It is time for Ben Tennyson to grow-up. No longer the boy when his adventures first started, now he must deal with the fact that the whole world knows his identity and control the power of the new Ultimatrix. With a plot description like that, D3 is clearly constructing a game that will hopefully draw in fans of the series into the experience.
To bring the fans into the narrative, the story has been written by the scribe of the show and is totally independent from the series.
To make combat as fluid as can be; the ability to change alien forms on the fly is open to the player. This can open up a wide arrangement of combos. While in the middle of a combo in one form, I was able to quickly switch to another alien and finish up the combo with a whole new set of moves. With the many different forms you can choose from, an assortment of combo possibilities open up.
The demo for this playthrough only allowed me access to four aliens: Swampfire, Spidermonkey, Armodrillo and P'andor. Swampfire is quite the melee fighter in this demo. He had enough speed to contend with baddies and he had a good area attack that could dispose of foes. The HUD has a meter that drained every time a special attack was utilized so it could not always be used by the player. I tried to use Armodrillo for a few attacks, but he was too slow to land hits on opponents. For that alien, you had to find an opening to actually land a hit. Spiderrmonkey had the most agility among the aliens and could easily maneuver around the opponents and land a series of blows.
The game also utilized some puzzle elements. There were platforms on the ground with holes, and the game prompted me to change into Armordrillo. He stuck his drill in the hole and could pump it, making the platform move to the other side. At first the prompts will appear, but once the story progresses they will disappear and player will have to learn from experience. For instance, if I came across a great gap, I recognized that Spidermonkey was perhaps the only one that could make the jump.
Graphically, this game is underwhelming. I was playing the game on an Xbox and it looked like it was on the Wii.
It was around here that the boss of the area appeared. Zombozo, a staple villain from the series, runs off and starts the demo's quick-time-events. Here you are given three choices from your Ultimatrix. The problem with this is that all three choices you are given is a correct choice. The only thing this does for the player is show a different in-game scene for it. There is really no challenge when it comes to this part. It is just a way to show what the different aliens will do in the situation.
Once Ben had caught up to Zombozo, we finally got to see Ben transform one of the aliens into its ultimate form. Spidermonkey changed into a gorilla spider. His attacks were still fast despite his size and his area attack quickly drained the health of Zombozo.
Fans of the series will probably pick this game up when hits stores October 10th.