Astro Boy: The Video Game: First Impressions

• by Heather Bartron
• July 23, 2009 00:00 AM PST

One of Japan's most iconic characters, Astro Boy will soon make it to the Wii.

A self-proclaimed 2.5-D action platformer, Astro Boy takes you through the skies and streets on a quest to save Metro City. For those of you who are not familiar with the series, Astro Boy is an android created by Doctor Tenma, a Ministry of Science worker, to replace his deceased son. Contrary to Tenma's expectations, Astro turns out to not be what the Doctor ordered, quite literally, and so he pawns him off on Professor Ochanomizu who soon finds out Astro has quite an arsenal of special powers. From that point on Astro leads a life of eradicating injustice from the world. The upcoming game by D3Publisher will go hand in hand with the movie set to release in October, which will supposedly reinvent Astro Boy as we know it.

The game revolves around the small boy wonder, Astro, trying to stop the wicked President Stone and his robotic minions from taking over Astro's stomping ground. To assist him in smiting evil, Astro Boy comes equipped with all sorts of fun gadgets and gizmos. He even packs heat in his butt; no really, his butt is compromised of machine guns. In addition to the rear-end guns, he has Finger Lasers and an Arm Cannon, just to name a few. The style holds close to games like Ikaruga and Mega Man. The backgrounds are mostly de-saturated which helps the power-ups and colorful emitters stand out that much more. Enemies drop orbs that draw to you like a magnet so the screen is almost always full of jazzy eye candy. Flying levels are slightly different as far as controls go. Astro can use all his supers but he can't bring the pain with his fists like he can on foot, the option is left out.

There are a total of three modes available to you, the avid fan. There is the of course the easy setting for the casual gamer, the normal middle-ranged difficulty, and last but certainly not least the hero mode, for the adept. Each level grants you a cap on the amount of super powers you can fire off. For example, on the hero setting you are only granted three chances at making butt machine magic. The key to hero mode lies in mastering the "air dash," which doesn't count as a super therefore is infinitely available to you.

Astro Boy will have 8 chapters that span 30 different levels both in flight and on land, so plenty of content in store for us gamers. As one Astro Boy fan to another I advise you to keep your eyes peeled for this adaption/reinvention of a stellar series.

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