Shrek Forever After the Game: The Final Chapter - Wii, 360, PS3 - Review

The fourth and final chapter to Shrek's epic fairytale comes to Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3- as well as the portables. While it's easy to write off what is potentially yet another cheap movie tie-in game, you might want to at least give it a second glance. How does Shrek Forever After perform on game consoles?

Fiona is now the leader of the ogre faction, Puss is obese, and Donkey is... well, Donkey. Team up with those three as Shrek and prepare to take on Rumplestiltskin and all his minons. The game is clearly influenced by the Marvel Ultimate Alliance series, considering the four player co-op top-down beat 'um style. Well, except without the Marvel Heroes. And the originality. And the epic crossover plotlines. And the polish.

Shrek Forever After: The Game is essentially a five hour long co-op campaign made up of screens of bad guys and the occasional puzzle to tackle. The plat-forming is minimal and not too challenging- which is fine, the game is targeted at younger audiences after all. You won't really have to scratch your head over the 'flip the switch' puzzles- nor will you be biting your bottom lip in frustration over the combat sequences.

Grab three friends and three extra controllers and Shrek Forever After actually becomes a pretty high-end movie game. That isn't exactly a shining compliment, but for younger gamers with frugal parents, it's definitely a worthy choice. You'll find the co-op pretty satisfying as you and your friends take on the two worlds within the game, back to back and fighting to survive.

The locales you traverse are typical for the fairytale setting, You've got swamps, forests, castles, and battlefields. Graphically they're all decent- by no means pushing the envelope nor consoles to their limit. It does manage to be not-ugly for the most part. Now and then you'll get a look at a highly unappealing character model or a dull setting, but usually it's passable. The palace and bridge segments tend to be the highlight in terms of visuals- the first hour itself is also the most polished.

Now come the downsides- you knew this was coming. The combat is very basic and grows repetitive quickly. The characters are all different enough, it's just that they aren't particularly expansive in terms of movesets. The audio is nothing special- which comes as no surprise. The controls could have been tightened, but it's really the occasional hiccup in hit detection is a greater problem.

Finally Shrek Forever After's main disappointment is the humor. It isn't that funny. It relies on bad puns usually repeated every two minutes by the cast. It just isn't as funny as the actual Shrek movies. If you're looking for a 4 player co-op adventure for a fan of Shrek, this will definitely do the job.