I have never seen the movie Igor, though I did some research on Wikipedia prior to playing. It generally seems like a children’s movie through and through; the plot is a bit goofy, and sometimes nonsensical, but apparently the humor is pretty good for about half the time, and the world is well-established and different, if I understand correctly. This puts it leaps and bounds above the bundle that was delivered to my doorstep last month.

Pros:
-The game can be completed
-The game can be turned off
-The game can sit nicely between a cool beverage and a wood table

Cons:
-The game

Developed by Legacy Interactive, Igor for Wii is an uninteresting, cringe-inducing mess. To say there is a lack of polish would be an understatement; it’s as if nobody on the design team cared about this game whatsoever. What game actually exists here is done adequately, but there’s just so little to the game that it’s almost insulting. It’s an exercise in mind-numbing repetition that you probably won’t even want to finish; goodness knows I was praying for the end of this game so I could write my review and wash my hands of it (with lye).

The game’s story is loosely borrowed from the movie it’s based on, which is fair, but loosely may be too good a word to use here. Like many other parts of the game, story implementation is half-assed; many events are glossed over, rewritten, or cheapened by boring cutscenes with terrible dialogue. If you haven’t seen the movie, you are not going to have the slightest idea what people are talking about later on in the game. The music seems movie-inspired and does itself alright, and the voice acting is actually fairly competent, which would mean something if the dialogue wasn’t absolutely horrid. The game is pretty ugly as well, especially the title character Igor; environments are fairly bland and repetitive, and the character models feel just "good enough", though some clearly are not good enough yet. The overall presentation of the game dips into the "bad" territory, weighted down by the cringe-inducing script and general lack of care.

The gameplay is not much better. Legacy wisely decided to shun motion control in favor of a super-simplified control scheme. Using either the Wii Remote or the Remote + Nunchuk combo, you can move, jump, attack, and switch characters, and that’s about it. This in itself is not a bad thing, but unfortunately the game itself is equally oversimplified. Igor is an action platformer at heart, but there’s almost no platforming involved whatsoever, and the action is mind-numbingly repetitive and uninteresting. Through the game’s seven short levels, you’ll mostly travel from one large flat expanse to another, as legions of identical enemies literally rain down on you, ceaselessly in some areas. You’ll occasionally jump up to get some sort of collectible, but most of your time is going to be spent mashing the attack button over and over and over in order to take out enemies that swarm you continually. Seriously, the game’s manual encourages you to mash the button. I hope you’re not too attached to your index fingers, because you’re going to be mashing that button for five straight hours.