Disney Pixar's UP

Taking some time to clear down the backlog of on-disc games, a relatively recent purchase was UP but I can’t remember why. Some arbitrary obsession with completing all movie tie in games maybe? That said, had I known how shit the game was before I started, I wouldn’t have bothered with it. I hadn’t watched the movie and following my playthrough I have no inclination to either so at least it’s saved me an hour of time back in some sort of way.

UP follows the story of two unlikeable characters, Russell and Carl, and a strange dog as you explore the world in a house attached to balloons. The premise appears to searching for some plateau for the house to go on so the old man, Carl, can retire. I’ll be honest, what was happening in the story didn’t grab my attention and was made worse by the fact that the gameplay is appalling.

So what’s bad about the gameplay? Well, for a start, world navigation and camera control is clunky and that’s being kind about it. Moving around is difficult because of the camera and it does that thing of having invisible walls which is a really dated way of limiting exploration. The most unforgiving issue though is the fact I got irrevocably stuck on the environment several times which meant reloading and losing progress and that’s just as bad as game breaking crashes, of which I had two while playing.

There is also a terrible combat element where you fight against dogs. These occur frequently throughout the game and are absolutely ridiculous. You need ninja like reactions to be able to press X in time to counter the dogs and their way of increasing difficulty towards the end of the game is simply to increase the frequency of these battles. The sheer volume of these QTE battles towards the end of the story is just plain wrong. It’s unimaginative, boring and makes the game look like a cash in. Which it is.

Graphically and musically, it’s appalling too and the game really lacks anything in the way of PIXAR charm. It’s a flat, lifeless and forgettable experience.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 42 Achievements

The achievements don’t help the game either. They are very run of the mill, straightforward and don’t add any encouragement to do anything out of the ordinary. 16 achievements are provided by completing the game but in reality, you’ll get more of these as you go through.

Most of the achievements outside of this require you to collect a myriad of different insects as you play through the game. This can only be done as Russell which is a bit annoying because if you are playing alone (and why would you want to subject another human being to this rubbish?) you will have to switch between the characters. There are also not enough bugs at the right intervals to allow this to be done without replaying a few levels, which just adds to the annoyance.

Outside of collecting stuff, there are a few miscellaneous ones related to ‘exploring’ or doing things in certain ways but the levels are so linear with very few hidden areas that getting these isn’t too much of an additional headache. The biggest pain was for completing a boss fight with two players but that’s only because I did it myself with two controllers to avoid torturing anyone else.

Downloadable Content – N/A

Disney PIXAR’s UP is a terrible game that does nothing to alleviate the stereotype that movie tie in games are absolute garbage. It’s boring. It’s bland. It’s unimaginative. It’s also overpriced because it carries the PIXAR brand. You could say the achievement list is quick as it only takes around 6 hours to get through but that’s six hours of your life that you won’t be getting back. It’s not worth playing and should be added to anyone’s avoid list.