Movie Review: The Wild Robot

My God, what a gut punch.

I already had a hunch that I wanted to see The Wild Robot when I first caught its trailer before Pixar's Inside Out 2, this summer. Maybe I was in a different headspace, as Inside Out 2 didn't get me to shed a tear - maybe I was so busy with the themes and events in the Pixar film that it took me out a bit, and rewatching it later will unlock the emotion and I'll be a bawling mess. In comparison, the trailer for Dreamworks' painted CGI film about a robot adapting to the wilderness extracted tears from me right away.

Before getting into the review proper, can I say - I love the renaissance that CGI animated movies have been having lately? I get this impression that after a movie as nuts as Sony Pictures' Into the Spider-Verse showed what could be done by having multiple clashing art styles together in one movie, other studios took notice and began to experiment so that CGI movies could stand out, look different, feel different - BE different. The Mitchells VS The Machines, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish... I'm growing fond of "painted CGI", the technique where regular CGI animation is superposed with additional 2D effects to achieve something new.

The Wild Robot is a major example of the technique, painting over its animation to give it a watercolor feel, like we're watching actual paintings about nature. It's easily one of the most gorgeous animated films I've ever seen, a bold statement to make in a world where competition in that field is so fierce. As frequently happens for Dreamworks, this movie is an adaptation of a novel of the same name, written by Peter Brown and published in 2016. It's also very ambitious; as I watched it I couldn't shake that impression in my mind that Dreamworks were aiming for their own WALL-E, a sentiment reinforced by the first trailer for the film containing only one line of dialogue. It's a very gutsy move no matter the film, but in animation, it feels even moreso.

The story

A container with a robot inside is found by otters at the top of a waterfall on an island, and its occupant is activated by accident. The machine awakens and defines itself as ROZZUM unit 7134 (voiced by Lupita Nyong'o). Its purpose is to receive orders and do what it is told to do. (Since all material refers to the robot as female, so will I.) ROZZUM's first steps in nature are... eventful, to say the least. Yeah, you'd imagine the wildlife wouldn't be too keen on a machine, no matter how advanced, exploring their territory.

Increasingly upset by the lack of directives or orders, ROZZUM sits and spends some time (days? weeks? months? ...years???) in some kind of statis, studying the environment and the animals, eventually getting to the point where she can understand all of their animal talk. From here on, she understands them all, and so do we, as we see the events from her perspective; however, she's not any more accepted or with a purpose.

After she's chased by a large bear, ROZZUM falls on a nest, accidentally killing a goose and crushing all of the eggs but one. Her systems detect life within the shell. She protects the egg from predators, including a very persistent fox (Pedro Pascal). The egg later hatches and the teeny tiny runt gosling (Kit Connor) imprints on the robot, who doesn't know how to react to the adorable bird following her around. It is by talking with other animals about her situation that ROZZUM (who eventually adopts the name Roz for the sake of simplicity) is given a purpose: To care for the hatchling.

She names him Brightbill, and is given further goals: The little thing will have to migrate when fall comes. And for that, he needs to grow, be well-fed, learn to swim and, most importantly, learn to fly fror extended periods of time. Taking on the role of mother about as well as you'd imagine a robot would, Roz must make sure her child can take on the journey; she even gets unlikely help from Fink, the aforementioned fox, himself also an outcast on the island.

Through all this, there's also the mystery of Roz's origins... where she came from, why she was found on the island... she does have some way of contacting her makers so they can pick her up, but should she? And if she does, what will they do?

The review

Wow.

I think we might have the best animated film of 2024 here.

And considering I love damn near everything, that's no small statement to make.

The story is... admittedly, very little we haven't seen before. A robot discovering emotion? A robot taking care of a very young creature? A metaphor on parenthood? We can sit here and say "it's been done" all day, but what matters isn't that it's being done again, it's how it's being done. If you're telling a story with very common elements, be as creative and original about it as possible. Director Chris Sanders is no strangers to movies about family, having directed Lilo and Stitch for Disney, and How To Train Your Dragon and The Croods for Dreamworks.

Perhaps the best aspect relating to family in The Wild Robot isn't just about Roz becoming a mother to a little gosling, but the family she builds around herself, not just with Fink the fox, but also with the other animals of the island as they learn to accept her, and she returns that trust tenfold when the situation takes a turn for the dire.

I'll never stop singing the praises of this film's visuals. But everything here knocks it out of the park. The score by composer Kris Bowers is great. The humor is on point; I swear, I was frequently laughing through my tears. And, of course, as I said,  Putting aside the general themes, the script is interesting, and events happen at a logical pace. However, there IS a lot going on in the film, to the point where the 100 minutes are quite busy - perhaps a little too much so. There's a bit of a pacing issue as a result, but it's nothing that really breaks the enjoyment.

Joining the cast are Catherine O'Hara, Bill Nighy, Mark Hamill, Stephanie Hsu, Matt Berry and Ving Rhames.

I really don't know if there's anything else I could add, really; I usually ramble on for much longer, but that covers it all. Maybe I'm holding back so as to not spoil too much (though, in all fairness, the trailers do say a lot). If this film beats Disney or Pixar at the Oscars in the animation category/ies, it will be very well-deserved. This is the movie I'll be rooting for. I cannot recommend this one enough.

Update on the remainder of 2024

Alright, so just a few announcements about the end of the year on the blog:

-I'm working on the very last Quick Review of 2024. I should have posted it today, but I had major computer issues last week that deprived me of a PC for two days, setting me back. Every day since getting it home I've been making progress in that last game. (I'm so annoyed, because I literally could have ended the Quick Reviews on the final day of September, I had it all timed so perfectly, and now I'm losing a week, but... life happens, as annoying as that may be.)

-For the remainder of the year, I think I'll settle on just four or so more games to cover. I really hope to review the 3DS and Wii games I was hoping to do this year. Those two might take me a month, leaving very little time for anything else...

-Which takes me to my next point: Yeah, the Year Plans were wayyy off mark this year. I overshot by a large margin. I most definitely won't be able to cover all of these games this year, no duh. Even if I gamed six hours a day for three months, I doubt I could. So I might settle on just a few - maybe the ones that take up the most space in my library, which would serve as a good excuse to be done with them. I might course correct in the other direction next year when thinking up my Year Plans, and undershoot instead, leaving more room.

-I still plan to close the year with a Top 12 (which I've already begun writing - I'm going back to a well that inspired me quite a bit a few years ago). As for the "What I've Missed" article, I might do one again, but I might have to find a different strategy instead of covering all of the games with a super-quick paragraph for each. I'll see.

That's it for now. See you on Friday!

Quick Review: World of Goo

Why did the goo cross the chasm?

How do you do, fellow gooballs?

Created by 2D BOY and released to Steam on October 13th, 2008, World of Goo has quite the backstory. Even on this blog! During my first two years writing this blog, I wrote quick articles (not so different from these Quick Reviews) on the fifty WiiWare demos that were once available on the Wii Shop Channel. That was so long ago. World of Goo was one of those. I got the full version on Steam thanks to a bundle on Humble Bundle. Time to test it once more, then!

Building up towards the pipe, while the world is literally
spinning around? Yeah, that's just one of the many examples
of crazy challenges in this game.

In World of Goo, we witness an island of living goo balls of various types, most of which can connect to each other to form structures, or move around the structures they built. The goal is generally to get to a pipe that’s out of reach, by building towards it. If the first challenge is to get there, the second is to make sure you get there while still having more than the requested number of goo balls. The third, affectionately dubbed the “Obsessive Completion Distinction (OCD)” mode and completely optional, is to do it in the fewest number of moves or in the shortest time. At the end of a level, the extra goo balls you rescued beyond the requested amount are taken to World of Goo Corporation, an endless area in which you’re told to build the highest goo tower possible.

The big differnce between this game and other bridge
builders is that this one doesn't shy away from having
all kinds of weird, wacky contraptions to build off of.

What types of goo balls? The black basic ones, which cannot be reused once connected onto a structure; the green ones, which can be reused at will, and which connect to more of the structure at once; balloons, which lift structures upwards; various balls that cannot be interacted with, and only need to get to the goal pipe; “water” balls that can only connect to one other ball, then drip downwards unless something keeps them up... And that’s only from the first two chapters of four (+ an epilogue). Things only get more complex over time. And that’s before the game adds a “whistle” allowing you to call goo balls towards your cursor!

The goo rescued at the end of the first island gets to explore. However, a story unravels across each new island, with major discoveries by the time of the final chapter... Yeah, that mysterious Sign Painter knows much more than they let on.

Build up to the skies!

So now I had to use literal skeleton goos in order to
cross a wide gap of spikes. Only getting weirder and
weirder with time!

World of Goo sets itself apart from other physics-based building puzzle games by being quirkier than other games in this very limited genre. Every level is something novel and weird, and with that every challenge is fresh and forces you to think outside the box. The types of goo balls, the weight of your construction, every hazard around you, everything comes into play towards the solution. Keep some time aside, as more than a few puzzles will have to be tried over and over. All split over four worlds and an epilogue with their own feel (the music is a surprising standout) and storyline, with a bonus “endless” mode to let you build freely.

In this level, we're basically building a fuse towards a bomb.
And then you still have to build the bridge across the chasm!

The game hasn’t stolen its reputation as one of the earliest successful indie titles, and it is very deserving of its awards and accolades. That said, as I played, I was reminded of how I first discovered this game, and how the PC version felt so much like a port of the WiiWare one, with the entirety of its controls involving the mouse and nothing else. And yet, at the same time, I kept having that nagging impression that this game would be so much more difficult to play while dealing with the imprecision of pointing at the screen with a remote from a distance. This idea works so much better on PC, with better control on what you do. Especially when you have a lot of goo balls to choose from, and speedy reaction time becomes just as necessary as figuring out the solution.

A sequel was released… yep, last month exactly, 16 years later, on Switch and on PC as an Epic Games exclusive (bleh). In the meantime, though, the original game is still available on Steam for 14.99$ USD.

Quick Review: The WereCleaner

If not friend, why friend-shaped?

Cleaning ink spills, sure. I do wonder who had
the strength to destroy the printer this bad, though.

Developed by Howlin’ Hugs, published by USC Games and released on May 7th, 2024, this free game is the story of Kyle, who works as a janitor at a big company. Just the usual: Clean up the messes around the office, wash the graffitied walls, suck up the remnants of last week’s birthday party… However, the CEO throws a wrench in Kyle’s life by forcing a week’s worth of mandatory night shifts on everyone, with no extra compensation. The issue: Kyle is a lycanthrope.

"Mental breakdown"? I call that action-painting.

At night, he becomes a(n adorable) deadly werewolf. He controls himself enough to talk, or to remember he needs to work, but if he’s seen… instincts take over and that witness is dead. Thus, it is in a state of extreme danger to his own colleagues that Kyle puts his janitor uniform over his furred body and gets to work anyway, because rent won’t pay itself. Oh, and Daryl the security guard is having a hunch about an animal in the office…

Whoops, killed the secretary.

You heard that right: A stealth game in which YOU are the danger, and it’s out of care for everybody else that you choose to be sneaky and not be seen. Ooooooorrrrrrr play evil and don’t give a damn if you’re spotted, Kyle’s just gonna have one more mess to clean, like that makes a difference. Your coworkers will also panic if they see a bloody mess you’ve left behind. Can’t leave any witnesses, either.

You move Kyle with WASD and direct him with the mouse. You press the left-click button to powerwash liquid messes or vacuum solid items, and switch between both modes with Q. You can interact with stuff by pressing E. Later in the week, you gain the ability to toss paper balls (using the right-click button) to distract other workers away from you. There's also the option, by pressing Space, to shove a trash bag onto an enemy (as the place has vermin infestations) or onto a distracted coworker (so you can sneak by; it only works if you haven’t been spotted first).

"Hey, who turned off the light?"

Call it a hunch, but I think the employees aren't fans
of those unpaid overtime night shifts...

Only seven levels, one per night, but there’s some replayability here. For starters, you can look for collectibles scattered around the office. Second, you get a special sticker on each night for not killing anybody. Third, you can aim for the 5-star score by beating each level as quickly as possible – meaning going in, cleaning every mess, and leaving in record time. Finally, you can hunt for achievements with very specific requirements (e.g. Kill everyone on the busiest night).

Ooh, someone's gonna die. Bad dog! Bad!

Dripping with black comedy, featuring very family-unfriendly deaths presented in the cutest artstyle possible, The WereCleaner is one of my favorite discoveries this year. Its story is basic, and it’s not particularly subtle in its themes – but the lack of subtlety makes the whole thing even funnier. It plays very well and presents interesting ideas and challenges. It is very short; you can beat it in 30 to 40 minutes, and take 2-3 hours for 100% completion. But then again, when a game is free, you can let something like length slide if quality is present everywhere else.

I'll tell my kids that this was PowerWash Simulator.

USC Games is the game design program of the University of Southern California, and several video games created by its students were published to Steam for free, giving them a first experience in both making and releasing a game. Through titles like The WereCleaner, we may be seeing the start of many promising game developers’ careers. So why not take a stroll down their collection of free games, and see what the creators of tomorrow have to offer?

Quick Review: Urban Trial Freestyle

The apocalypse might not be the best moment to go out biking.

Everybody's gotta start somewhere, right?

A game from Tate Multimedia released to multiple platforms, and to Steam on September 18th, 2013, Urban Trial Freestyle can best be described as a physics racing game. The concept? You’re a thug biking around a city that’s falling apart. Drive across crazy tracks and do tricks in the air. That’s about it, really.

Controls are simple: You drive forward with the Up arrow, then adjust your angle with the Left and Right arrows, substituting for backward and forwards respectively. This lets you spin in midair to do stunts, and it can also let you do wheelies or push your weight forward to keep the front wheel on the ground – important for some uphill climbs.

Jumping into a spinning logo... or whatever that is...
...isn't nearly the craziest thing we do here.

The game is divided into five worlds, each containing 8 levels. Following two tutorials, we jump into the meat of the game, using the most basic bike. There’s not much of a story: Our biker keeps trespassing in hazardous areas, so cops and even civilians try to get in his way. That’s it. No explanation as to why, on top of that, the entire world seems to be tearing apart at the seams. On the other hand, gotta love how the world modifies itself perfectly to provide one uninterrupted 2D path for us to take. Yes, levels are in 2D only. But with that said, it’s more interesting to look at everything that happens in the background, even as we ride through.

Jesus, they're even tossing burning cars at you.

Levels are played in two versions: First are the “no trespassing” levels, in which your goal is to score points by completing the mini-challenges (longest/highest/most precise jump, best stunt) and getting to the end as quickly as possible. Second are the “timed” challenges, which are retreads of those levels with only the time attack element to worry about, and the ghost of another racer to go up against. You can earn up to five stars if your end score or time is excellent. You can also find money bags scattered around, which give an extra 500$ when collected.

Yeah, I'm nowhere close to that yet.

In turn, the money is used to upgrade your bike. Improve your motor, chassis and wheels, and tune your gear to your liking for speed, acceleration and handling. I’d recommend buying everything there first, since most 5-star scores are impossible without a few upgrades to your bike. You can also use the money to buy new helmets and clothes for your biker. However, I’d recommend the upgrades first, as later levels and worlds are locked until you collect enough stars, meaning that you need to perform great to see this game to the end.

Face, meet giant tree. You're not gonna be biking while
healing from that.

Gameplay turns into trial-and-error as you figure out not just the optimal path to the end, the best sequence of actions, but also the best gear for each challenge. Later levels even have a bit of a platformer feel to them, which… yeah, no, those wheels don’t control well enough for platforming, that’ll be a pass from me. That said, failing in this game is its own reward, as you can crash in a multitude of ways, many hilarious. Thought you could make it under that hotel sign? Oops, hit your head. Outspeed a falling subway car? Nope. Getting through that weird installation? Better luck next time! I’ve had some crazy laughs seeing my biker hurt himself in embarrassing ways. Over and over and over.

Oh, you should be DEAD dead.

Hey, he’s the one biking where he shouldn’t.

The madman!

Credit where due, the physics are very good, the stunts are varied, the music’s alright, and for a simple 2D title, it goes all-out with its background action and details. I enjoy the insanity of everything that happens around us as we drive through places where we shouldn't be. Heck, the insanity actually can hurt you, so it’s fun seeing all those near misses until you do get hit. Challenge is present, and getting those five stars will prove tricky on several levels, thus forcing a grind on both money and stars if you want to get anywhere.

Which brings me to the big issue: The campaign. There’s not much of an incentive to see the game to the end. A point comes quick where it becomes a grind for stars (to unlock new levels) and money (to upgrade the bike), and there’s no way around that. Furthermore, there’s eight levels in each world but really only four distinct ones, as each is played twice, once in score challenge and once in time attack with no difference otherwise, making the game quite repetitive. Can't say I'm big on the more platforming-like segments, either. At least there’s the pratfalls to keep one entertained.

Urban Trial Freestyle is currently available on Steam for 6.80$ USD.