Activision brings Dreamworks animated movie, Shrek the Third to life in the game adaptation. Adding more adventure to than the motion picture, you will take control of Shrek and his friends on an epic journey across the land of Far Far Away. Bee (demo included) prepared for mini-games, talking donkeys, and a cast of loveable remade classic fairy tale characters.

Developer 7 Studios (Fantastic 4, Defender, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow) steps up to remake one of the most popular animated icons into game form. As you can suspect Shrek the Third is geared towards the kids market which will mean the action will be light hearted, simplistic and fun. It would be hard for them to mess up the formula to an eight year old, but a sixteen year old might think differently. I’m unfortunately over the big three zero, so it’s all a little jaded to me.

Diving in and out of the movies plot line, Shrek the Third starts your adventure as Shrek masquerading as a woman fighting a pantry of cooks, while Donkey, irritating as ever, yells instructions at the Ogre. Shrek, Donkey, and Puss in Boots also join in the adventure early on in the game, but unfortunately you only control one character at a time. Later on in the game more characters become playable which include Artie with the powerful Excalibur sword, Fiona and her Kung Fu ordeal, and Sleeping Beauty who has charming kisses to hypnotize her enemies. Even though these characters might have a few new moves they handle the same. There wasn’t too much effort put forth to make each character feel unique aside from Puss being quicker, or Sleeping Beauty’s dress letting her float longer. The other difference is packed in the finishing punch where you’ll get a funny little animated finishing move unique to each character.

After fighting through pirates, jocks, gnomes, and other various minions, and a few bosses that you will find yourself mindlessly running through the events, waiting for the next punch. If you haven’t already guessed, the main action you’ll be doing in Shrek the Third is fighting. The fighting engine is basic and requires only a few moves which can be strung together for combinations and ultimately the “Y” button finisher. With each new level that is introduced you’ll have a few new enemies to take on as you progress through the linear story. Knocking out enemies causes them to disappear into fairy dust which is used to fills up your special attack meter. This three pied meter can active your special radial attack with the touch of the left trigger. The special attacks can also be stored until your meter fills up which activates the opportunity to use a characters special ability. In Shrek’s case he slows time to matrix pace to get you out of tight situations. Besides the other slight variations this is the basics in Shrek which sadly comes down to hitting two button combos and activating a special attack every once and a while. On the default difficulty I never felt challenged once which I assume is another side effect of the licence being driven toward the kids market.

The other aspects of Shrek the Third include collecting beer mugs and other random items. These items besides are hidden inside of breakable crates and other items. Each level has a tally of items and objectives you can complete that give you bonus coins. This makes Shrek the Third worth running through again if you’re looking to unlock all the extras, or hunting down a complete set of achievements like the Art Collector, or Master Collector. In a whole the achievements in Shrek the Third are a little trickier then unlocking a new one every chapter. You will have to work a little to grab all these achievements which means defeating bosses, performing 100 finishing moves, and the odd achievement of the Juggler which has you launching 50 enemies into the air and then catching them, one that will escape my time, and effort.

The adventure last for about 8 hours which is enough for a straight movie-game, but not enough to have any staying power. For those wanting more Shrek provides a number of single or multi-player mini-games. While exploring the mini-games I found myself having as much or more fun then I had while playing through the main missions. These games aren’t visually or technically impressive, but their simplistic nature made them a no-brainer and instantly enjoyable. I’m sure if you’re interested in Shrek, you’re not sticking around because you want an in-depth experience. As you probably know movie-license games usually follow the "get it out the door" philosophy which hurts development teams with a short time frame.

Shrek the Third is a multi-platform release which doesn’t benefit the Xbox 360 in the graphics department. Shrek is passable in the graphic and sound section, but in no means is it memorable. The puppet show aspects telling the story are the most interesting visual part of Shrek which are too far and few between. The in game graphics are fine for the PS2, but on the 360 they look dated. One pet peeve from a graphics standpoint is that the camera angels don’t always pan out to the best viewpoint and without control of the camera you can get stuck in some tricky situations. It is too bad they didn’t slap the camera controls on the right analog like most third person games; this would have saved some heartache along with giving players more control.

Matching up with the graphics is another passable audio score, below average sound effects and over used one liner voice overs lacking support from the Hollywood talent. Shrek the Third tries to be funny around every corner of the game and comes up flat most of the time. Even when you’re paused in the main menu, the overdubs start with Shrek and Donkey throwing out one liners directed at “you” the player. The “one-liners” quickly becomes annoying, so imagine the annoyance when had to take a break from the game and left my machine on, all I had was the bad Eddie Murphy actor wrenching my ears in pain. All I have to say is, damn you Shrek and your overused one liners.

After drudging through hours of Shrek the Third, I couldn’t help to think of Luxoflux’s Shrek 2 game from 2004. Shrek 2 was a multi-platform that surpassed critic’s expectations because of its involved multiplayer aspects and fun gameplay. This version of Shrek was a similar in nature, as a quick movie-based game, but it managed to include dynamic ideas, fighting, along side puzzle solving in a group setting. The entire project was handled with as much care as an original IP and really made me a fan of multiplayer action games.

Needless to say, this is my measuring stick for Shrek the Third which isn’t good for Activision and 7 Studios this time around. If Luxoflux didn’t create such a visual experience as the Ogre and friends, I might have though a little more of Shrek the Third... well that’s not the case and unfortunately Shrek the Third can’t live up to those standards. If you love Shrek, and you need your Ogre fix, pick this up as a rental, otherwise I'd skip Shrek the Third the game, and head to the theater instead.

Gameplay: 6, Graphics/Sound:5, Innovation: 5, Mojo: 6 Final: 5.5 / 10