FreezeMe Review

FreezeMe

Release: February 4, 2016
Publisher: Rainy Night Creations
Developer: Rainy Night Creations
Genre: Adventure, Platformer
PEGI: E
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FreezeMe has been a Wii U title that I’ve been looking forward to for awhile now. It is a 3D platformer on a system where 2D platformers are more plentiful. The game also looks to have good graphics and fun gameplay. But does FreezeMe live up to my expectations? Here’s what I thought of FreezeMe for the Wii U!

FreezeMe has a rather simple story that tries to be funny, but, instead, just feels lame and uninteresting. Many platformers have simple stories, take Mario for instance, and that doesn’t mean that FreezeMe is a bad game because of it. With platformers, its always the gameplay that defines whether the game is good or bad. I’m sorry to say that FreezeMe also falls flat when it comes to gameplay.

At first glance, FreezeMe looks like it’ll be a lot of fun. There is a wonderfully large hub world and each individual world is pretty big. The game has a lot of levels to play and unlock too. The actual content of every level is pretty mediocre though. FreezeMe doesn’t offer up any new challenges that we haven’t seen a million times in other 3D platformers. In fact, many of the challenges here seem straight out of Mario 64 or Super Mario Galaxy. If you’re just looking for a new platformer to play and not too worried about original content, then you may enjoy FreezeMe at first. The game does offer a lot of challenging levels. Unfortunately, lack of originality isn’t FreezeMe’s only problem.

Whatever you do, don’t download FreezeMe to an external hard drive! Currently, the game has a glitch when played on a hard drive. Not everyone ran into this glitch, but I sure did. Every so often, several of the gamepad buttons would stop working for a short amount of time. I wasn’t able to jump or able to turn the camera to look around. This is a very annoying glitch. The game also has longer load times while on an external hard drive. Thankfully, the glitch doesn’t happen at all if you put the game on the Wii U’s internal memory. The load times are a little bit shorter on internal memory too. However, FreezeMe still has issues even without that glitch.

I ran into a few other glitches while playing FreezeMe on the Wii U‘s internal memory. One of the worst was a level where the camera backed out so far that I couldn’t see my character. There was another glitch that happened one time when I was testing out the Wii remote controls. This glitch happened when I tried to use the game’s teleporter and there was no way to exit the thing. However, this glitch didn’t happen every time I tried it. There is also a strange camera glitch to that happens if you get the game camera too close to the main character’s head! Basically, you’ll see right through the character’s head (there’s nothing in there).

It seemed like every time I turned around I was noticing some new FreezeMe glitch. It sounds like the developer will be patching some of these glitches. It is a shame though that reviewers and early adopters have to put up with these problems. At least FreezeMe’s controls are not too bad.

On the Wii U gamepad, walking around feels a bit sluggish and swimming doesn’t work very well, but jumping, the key element of any platformer, works fine. You can also touch enemies via the gamepad and freeze them! This works very well. The Wii U gamepad also offers Off-TV play, which is a plus. That said, I have to say that I had more fun playing the game with the Wii remote & nunchuk. With the nunchuk, running around in FreezeMe felt a lot better (though swimming is still awkward) and the Wii remote controls, including the camera, seemed to work better. None of FreezeMe’s controls are absolutely horrible, but the overall experience is not a lot of fun. The game’s visuals and audio are also nothing to write home about.

FreezeMe’s graphics are very bright and colorful, which I like, but the objects and characters themselves are very bland. The enemies and NPCs have no real personality and the challenges you’re presented with look generic. The game also has a cutscene at the start that’s presented in a style that doesn’t match the rest of the game. Some people will find the cutscene neat and some will just think its lame. I had high hopes for FreezeMe based on its graphics, but the more I played this game, the less I liked its graphics.

As for the game’s audio, its not bad but none of it stands out. FreezeMe’s audio and sound effects are forgettable.

FreezeMe could have been a great game, but instead, its just an ok one. The game is trying too hard to be Super Mario 64 and never does find its own personality. If lack of personality was its only problem, I suppose that would be alright, but sadly, that not the only thing wrong with this game. At present, FreezeMe has a lot of glitches. The developer may fix these issues via patches, but, honestly, I don’t think that early buyers or reviewers should be beta testers. Still, even if all of its glitches are fixed, FreezeMe will be just be a generic Super Mario 64 clone. FreezeMe’s bright and colorful open world is not enough to recommend this game. Instead, players should go out and play Super Mario 64 again.

Thank you to Rainy Night Creations for providing a review copy of this game. FreezeMe is currently on the Wii U eshop.

Positives

• Big Open Worlds
• Lots of Content
• Excellent Wii Remote/Nunchuk controls
• Off-TV Play

Negatives

• Lack of Originality
• Lots of glitches
• Bland art style
• Forgettable music & sound

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