First things first, some background information: what you might need to know is that I’m a 26 year old. The game being reviewed here is targeted at 6 year olds. Yes, there’s an age-difference there, you’ve noticed? Good, now bare that in mind and lets get on with it :-)

You are -or better yet: your (grand) kid is- the famous extra-terrestrial character better known to us as E.T. This might strike you as being a little odd, seen as the movie dates from 1982, but Spielberg re-released the movie on its 20th birthday and with it -like it’s always the case with Hollywood- some merchandising too.

E.T. is on his (or her ?!?) way home from his adventures on planet Earth and to overcome the famine on his own home planet, he’ll try to collect as many nutritious plants and flowers as possible along his route. As you can expect, the local inhabitants don’t like little alien creatures stealing the flowers out of their gardens and they try to … terminate our little friend, the bastards!

The planet our beloved little friend finds himself on is very arcade-like, the advantage being that it’s simple and easy to understand. The various levels have their own colour-schemes and are pretty … well, arcade-like :-) The surroundings were kept to a minimum although the textures are very rough. More work has been put into the ‘bad people’ who are trying to hurt E.T. Yet again, they are kept simple, but they look scary enough to run away from. Especially the green wizards who looks like a former school teacher of mine, horrible!

On a more serious note, the graphics are not high-tech, but they don’t need to be, they serve their purpose and they are understandable for young kids.

Moving around the levels gets increasingly complex as you progress through the game. Doors with timers, lethal lava-streams, staying cloaked for enemies etc…, pretty fun actually, but yet again … very ‘arcady’. And that’s the biggest drawback in my opinion. The game-play gets more and more complex, but then again, it’s a bit repetitive. E.T. only has 4 basic actions: he can heal flowers with his magic finger, he can transport objects with telekinesis (= with his mind), he can stun (not really kill !) enemies and … run. And please don’t underestimate this last ‘action’, it’s quite hilarious when you see the little fellow run with his three-fingered hands in the air J.

What it all comes down to though, is that the game-play is easy, young kids will probably be better at moving around in the game then teenagers.

Moving on to sound, or better: yet the lack of it. I understand that the developers didn’t want to scare kids with eerie sounds, but the background tune is downright boring after a few minutes. All action-sounds (e.g. the flower-grabbing) remain the same during the whole duration of the game which isn’t that exciting, now is it ? One new action-sound with every new level (planet) would have been nice.

E.T. Interplanetary Mission is brought to us by Ubi Soft under the pretence of being an ‘action’-game. Action-gaming for 6 year olds, what are we to expect? Well, I wasn’t disappointed at all, on the contrary! It reminded me of those long-lost days of spending hours and hours -not to mention loads of pocket money- playing arcade games. The developers have succeeded in creating a captivating game that’s quite addictive. I mean, you want to get to the big boss at the end of the level to show him how serious you just are, don’t you? E.T. Interplanetary mission is a very good ‘stepping-stone’ towards more complex action games. It teaches kids how to reason when playing and it teaches them some pretty complex movements and manoeuvres.