Ice Age 4 Continental Drift Artic Games Review

With the new film hitting the cinemas, Activision have published a new Ice Age game targeted at the younger audience but also good for those of an older age. The aim of the game is to play against the opposition and win events in the “Olympics” to win a decent pile of food. The game appears on different platforms, but my preference is using the Kinect.

There is no option with this game to play with the use of a controller, so make sure you have the energy to jump about and run on the spot. Although limited in the number of mini games it does not lack in the energy used if played enthusiastically.

There are three different modes to choose between;

• Story

This mode allows you to choose which team you would like to represent (herd/crew). Once you have chosen you take part in the arctic games in order to win the treasure (in this case food) throughout 10 mini games. In between these games there are cut scenes to explain the story as to which is taking place, but if you are not to interested in this it is possible to skip through them and move straight on to the next section.

• Free play

Here you can choose to play by yourself or with a friend to compete in the mini games. You can freely choose which games to would like to play giving you the opportunity to master the techniques.

• Tournament

This mode is similar to story mode but the opposing team is controlled by another living person.

Some games include:

• Curling – use your arm to throw a turtle down the ice, aiming to land within the target space.
• Slalom – move yourself from side to side aiming to dash between the posts.
• Ski jump – build up speed as much as you can, once at the end jump and in the air copy poses that appear on screen to obtain more points.
• Races – run, jump, duck and stop to work your way through the course to beat the completion time of the opposite team.

Gameplay

I felt the game became quite repetitive after playing the mini games through once, I don’t think I would be able to play through the games again for a while (but that’s just my personal opinion, you never know till you try after all), as I wouldn’t want them to lose their fun factor. Also I found that some games were a lot harder in comparison to others which became slightly frustrating when the instructions were not as clear as they perhaps could have been.

Graphics

The graphics were done well, but at some points throughout the game they did not seem as fluid as in other sections and at times the characters looked to be uncomfortable. However they weren’t too bad, they resembled the characters in the films, you could easily see what was going on and for kids it wouldn’t pose as an annoyance.

Sound 

I thoroughly liked that they used the character voices from the films, it is always lovely but that’s pretty much the only part that stood out in the game. The characters voices encouraging you along became repetitive and quite frequents as well, especially when you did something wrong.

Closing comments

I thought that there was not enough variety of games and so many more could have been put in place, although the game was still enjoyable and I think that the target age group would thoroughly like the game as a whole.
The controls for the game were not always explained to a point that would be easy to understand for the younger audience. Although they looked easy to perform when being shown, once in the game it wasn’t so easy to remember what you needed to do. On the subject of controls, the Kinect sometimes struggled to recognise the movement being done which became quite frustrating.

So the opinions above are from my perspective, a young adult from the gaming industry, but what about the younger kids that this game is originally aimed at. Isn’t that who we should be asking? Although I had no one to ask I could probably guess that those of a young age would most probably fall in love with the game purely based on the loveable and well known characters. Jumping around pretending to be a mammoth is something I could see kids doing, and what better way than playing as part of the Ice Age team. For this, the game should not be written off and completely ignored, maybe give it a try or even play it with your kids as I am sure they would enjoy it.

Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.