 pounds

Very Nice Movie-Themed Game
Typically, I'm not a huge fan of movie-themed games. However, this is a good one! Not fantastic, but good. The graphics are quite nice (in terms of the Wii) and the dialogue and storylines are entertaining. Not a difficult game to play for an adult. I had hoped it would be simple enough for my younger children. But, ages 6 and up should be just fine. Ratatouille uses both the Wii-mote and the nunchuck controllers and at least four buttons across both controllers. My biggest complaint is that the game does not make the most out of the Wii controllers. Most of the gameplay could be done on a keyboard on a PC-based game. There are a few rudimentary adaptations of the wii controllers unique capabilities in both the main game and the mini-games, such as pointing at vegetables that need to go into a soup pot. Hardly the innovations we have come to expect from Wii mini-games. Nevertheless, its an enjoyable game. Solid gameplay and good stroytelling make this a game that can hold your interest. I continue to maintain that movie-themed games would benefit from having a lower price-point than mainstream games, since few of them live up to the production standards of other titles. However, this is one of the more enjoyable movie-themed titles I've played and if you were a huge fan of the movie, you will enjoy the game. I have to admist, I really liked the "smell-o-vision" graphic representations.

Eh
The game play was nice. It starts out in a fun way. It does get repetitive though, and easily boring.
The main reason why I wanted to play this game was for the multi player. Unfortunately you have to unlock it. I've completed 60% of the game and used the unlock codes for the multi player and it still wont let me play. I'm disappointed that this yet another game where you have to unlock multi player. Can we please get some games out there that you don't have to end the game three thousand times before you can play with your friends?

3.5; fun for the kiddies, pleasant for everyone else
Another Pixar movie, another tie-in. And like a lot of tie-ins, they tend to be more based on using the license rather than making a solid game. The Incredibles was a pretty alright game but its frustration factor and repetitiveness was aggravating and Cars was kind of a boring racing game. Now we can finally get into platformers which will no doubt please the kiddies. How much fun they have or even how much you'll have will probably be slightly minimal. It's a fun game but it's been done better although maybe not as cuter.



Story: Remy is a thin blue rat living in France. Thanks to a mishap, he ends up in the sewers of Paris. Nearby is the restaurant Gustave's, the late owner being Remy's hero who's slogan "anyone can cook" gets him on the mission to become a great chef. But who would let a rat cook, let alone cook in a restaurant in France? Well lowly kitchen worker Linguini would and both of them fulfill their dreams of both of them becoming a great chef.



Graphics: Like a lot of Wii games, the graphics here look nice but maybe not at the level as top-tier games such as Gears of War or Twilight Princess. In-game cinematics can range from pretty well-done and textured to almost blurry and kind of too much light bloom. But gameplay is quite animated with my favorite animation being Remy's feet when he turns sharp corners.



Sound/Music: Very well done actually, normally I kind of tune out the music but using a French inspiration with instruments such as musettes, the music is quite nice to listen to. Voice acting is of course spot on with Patton Oswalt providing the voice of Remy, Lou Romano as Linguini and Janeane Garafalo as Colette, a fellow chef Linguini likes. Unlike some tie-ins like the Spider-Man series, these VA's seem genuinely interested in giving good performances and not just "I'm just doing this for the kids".



Gameplay: Where the game suffers or excels depending on who old you are. Controlling Remy with the control stick, Z button is used to make him sprint like a rat out of hell (I just had to use that pun) and C for the camera. On the Wii-mote, A is used for jumping while B is kind of like Zelda's context-sensitive button such as using spoons as a weapon, boxes for shield or interact with things in the environment. Shaking the controller makes Remy do a spin attack, perfect for bags and bugs.



The game is quite repetitive. Remy's in a Parisian area, has to coordinate with rats which will end in getting a big haul of food. Afterwards you go through a pipe to head back home in the sewers. It's not that the game doesn't have an inviting atmosphere with all the cute rats everywhere but after awhile you feel like "oh boy, here comes those aggravating chase scenes again". The fun parts though are the mini-games in the kitchen as Remy as to control Linguini and make food which range from a cake using DDR-like moves to yes or no choice salads and rotating potatoes and waving up and down to cut them. These are probably the more funner segments even though there's not a whole lot of different ones.



Make no mistake, despite its Disney/Pixar name, this thing can get aggravating. From its end-level chase scenes to the special levels up in the sky, there's going to be lots of re-tries. But despite that, it's still a game your kids will like although adults might not find much depth.