I...Am...Bored!: The "Thor: God of Thunder" Review

It's a known fact that licenced video games are generally terrible. Case in point: Saw II: Flesh and Blood, the only game I've played to date that flips you off for beating it, and you know that you deserve it. It can be attributed to being rushed, or just because the designers didn't care about the product enough. Thor: God of Thunder is one of the weird ones. The team is the same people who made the X-Men Origins: Wolverine game that was actually a lot of fun. Yet, Thor comes off as a chore for the Ages.

Let's start with the funniest thing wrong with it: the acting. If this is how Thor and Loki act in the movie, I'm all ready bored. Chris Helmsworth doesn't show any emotion at all. Casually mentioning, "I am Thor," instead of belting it out, he sounds like Ben Stein asking Ferris Bueller to answer a question. Loki isn't much better. This line is delivered as flat as it is written here: "I will do what's best for Asgard and for Loki." I'm pretty damn sure that there is an italic in there, somewhere.

Game play is just as boring. It's the God of War style game, but with only one attack button, a magic button, jump, and grapple. You can only grapple certain enemies at certain times, and half of those times, it doesn't work. You cycle magic with the left and right arrows, and use down for-- I'm sorry, I can't keep from laughing at this-- a hint button. Hints in a game where you beat the living crap out of people with a hammer. It's even more worthless when most of the hints are just what the level objective is. If you are stuck, reminding you what you need to do without any other direction is going to help.

You'll be stuck a lot, too, mainly because the game is glitchy as hell. Several times in the game, progress had been blocked by walls that I needed to destroy. The problem was that I couldn't destroy said walls until it realized that I was stuck. I'd be trying to progress for five minutes until the game figured out that it should let me go on. Other times, enemies will not take damage from attacks, even if they show that they are. I've had instances of floating enemies, and, my personal favorite, enemies that ignore you entirely, and attack midair. Even more infuriating is Thor's attacks randomly going spastic, causing his hammer to fly away from him in a random direction, usually toward the player, and miss everything attacking him.

Graphically, the game is equally horrendous. At one point, I was on a bridge, and water was flowing across it. As the camera turned, the water was still flowing the same way, across the screen, like an old Doom sprite. Even better, the snow in the background was blurry and unpolished, resembling Playstation One graphics. Characters are very plastic looking, as well, showing even less emotion than the voice actors... which is still dumbfounding. I've also fought five different versions of the same three enemies, including bosses. This isn't acceptable in downloaded games, why is it here?

Thor: God of Thunder is not worthy of existence. The only redeeming quality it has is that it isn't Saw 2, and even then Saw 2 had the unintentional humor to it that this game doesn't have. It reeks of being made by people who just didn't care about the material enough to make a quality game, nor a product. If you look up cash-in, Thor: God of Thunder would be the picture next to it.

Overall: D-

+ Not Saw II: Flesh and Blood
- Glitchy as Saw II
- Boring voice acting
- Anemic variety
- One button combat, really?
- A fucking hint system?
- Graphics and sound will make your eyes and ears bleed.