Video Game Review: Open Season

I recently picked up Xbox 360 Holiday Bundle from Amazon for the low price of $20 (although it has gone up) for the reason that it was a great deal. I wasn't sure if the games would be good or not, but I figured that Miranda would appreciate the bright colors and hopefully easy game play of these games. So I finally decided to try Open Season first and what I found surprised me.

I am used to most movie tie-in games and whatnot to be atrocious, but what I found here was something simplistic but at the same point very entertaining. Now this game is used by many "hardcore" gamers to gain achievements or "nerd-cred", but I went in with that as secondary. The basic plot follows that of the movie where you play as both the bear (Boog) and the deer sidekick (can't remember) and Boog transformation from pet to wild animal. The majority of the missions are played as Boog and basically put you "on rails" running through the forest scaring off hunters and loggers. There are a couple of missions that are out of control "river runs" where you attempt to not run into too many things in your path. The controls are good. The camera is not annoying. And in the end, I found that I had fun.

About the only thing that bothered me was what felt like uninspired voice acting. I would hope that they wanted to do this in addition to just picking up a paycheck. But the general storytelling was well laid out and the writing was good and lead to a few chuckles.

In addition to the game, which is 3-5 hours to beat and very, very easy, you also get a number of multiplayer mini-games, as well as slideshows from the movie and various nature trivia facts.