Summer is upon us, and that means the theaters are full of three types of movies: huge budget action/adventures, huge budget romantic comedies, and huge budget animated family films — and everybody knows that wherever you see an animated movie, licensed video games aren’t far behind. The animated movie currently leading the summertime pack is DreamWorks’ Kung Fu Panda, featuring the voices of Jack Black, Jackie Chan, and Dustin Hoffman. Activision, which has done the game adaptations for DreamWorks animated films from Shrek to Bee Movie, now brings us the chance to become the Dragon Warrior in Kung Fu Panda.

The titular panda is named Po, and he enjoys nothing more than eating and watching Kung Fu, dreaming of someday becoming a Kung Fu master. Meanwhile, the evil Tai Lung is prophesized to return to the Valley of Peace, and so a tournament is held to choose the new Dragon Warrior (the fighter destined to defeat Tai Lung) from among various hopefuls, most notably the Furious Five (the most skilled fighters around, each a master of a different fighting style). Fate throws young Po a curveball when he goes to watch the tournament, and ends up declared Dragon Warrior himself! It’s a dream come true for Po, but a living nightmare for Master Shifu, who must teach Po the ways of Kung Fu, and for the Furious Five, who have been shunned in favor of a lazy, overweight Kung Fu fanboy. Still, Po must learn the art of Kung Fu, or Tai Lung will destroy everything he cares about. The game’s plot follows and expands on the film’s, and kids who love the movie will love being able to control their favorite characters.

 
The early stages of the game cover Po’s Kung Fu training.

Gameplay-wise, Kung Fu Panda takes most of its cues from platforming games like Jak and Daxter and the 3D Super Mario titles, with fighting elements added. Most areas consist of straightforward, linear platforming sequences, complete with that perennial platformer necessity, the collectable — Po collects coins, which can be traded between stages to improve various statistics and to learn new Kung Fu moves. In between platforming segments, expect to do plenty of fighting. The combat system, while not incredibly deep, can provide some fun, as most enemies are weak to either fast or strong attacks, so players will need to constantly switch up their tactics. Sadly, while the platforming and fighting are both competently executed, neither aspect ever becomes exciting.

The game manages to mimic the film’s visual style pretty well, with environments and characters that look like they were taken directly from the film. Most impressive is Po’s animations; it’s easy to see that a lot of work went into making the main character fun and interesting to watch (which is good, since he’s what you’re looking at 90% of the time), and even his basic idling animations are smooth and entertaining. Not so impressive are the enemy characters; with most stages containing only one or two enemy types, enemy models are repeated early and often, and in general look pretty bland. The audio is one of the game’s strong points. The game’s score uses themes from the film’s as well as original music, but all of it is beautiful and atmospheric, transporting you to the world the characters live in. And while the game doesn’t use the voices of the actual actors from the film, you wouldn’t know it just from listening. The sound-alikes are spot on — in fact, I was convinced that I was actually hearing Jack Black until I did a little research.

 
Characters and environments look as though they were taken straight from the film.

Is Kung Fu Panda a great game? No, not really. It is, however, a relatively well-executed movie tie-in game, and it’s certainly better than many of the games based on kid’s films. Any kid who leaves the theater wishing they could live Po’s adventures would have a good time with this game, but there’s not really much here to hold the attention of older gamers.

Gameplay: 6.9
Combining unremarkable platforming sequences with decent but unremarkable fighting elements makes for a capable action title, but the game never really gets exciting, and overall feels a little bland. Kids might love it, but those of us who have more discerning tastes will be left wanting more.

Graphics: 7.8
The environments do a good job of re-creating their film counterparts, and character animations are smooth and entertaining. Still, enemy character models are repeated far too often, and graphical glitches presented themselves on more than one occasion.

Sound: 8.6
Beautiful music uses themes from the film to draw the player into the Valley of Peace. Voice acting is superb, despite the fact that the game almost exclusively uses sound-alikes. Po’s actor does the best Jack Black impression of all time.

Difficulty: Easy
New abilities are frequent, enemies aren’t too aggressive, and health items are everywhere. Even the film’s youngest fans shouldn’t have any trouble here.

Concept: 7.5
Activision has turned every DreamWorks film, from Shrek to Madagascar, into an action/platformer, so it makes perfect sense that their movie about martial arts would be more of the same, but with a deeper fighting system.

Multiplayer: 6.3
There are a few maps to be unlocked that can be played with friends like a third-rate Super Smash Bros, but honestly the whole multiplayer mode feels like an afterthought.

Overall: 7.1
Kung Fu Panda is reasonably well-made action/platformer that will primarily interest pre-teen fans of the film. While it’s definitely a step up in quality compared to some of the other games based on DreamWorks films, nothing here will surprise or excite anyone over the age of 12.