Michael Phelps: Push the Limit
Score: 67% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: 505 Games Developer: Blitz Games Media: DVD/1 Players: 1 - 2; 1 - 4 (Online) Genre: Simulation
Graphics & Sound: Michael Phelps: Push the Limit is a decent enough looking game. Sure, it doesn't "push the limit" on water physics or realism, but it does look good enough. The water looks like water, and the swimmers never smile, but they do look like pro swimmers. You can also customize the look of your swimmer if you don't want to play as Phelps all the time. The music has a high energy synth kind of style. It's what you might expect as the background music for a workout video. Nothing you really want on your mp3 player, but it does the job. The announcer does his job fine as well, though he doesn't really add much in the way of interesting commentary. He pretty much acts as you'd expect, calling out your performance as amazing or disappointing as needed. Phelps himself also makes a voice appearance during some of the game's menus. It's a nice touch, but it's not really enough to give fans a thrill.
Gameplay: I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Maybe this game isn't as bad as the trailer, maybe it's fun once you get into it." Stop that now. You're coming with me into this world of pain, whether you like it or not. Ok to be fair, Michael Phelps: Push the Limit does have a tall order to fill. How do you really make a great and exciting swimming game for those of us on dry land? Unfortunately, it seems like the idea needs some work and some control tweaking. At the very least, it needs a much bigger, much more helpful tutorial. If I could at least see what I was doing wrong, that might help me enjoy the game, since I might be able to improve my performance. The game has a few modes of play. You can swim competitively against a friend, or you can try solo Quickplay or Career modes. Playing with a friend is always fun, but perhaps much more in this game. After all, it's much more fun to make a fool of yourself if someone else has to, right along with you. The Career Mode lets you swim progressively tougher races to get to one ultimate race. Along the way, you can add points to your swimmer's stats to make them faster or give them more stamina, or to increase a variety of other stats. You'll need this, as the swimmers get better as the races progress.
Difficulty: Michael Phelps: Push the Limit can be difficult, to say the least. As I'll describe later, the controls don't function consistently, so it can be a bit of a game of chance at times. The thing is, me and everyone else I had play this game seemed terrible at the front crawl. But the Career Mode doesn't let you select anything else as a break if you're terrible at it. So if you had a variety of races where you could make up for being terrible in one, you'd have a much easier time. Alas, that's not how it works, and you'll likely be stuck flailing around forever in the bottom dregs of Career Mode if you can't get the front crawl down. It may not seem like it, but this game will wear you out pretty well. Sure, it's all arms, but committing to the motions really does require you to move your arms fast, and swing them pretty wide. Do enough of that over and over, and it really is a workout.
Game Mechanics: There are some problems with Michael Phelps: Push the Limit, that's for sure. To start, there's a problem with the system that determines what place you came in during a race. Sometimes the announcer will say "4th!" while a giant "5th" sign hovers over your lane. I thought it was funny the first time, because I figured it was a one time thing, but this glitch seems to pop up quite often. The more serious problems are, of course, the ones that affect whether you can actually complete the game. It seems that if you bend too far for the starting position, you'll trigger an accidental dive. You could be sitting there motionless, but your character will just dive on in. Then there's the swimming itself. It would be nice if the game would help you find the correct motions that it wants. After all, you could be an expert swimmer, but the motions aren't the same if you're standing up and mocking the motions. Most people swim horizontally, just in case there was some confusion. So if I'm not doing the front crawl correctly, I don't know if I need to raise my arms higher, swing them out, or what. And the tracking in this game is not that great to boot. So you could be doing the motion perfectly and consistently, and suddenly the game will just decide it's not happy with your performance whenever it feels like it. Push the Limit is fun in the way that all games can be: it makes you laugh with (and at) your friends. But that kind of thing doesn't make a game great. This game really didn't have to be so terribly difficult, and it could have saved the problematic front crawl for later on to make things easier to get into. It could have just fixed it too. This is one game that just doesn't make you want to move around more because of the frustration. But don't be so sad, at least I made it through this entire review without one "push the limit" pun!
-Fights with Fire, GameVortex Communications AKA Christin Deville
Related Links: Michael Phelps: Push the Limit Official Site
Rocksmith: Authentic Guitar Games Batman: Arkham City