PK Out of the Shadows Review

PK is the superhero alter ego of Disney's Donald Duck.  If you haven't seen PK walking around Disneyland, it's probably because he's a European import, a star of his own comic book on the other side of the Atlantic.  PK Out of the Shadows begins with a lengthy opening sequence that explains the origin of PK, so you'll be on page one so to speak if this is your first introduction to him.

It all begins when Donald takes a job as a night security guard at a new high-rise purchased by his Uncle Scrooge.  Bored on the job, Donald mutters to himself that he'd much rather be a superhero.  He is overheard by a supercomputer which appears as a floating green orb with a duck head inside.  The computer decides to grant Donald's wish and equips him with a high-tech glove/shield that is filled with an assortment of gadgets.  Meanwhile, aliens have decided to conquer Earth and capture all of its scientists, so the supercomputer sends Donald, er, PK out to stop them.  No, I didn't make all of that up.

After the intro, the game begins and you'll be in familiar platform territory.  PK can run and jump, and his Transformer (the power glove thing) can fire little balls of energy that take out the enemies you encounter.  The game has a target lock for your blaster that allows you to maneuver and dodge enemy fire, but enemies rarely give you much trouble anyway.  They have a penchant for remaining in one spot and firing at you at a slow and regular clip.

As you make your way through the game you'll get new enhancements for the Transformer, but for the most part they allow you to get through the various barriers that block your way.  There's not much of a puzzle element to getting through the barriers as the Transformer always seems to activate the enhancement needed.  The auto-targeting feature will even identify the few breakables in the game, so all you need to do is press the target lock button whenever you walk into a new room.

Out of the Shadows is a pretty straight-forward and linear game, and doesn't give you any room to explore on your own.  The levels look adequate enough with a suitable comic book feel, but they're repetitive and unimaginative.  At times it appears that the level designers were using cut and paste tools to create the levels.  As you make your way through the game you'll sometimes think that you have double-backed on your route, only to realize that the next level looks identical to the last.  You'll get used to it once you realize that it's impossible to get yourself lost on the game's linear track. 

The game feels as if the designers only wanted to put enough effort into the game to make it adequate and passable.  The graphics look OK, but there are clipping problems and camera issues when you're in tight quarters or near corners.  The cutscenes have a comic book look and use transitions that look like comic panels, but they are fuzzy and blurry as if you were playing a PS One game on your system.  The music is a generic techno track that is slow and very repetitive.  And you already know all about the level design...

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 55%.  With so many good platformers available, pass on this one unless you really, really like Donald Duck or PK.