Over the Hedge

Targeting younger audiences, Over the Hedge is your classic cartoon movie turned into a video game. There have been a number of movies to video games recently such as Madagascar that at least varies the gameplay enough to keep things moving, but Over the Hedge really puts forth an extremely simple gameplay structure.

Realizing this is targeted at younger audiences, Over the Hedge still leaves much to be desired. The basic platforming capabilities used over and over set the tone. Mostly you're running, jumping, attacking and then repeating. The objectives might change but how they're achieved won't. The puzzles also don't offer any significant challenge even for younger audiences and within a short period of time, it starts to feel more like work then anything else.

In addition, there are fixed camera issues which can be annoying in a 3D platformer as getting the camera to follow the selected character from behind didn't always cooperate. Having your character run right at you can be problematic since you can't see where you're going, only where you've been. Otherwise the graphics were decent and the cutscenes did a good job of carrying the plot.

The gameplay executed in Over the Hedge for the most part performs acceptably, but it's thin and repetitive. Even looking at other similar types of games generated from movies, this one has some obvious deficiencies. If your kids just watched the movie and you wanted to continue the experience, a rental would probably satisfy nicely.