Shrek the Third: The Mobile Game

Shrek
We’re doing a little tour of some popular movie-to-game translations here at QuicklyBored, and the next game in the roster is Gameloft’s Shrek the Third: The Mobile Game. For those of you who have been living on the moon under a rock with Plaster of Paris in your ears while wearing a blindfold, Shrek is Dreamworks’ uncouth ogre protagonist who speaks with a Scottish brogue and seeks pretty much what most of us seek: To be left alone and do what he feels like in the privacy of his own home. Shrek the Third is the third movie in the series and once again brings the sarcastic-but-sanitized brand of humor that is Shrek’s hallmark to life on the big screen and product tie-ins everywhere.

Shrek the Third: The Mobile Game puts you in Shrek’s gigantic shoes and marches you through the land of Far Far Away on Shrektastic adventures. Along the way, Shrek will encounter challenges such as Prince Charming’s armed guards, hard-to-reach prizes or powerups, angry fire-tossing witches and various other problems. Shrek keeps himself alive and vanquishes foes by running and jumping, but also by jumping into the air and stomping or rolling in ball to knock down walls and enemies, ten-pin style. There’s also a nifty flying level where you play the girly, love-sick dragon from the films and engage in some aerial combat with witches who do the evil bidding of the sinister Prince Charming.

The game is a 2D side-scrolling “platform jumper”, which means that you make Shrek leap from one platform to the next in an attempt to move forward through his adventures while avoiding other obstacles and hazards under your feet. It’s reminiscent of other games in the same genre by competently using tried-and-true controls to keep the player going: Up to jump, down to crouch, left and right, and some special moves such as jump-stomping or rolling. What’s nice is that the game provides tips for players as to what controls should be done at a certain time. For instance, to break through a stone floor, the game displays a 2 over Shrek’s head (to indicate that one should jump) and then an 8 (to indicate that he should then use his special “stomp” action to break the floor). This is particularly helpful for smaller children and absent-minded adults who might need an extra helping hand from time to time. It’s not a complex or difficult game, but that’s hardly a check in the “con” column: Nice, simple gameplay suits a mobile device just fine, especially when talking about a franchise that’s likely to be attractive to a younger audience.

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