FutureFive New Zealand - Consumer technology news & reviews from the future
Story image
Godzilla on PS4 is a disaster
Mon, 27th Jul 2015
FYI, this story is more than a year old

There is a new Godzilla game out for PS3 and PS4. It's a disaster, and I don't mean that in a good way. Godzilla on PS4 and PS3 is not a substantial game that will occupy you for hours on end. It's best to describe this game as one that will only be entertaining for a few minutes. After the first mission, you'll be bored of the game already.  The reason why this game fails so hard is because it's so repetitive. Normally video games offer you a variety of different missions to keep the gameplay fresh and exciting throughout. In Godzilla however, the mission structure is so basic that you will be repeating the same activities over and over again.  The main premise of Godzilla is that the creature needs to feed off of energy to survive. Godzilla starts invading numerous Japanese cities to destroy their generators. Once you destroy all of the generators in one city, the mission finishes and you go and do the whole thing again all over again in a new city/level.  The gameplay is so monotnous that people will get bored of the experience very quickly. Godzilla walks so slow and cumbersome that the action isn't all that great to experience either. Godzilla will constantly be bomabarded by the army, but nothing truly phases him. You can destroy all of the surrounding buildings to get a higher score, but even that's boring to do as well.  To somewhat stop Godzilla on his rampage, many Kaiju and boss characters will often come by to challenge you. Sadly, these boss fights are just as fun as destroying all of the generators in this game. Godzilla only has a handful of slow attacks, so combat isn't all that fun to play as well.  The creature only has around four of five main attacks that you will do. He can swipe using his tail, slash his his claws, tackle and grab enemies and also use his fiery atomic breath as well. The bosses are cool to see I must admit as all of them feature in the old Japanese versions of the film.  Godzilla will have to fight the likes of Mechagodzilla, Mothra and many others. Best of all, the bosses will be playable characters once you get to unlock them. You can choose to terrorize the city multiple times as there are roughly around 25 playable characters in the entire game. There are also many different iterations of Godzilla that you can play as too. This even includes the 2014 American version of the character, plus the many Japanese designs he's gone through since 1954. The only Godzilla that seems to be missing in this game is the 1998 version... Apart from the main mode in the game called "Destruction", players can also choose the "King of the Monsters" mode too. This mode is like a fighting game as you will face off against many opponents in different stages before facing off against the final boss. This mode would have been more fun if the combat was better.  Criminally, the game lacks an offline multiplayer mode of any kind. The "King of the Monsters" mode could have benefitted a lot if players were to fight against their friends on the couch. There is only online multiplayer added to this game which isn't all that fun. It would have been better if I were able to play it with my brother and not strangers from around the world. None of my online friends owned the game, so this was my only option... Graphically, the design of the creatures are all movie accurate. The only problem is that the graphics are horribly outdated. Even though I played this game on the PS4, it looked more like an upscaled PS3 game at best. The CGI cutscenes are the only cool looking sequences in the entire game. Sadly, they're only cutscenes and the actual visuals look nothing like it.  If you are a hardcore Godzilla fan, you may have some sort of enjoyment playing this game. It has far more actual Godzilla action than the boring 2014 movie. However, the gameplay is repetitive and you'll be bored just as quickly too. If you are a fan of the franchise, just stick to watching the old Japanese movies. Recent Godzilla products have all been a disaster lately... Verdict: 4/10