Aliens in the Attic is a family film about some kids spending their summer at their family’s vacation home. But when they venture up to the attic in the old house, they find more than just dusty cobwebs! Tiny knee-high space aliens have set up camp in their attic with a plan to control the grown-ups’ minds and take over the world. Now you can relive the summer movie adventure with Aliens in the Attic on the Nintendo DS. As Tom, Jake, and Hannah, it’s your job to explore the attic as well as the rest of the house and stop those aliens from invading Earth!

Aliens in the Attic on the DS is a 2-D side scrolling platform jumping and shooting adventure. Play as Tom, Jake, and Hannah and switch between them on the fly to use their special skills. Nerdy Tom is the only one smart enough to use special alien gadgets, while Jake is strong enough to push around heavy objects. Hannah can’t use weapons like the older boys, but she can double jump and crawl into small spaces. Run, jump, and shoot alien robots as you explore the house, defeat alien bosses, find hidden items and save the grown-ups.

Scattered around the house are common objects to find like fire extinguishers, balloons, potatoes, bricks, etc. You can use these household items to upgrade the homemade guns that Tom and Jake use to shoot the alien robots. Drag the items to the blueprint picture of the weapon on the bottom screen and you can increase their rate of fire, projectile strength, or give them a charged blast.

Play control involving running, jumping, and shooting is easy to learn. One clever aspect of the controls is that you can use the touch screen for more precise gun aiming, which is pretty handy against flying enemies. You can even run, and jump while aiming and shooting and switching characters on the fly. This run and gun action reminded me of older games like Mega Man or Contra.

Even though the action is all in 2-D, the game uses 3-D graphics with plenty of detail and texture that looks nice on the small screen. Only problem is the game’s house and attic environments all looks the same (and this is one HUGE house!). Some more visual variety in the levels would’ve been nice.

I came into the Aliens in the Attic video game not expecting anything much. It is a move-licensed game on the DS after all. So I was actually surprised when the run and gun platform jumping action turned out to be fairly decent. The game isn’t without its problems, though. A couple of times a game glitch caused me to get stuck in a wall or platform and I had to reset the game. Luckily there are plenty of checkpoints so I didn’t have to backtrack at all. And it’s a shame that this game had to be associated with such an uninteresting movie license (seriously, as surprisingly decent as this game is, I still have NO desire to see the movie). Aliens in the Attic on the DS has a lot of clever ideas with fun shooting platforming action with some creative boss fights. Even though I haven’t seen the film, the DS game just might be better than the movie it’s based on.

Kid Factor:
Aliens in the Attic is rated E-10 for Everyone Ten and Up with an ESRB descriptor of Fantasy Violence. Even though you’re firing alien gadgets and guns, you’re only blasting robots (and the occasional silly alien) so it’s still fairly non-violent. I’d be okay with kids younger than 10 playing it. Reading skill is a must for all the in-game text, and some younger players may get frustrated at some of the trickier puzzles and tougher boss fights and might need a little help from an older gamer. Luckily there are infinite lives and plenty of checkpoints so kids won’t have to start too far back. If you’re OK with your kids watching the movie, they’ll be fine with this game, too. And kids who loved the Aliens in the Attic flick will probably really enjoy the DS title as well.

Tags: Game Reviews