Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian -- The Video Game [X360]

Aside from splaying special abilities across a variety of objects with his flashlight and playing Indiana Daley, there's not a whole lot else to do. There are some basic bit of platforming that (usually) work well (when they don't you'll rarely have to go far to return to where you were after a fall), some button pressing and very light puzzle solving. One sequence has you diving through a gallery of paintings to unlock some treasure chests in sequence, another has you rotating columns, which you can also play on the main menu once you've finished the game, along with some trivia and a mini-game involving the trilobites that scurry around some of the levels and need to be herded, but that's basically it. All this leaves is a rather insane amount of item collection; magnets, pennies, aviator's wings, quarters, packs of gum, postcards, audio tours, factoids all rest in various areas of the museum and are the key to unlocking more points to buy bonus items at the end of the game (or unlock most of the Achievements in the 360 version).

If you can snag four quarters and a penny, you can use a handful of machines to press a special little penny, which unlocks a little trophy in the game's trophy room (shining a flashlight on an object here will reveal what's needed to unlock any missing trophies). Again, there's Achievements for each of these too. Because the game is so short, no one part of these sequences feels played out by the game's conclusion. You'll have ample time to seek out hidden objects or collect 14 tubes of paint or whatever, and you'll be able to use the various powers of the tablet more than a few times.

Maybe it's because it's all so inoffensive that I ended up really growing fond of Battle of the Smithsonian. It's a kid's game, clearly, but demonstrates that not all kids games have to be completely soulless. The dialogue in parts is actually chuckle-worthy, Ben Stiller does a solid (if kind of flat) bit of reprisal, the other voice actors actually side-step trying to ape the big screen actors in a lot of cases and just go with the actual characters themselves, and Chris Tilton's main theme, while recycled more than a few times (the muzak-ized version in the freight elevator was a nice one-off touch), is full of epic orchestral swells that fit the whole theme and pacing of the game perfectly.

Though it's not entirely solid on the 360 version either, the framerate on the Wii iteration is pretty bad -- usually well below a solid 30 when the camera is rotating and in some parts -- even enclosed areas -- it can drop into the low teens, turning everything choppy (made all the more jarring by the fact that the pre-rendered cutscenes play at full 30 frames). I'm not even sure why the 360 version doesn't run butter smooth, as the game was clearly designed with the Wii in mind first and then bumped up with better textures and some very basic filtering effects (no copious amount of normal mapping or realistic lighting here).

That said, looking around with the flashlight on the Wii feels more direct than using an analog stick -- faster, too (though I had to often wiggle the Wiimote at the screen to get it to update where I was pointing) -- and the dynamic shadows that it reveals look fairly slick. It's just a shame that they can also cause the framerate to bog down even more than it already does during normal play. Mapping a nunchuck flick to using the keychain was a nice (if somewhat unresponsive) touch, and though the camera keeps up most of the time, having manual control on the d-pad still feels clunky compared to a right analog stick. Some sequences, like flying Amelia Earhart's plane could have been done so much better by just pointing with the Wiimote but instead are insanely clunky with the re-mapped controls.

Closing Comments
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is surprisingly self-aware (and I don't mean the few times where the fourth wall is broken). It knows it's a licensed game, and doesn't try to be more than a light, entertaining little collection of gameplay moments. Because of this, and because it actually uses the Smithsonian as a proper set piece, the game actually ends up being fun. Not exhilarating, not mind-blowing, but surprisingly solid. Good job, Pipeworks, you made a game that's educational, simple, and, best of all, never outstays its welcome.

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