If you just can't get enough of that loveable green ogre, here's an opportunity to have all your favorite characters from the Shrek movies in one puzzle game. Movie related games aren't usually considered the best of the batch and Shrek-n-Roll is no exception. Granted, this is an Xbox Live Arcade game that costs around ten dollars, but even then, I want my ten dollars worth.
The purpose of the game is to feed the baby ogres with snacks that you will have balanced on a platform. You control the two characters on the sides using the analog sticks, pushing up and down to tilt the platform. It requires a bit of finesse to determine just how fast the snack rolls but once you get the hang of it, it's not that bad. For some reason the baby ogres are hanging on the side of brick walls and tree trunks, but it's up to you to get those snacks to them without dropping it into a hole or a swirling worm abyss. As you scale the giant wall, there are coins and other bonus items you can snag. You get three balls per level and if you run out by dropping them into the holes, it's game over. There are also mini-Shreks you can pick up for an extra ball. Some of the holes move to make your life harder and sometimes they'll have other baby ogres hanging out of them. These aren't the ones that you're supposed to feed but if you happen to pass them a snack, they'll lick your snack to make it easier to control for a short period of time.
In single-player mode you can unlock more characters and levels by playing the Normal game through each of the levels. This mode requires that you feed the numbers of ogre babies in the given level. There are only four distinct locations and four levels within each for a total of sixteen levels to play through. The gameplay throughout is the same. In the Score Attack game you keep feeding the baby ogres until you run out of snacks.
There is a two-player co-op and versus mode. In versus mode the screen is split down the middle and the goal is to feed all the babies before the other player does. This mode is hard to play in since your view is zoomed out so everything seems rather small. Also when one player finishes feeding the baby ogres, they have to wait until the other player finishes as well before the winner is determined. Co-op play is more interesting but it's also challenging. This is when each player controls one side of the platform so it takes a lot of coordinating, yelling and patience.
The colorful cast of characters might make it worth checking out if you're a huge Shrek fan. However the voices are not the original actors and it's painfully obvious when you have to listen to them repeat their one-liners over and over again. The music isn't very catchy and the sounds are incredibly repetitive as well. Overall, it looked like not much effort was put into this department. Visually the game is vibrant and the different locations are interesting, but when you're faced with a wall with hungry ogres and holes everywhere, you're not really paying attention to the scenery.
Shrek-n-Roll is a very simple game masked with a movie license. The game may appeal to the younger crowd who just want to choose Gingy or Donkey as their characters. There isn't a lot of long lasting appeal with this game. Once you're through, you won't get the urge to go through the levels again, even with a friend. It is fun for the first few levels until you realize that it's all the same and not particularly imaginative.