Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 IT'S OKAY, BUT IT'S UNREMARKABLE 6.5 OUT OF 10 October 24, 2008
ACEMAN1 (Ripon, California)
I never watched the Ratatouille movie, mostly because of the fact I've had too many encounters over the last two years with crappy animated flicks (Happy Feet, Madagascar, Meet the Robinsons, etc.). And usually the games don't end up being any better. This licensed game doesn't strive for much, but it certainly is better than most licensed games I've played, but it sure can't compete with my personal movie-game favorites (Goldeneye 007, King Kong, Over the Hedge, The Punisher, Constantine, SNES Terminator games, and Aladdin for SNES and Genesis).
WHAT THE GAME IS: As with most licensed games, it's a platformer. Since I haven't watched the movie, I can only interpret the story through the game, so don't hold that against me. You play the role of Remy, a rat who aspires to be a great chef one day and he and his colony of rat friends are ousted from their home by a crazy old lady with a shotgun and get swept into sewers that land them in Paris. This is the home of Remy's idol chef and through some kind of ghost-like figure you follow this chef's instructions to complete missions and minigames. I found the story to be completely boring and quite stupid.
GRAPHICS: This looks more like a nicer looking Playstation 2 game. It definitely isn't pushing the Xbox 360 hardware to its limits. But at least this is the best looking version of the game. The level designs felt fairly creative and were actually interesting to look at.
MUSIC: The music is rather boring, and I found it more useful to use my songs from my hard drive instead so I didn't have to get more bored of the game.
SOUND: Lots breaking of items, some pretty good voice-acting, and some decent dog and cat sounds.
GAMEPLAY: Unfortunately, I found Ratatouille to be a boring game. It's obvious that developer Heavy Iron tried to cater to both the casual and hardcore crowd when making this game. The challenges could be downright stupid and simplistic (Find the coin and put it in the pipe and continue carrying it. Or clear all the boxes out of the way of the sewer by blowing them up), or downright tedious and frustrating as hell. On top of that sometimes your objectives aren't clear and you're left wandering around and confused. The combat design was weak and pitiful (A tail-swipe? Come on.), but I did like the fact that Remy can double-jump and cling onto objects like boxes as he climbs things. The platforming actually works pretty well, something you can't say about most of these games. I was pleased with how well it works, it's not perfect but it gets the job done and even has some creativity (Like using a little umbrella to glide or get tossed by a slingshot). The camera can pose problems for you, and it did cause some cheap deaths and injuries. Not to mention the fact it can't turn a full 360 degrees. However, I did manage to get used to it. The mini-games are minimalist at best and really aren't that interesting or worth unlocking. Multiplayer is also pretty sad, considering a friend can only play with you in the minigames (LAME!). This game if full of things to unlock like minigames, new missions, and loads of items, so at least part of the experience was enjoyable and rather beefy when it comes to content which managed to keep my interest in the game alive. There were stupid problems which also hampered the experience. Why does steam hurt me? Why is there hot soup all over the ground? Why do I have to make landings this exact at times? Why do I walk so slow in mud? I've always hated tutorials, but this game's was overly long and I got bored spending like a half hour learning controls that even a casual gamer would know how to work almost immediately. The gameplay manages to be decent, but it could have catapulted itself much farther and probably would have saved this game from mediocrity.
OVERALL: This game is only a rental at best. Unless you just have to have this game after watching the movie, then this is the definitive version of the game. If you don't own an Xbox 360, I heard most of the other versions are fine, just avoid the Playstation 3 version.
THE GOOD: Lots of unlockables, some fairly interesting missions, good PS2-esque graphics, some unique minigames, and good platforming gameplay.
THE BAD: Boring and stupid missions, boring music, lame minigames, sad multiplayer mode, awkward camera, and some stupid little problems that could have been avoided.
 Post Oscar award fun... July 17, 2008
Marcus Smith (St. Louis. MO USA)
Ratatouille is a lot of fun... it looks good and plays well. It makes you think just enough and at times make you overthink on completing tasks.
Exploding peppers, stinkbugs and a mad french chef... fun. All because of a rat intent on becoming the ideal french chef. Hail Disney / Pixar.
Great Fun for the Family March 1, 2008
Paul (Michigan United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I bought this game for my wife and found that I had fun with it as well. Its basically a bunch of mini-games thrown together as your character wanders around the different levels. The mini games are pretty fun and you can do them with other players, giving you something to do if you're playing with the family.
My only complaint is that the camera angles can be pretty tricky, and it usually takes a few attempts to get something right because you can't see where you're going. But the game lets you pick up where you left so it won't be too difficult or frustrating for younger/innexperienced players.
 Ratatouille! November 21, 2007
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
This game is amesome and pretty easy. Try it for Xbox 360, Wii, or PS2 - not for PS3 (it stinks plus the grahpics are way better on Xbox 360). The game is also related to the movie. It has a lot of Adventure and LOTS of mini-games. And if you have Sly cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus its related to it.
Sometimes easy, sometimes challenging! September 13, 2007
R. Liberal (Layton, Ut United States)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
I rented this game for my 4-year-old son. He was able to play through the first level, which is basically the tutorial, with ease, but once you pass that, the game becomes somewhat complicated with a huge playing field and tons of challenging mini-games. The flow is a bit hard to follow and certain sections I just could not figure out where to go (remember, this was a rental).
The graphics are very good, too. I'll probably buy this game for him (and myself).
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