It’s time for yet another movie tie-in game, in this case it’s the originally two-part DLC now turned into a budget game release in Watchmen: The End is Nigh. Instead of going the route of recreating moments from the movie, Deadline Games has decided to create two different adventures involving the crime fighting duo of Nite Owl and Rorschach that take place ten years before the events of the movie.

The graphics of both parts look up to par with the average current generation offerings. While with that said it’s nothing that should be considered special. The character models all look pretty good, if you don’t mind little variety. The environments however start to run together giving you the feeling you’ve been somewhere before. The game engine can become sluggish when you have many enemies on the screen and probably should have been better optimized before release. The developers got the same actors from the movie to voice act the characters in the game so the lines are delivered fairly well. However when you start to hear the same piece of dialog repeated over and over again it easily starts to get annoying. The music in the game is pretty forgettable and is kind of just throw in.

The game is your basic beat ’em up where you try to string together combos to maximize the effectiveness of your attacks, but there aren’t too many combos to choose from and you’ll find yourself reusing the more effective ones over and over.  Each character has a special ability, in the case of Nite Owl you have your electric suit which when you fill your special meter allows you to zap all the enemies around you and increase the power of your attacks. Rorschach can build up rage from getting attacked which he can unleash making you invulnerable for a limited amount of time while you do extra damage. While these abilities are cool, they can sometimes make the game a little too easy.  After you’ve been playing for awhile you’ll notice they don’t put much besides a lock mini game to break up the action. You’ll eventually start to grow bored with mashing the same buttons over and over again. It also doesn’t help when each level mostly has their own enemies that are just the same enemies re-skinned, you can tell they cut corners to reach the $30 price tag.

You have the option to either play single player with the AI controlling the character you didn’t select or to play split screen multiplayer with a friend co-op. While I didn’t get a chance to play much in the co-op mode from what I could tell it’s the way to go since the AI controlled ally is both stupid and oddly seems invulnerable to attacks. The usual pattern is for the AI-controlled character to keep getting hit until you have the time to go and save it from being pummelled. There are also bits that the AI get’s itself stuck and you’re left having to reload a save to continue. The portions of the game where you’re supposed to go on your own to advance can be pretty cool however some bits feel forced when they have you open a door a nudge so your partner can slide in and hit a simple switch inside. There are also bits that I found really took me out of the action such as during a chase scene the game cuts to a character running up a ladder while your guy just sits twiddling his thumbs for whatever reason. The game also has some poorly placed checkpoints that when you die you can go 2-3 fights back because the game decided not to save yet. 

The story in the game is fairly clichéd and nowhere near as sophisticated as the comic that it’s originally based off of and only the endings really give you satisfaction from what’s otherwise your standard comic book fare. The first part lasts six chapters that’ll take you about three hours to complete where you’re looking for the villain underboss who’s escaped from prison while looking into a deeper conspiracy. The second part of the game is even shorter than the first lasting only an hour and half wherein you search for a missing girl whom for some reason Rorscharch feels compelled to go look for while there are more important issues to deal with like riots happening across the city over masked vigilantes running around taking the jobs of police officers. In this part of the game you’re introduced to the second watchmen villain Twilight Lady. The story does its job and helps break up the game from the constant button mashing.

Despite the faults that I pointed out in the review it’s important to note that The End if Nigh is a budget title and that while there plenty to hate on there is fun to be found. The general advice that I could give is you should rent this game if you’re a fan of either the comic or movie versions because this will give you a greater insight into the universe. You look back at events that are only glossed over in the comic such as the 1975 riots in this alternate universe and get to know characters that are only mentioned in passing. If you don’t care about the Watchmen universe than  Watchmen: The End is Night will be just yet another uninspired, low-budget, beat ’em up with shallow gameplay, uninspired world design and a lack of variety in enemies that you’ll soon forget about.

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