As I watched the first season of Disney XD's Max Steel, I couldn't get Crysis out of my head. Here's a crack paramilitary outfit, a guy in a suit that morphs itself to enhance his physical attributes like strength and speed, he's fighting aliens — the outfit even has the Crysis suit's cool honeycomb mesh pattern. It's Crysis for kids!
Based on Mattel's on-again, off-again toy line, it's not hard to imagine the creators of the latest incarnation of Max Steel didn't take a few cues from Crytek's franchise. Make the lead character a teenager, give him an alien robot sidekick, make his family his squadmates, toss in a few animation cliches, and boom — Max Steel is reborn.
I really dig the series. The back story and plot may be a bit contrived, but the writing is clever, the banter witty, and the visuals are really nifty, if you're into a lot of white and blue.
So now we have the official mobile game of show based on the toy line which feels like it borrows some elements from a popular first-person shooter franchise. Max Steel: Rise of Elementor isn't a shooter — it's a story-based running game with fighting elements — but it's more of a game than most animated properties could ever hope for.
Check out my video review. Ignore the guy in the middle bits.
Max Steel: Rise Of Elementor
Genre: Running, Fighting, Upgrading
Developer: Chillingo
Platform: iOS
Price: Free