Ben10 Ultimate Alien: Cosmic Destruction

This is another Bean Dive game and one I added to the list because… I didn’t really want to play it. I bought it for the kids and they played it for five minutes so rather than see it as wasted money, I began cracking through it and it went surprisingly quickly once I got going.

Ben 10 follows the story of Ben 10 in a more basic storyline that the last timeline clusterfuck I played. There is this big alien dude coming to earth to destroy us and Ben and his friends go in search of some device that will allow him to fight said alien and save the world. Again. And this is a point that Ben labours on throughout the game.

I’ve never been a big fan of the Ben 10 franchise and haven’t invested any time watching it. However, the wife had seen some of it when the kids were watching so I asked if Ben was this arrogant and annoying in the cartoon. Apparently he is and I just can’t understand how this arrogant shit bag who has no respect for anything is considered a role model to kids. I’m glad they’ve grown out of it.

Gameplay wise, its all very meh. You walk through levels killing bad guys and get to the end and fight a bigger bad guy with a health bar and win the level. Some of the mechanics and the camera controls in particular left a lot to be desired. I found it very tiresome being turned around to face an enemy I had no interest in fighting because that’s the way the controls wanted me to face.

Graphically, its not winning any ingenuity prizes and the music is the standard faire of the franchise. All very boring.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 45 Achievements

There’s not a lot to write home about here either other than one majorly fucking annoying thing that happened to me twice. But I’ll come on to that later. There are 15 storyline achievements for playing through the game from start to finish and you will rack up some others along the way too.

Ones you have to go out of the way for include getting 50 kills as Ben, (same as the previous game), destroying all the cars in the game, destroying all the security cameras in the Amazon level and getting a 100-hit combo. This last one is a ballache as you have to get into a position with a certain boss that doesn’t take damage to pull it off. It’s basically an episode of timing but totally defeats the point if this is the only way to do it. I couldn’t keep normal enemies alive long enough to get a combo that high.

There are other collectibles for collecting three sumo slammer things in each level and this is where more of the gamplay functionality can do one. Ben can change in to 4 different aliens in any level. There are three you need to complete the levels and one you can select yourself if you like them. All the aliens have unique abilities. Two of the sumo slammers require you to have specific aliens in your foursome to be able to get them. However, if you reach a checkpoint and turn off the game and come back to it later, any alien you had selected is replaced by the default. And you can’t change it. This caused me to slightly lose my shit with the game. Thankfully it was near the end.

You also have to get to max level with all your aliens but if the game fucks you like it did me, this is fine because the extra replays of the levels will net you enough experience points to do this.

Downloadable Content – N/A

Ben 10 Ultimate Alien: Cosmic Destruction is a very below average game that offers little enjoyment and no replay value. It took me less than 10 hours to get all the achievements, so it’s middling in terms of a speed completion.