Green Lantern: Rise Of The Manhunters

Like that girl you knew in high school, movie tie in games have a bad reputation. However, as time has gone by, they’ve grown slowly into legitimacy and become something that you’d happily bring home to meet the folks for Sunday dinner. Think I may have mixed up my analogies there, but the point remains; Green Lantern: Rise Of The Manhunters is a good game.

Made to release in conjunction with Warner Bros. “Green Lantern” movie, based on the DC Comics character of the same name, Green Lantern: Rise Of The Manhunters is on every perceivable platform. I have not seen the movie at time of writing, but I’m fairly certain that the game is spoiler free. In fact, apart from it being about Hal Jordan, Earth’s first member of the Green Lantern Corps., there doesn’t seem to be much in common with the movie. Oh, apart from Ryan Reynolds’ likeness and voice. Whilst you’d not really consider him the kind of guy that’ll be getting an Oscar nod any time soon, his performance in this game makes you realise how charismatic he can be in front of camera, compared to behind a microphone.

The game opens quite suddenly, and I think it is assumed that you have at least seen the film, as it abruptly tosses you into the fold with no real explanation of what’s happening. This might throw people off, but the game can at least boast quite handsome visuals. The environments look nice and act as a visually appealing but mostly non-distracting backdrop for the action. The action in this case feels very familiar; if I told you that the first information I received was that the Square button was for light attacks and Triangle button for hard attacks, you’d probably know exactly what to expect. What you probably won’t expect is the way in which moves can be cancelled. Practically anything you do in the game can be cancelled by rolling, blocking, drill-dashing or jumping. This allows you to be extremely offensive and then cancel into blocking or evading at the last possible second, to keep your combos going. The game definitely borrows aspects of popular games in the same genre, God Of War, Bayonetta, etc. Despite the DC Comics link, this game plays nothing like the Batman: Arkhym Asylum.  Like those other games, Green Lantern: Rise Of The Manhunters features a fixed camera which moves and zooms on rails as you travel and fight throughout the world. It helps to keep you focused on the goal ahead, is dynamic enough that it doesn’t interfere with combat too often, and is mostly glitch free. It still feels to me to be very last generation, and certainly felt a little tiresome at times.

As you kill enemies you earn experience towards a level, and points to spend on upgrades. As you level up you gain access to new upgrades and new “Constructs.” In layman’s terms, constructs are weapons that require the use of “Willpower,” which is essentially green mana. Constructs are not just used for unique battle scenarios, but for progressing through levels and solving puzzles. Upgrades unlock in a well paced manner, and are all fairly useful, even if they are occasionally replaced by a stronger but similar tool later in the game. The game also features a meter which fills as you hit enemies and are hit yourself. When this is full you can unleash a super charged mode that lasts until the meter runs out, where you can cause mass destruction and take less damage. It’s handy for large groups, but can make some boss fights silly. Activate, do strongest attacks, remove 60% of boss’ health for free.

The game is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. There are often invisible walls that stop you from exploring terrain that looks perfectly fine to walk on or jump over. The game’s “Helpful” hints, either via voice over or text on screen, will either repeat the same thing over and over whilst you are already doing it, or will obscure the view of what it is you’re trying to do. Many of the boss fights seem messy and poorly designed, spotting the pattern is occasionally tricky, and mid-game bosses can easily take off 30%+ of your health for one mistake. Some are frustratingly long, given that even working out the pattern and trying to punish can sometimes just fail miserably, as they attack with a move they’ve not done before and is hard to read. Whilst the occasional Starfox-esque levels are in-fact fairly good at breaking up the pace, they can be overly flashy and muddled. They were clearly designed to show off the fact that the game is 3D capable, but for the majority of players it’ll just seem like a mess. There are not many environments (three separate “worlds”) and not many different enemy types (at a rough guess, 15) which can make the whole thing seem a bit samey from start to finish.
But that’s about it for negatives. This game honestly surprised me. It’s a solid action game, it clocks in at about six-seven hours, it will give Green Lantern fans a nice look around the worlds from the comic, and make those with no interest in the series change their minds. It’s fun, it’s fluid, it’s rewarding, it’s good. If you’re a fan of this type of game, then there’s absolutely no reason to not get this. Hopefully this spells the end for bad tie-ins, but it probably says more about DC and Warner Bros’ ability to find someone to take care of their licenses.