Poor Smith and Gillan. They can't be doing this out of choice.
The only explanation is that the contract that transformed them into one of the best Doctors and shoutiest companions contained a tiny Satanic clause: "You must voice your role in every incompetent and poorly conceived game anyone produces". Unless they took the job willingly, making them traitors to their fans.
Playing Return To Earth is a profoundly miserable experience. The story's abysmal, an incoherent, contrived excuse to throw the big villains in.
The script is also bad - odd lines of excruciatingly awkward dialogue sandwiched between tech-babble whose only purpose is to explain the irrelevant, repetitive gameplay.
Hang on, Amy has a sonic screwdriver now? Floating smileys? What? But that's all the game is: load your screwdriver with coloured crystals, and shoot similarly coloured floating faces.
Some levels end with a game where you roll a ball through a maze, or an asteroid blasting game. Some stages try to create a stealth element, but stealth only works if your enemy has an inkling of intelligence. These Cybermen love nothing more than staring at a wall.
Delete me now
Most insulting is the script. "You will be deleted," say the Cybermen to Ivy, the ship's AI. "But I don't want to be deleted," replies Ivy. That's about the level of characterisation and banter you can expect.
But most speaking is done by the crystal-dispensing pods needed to operate the inexplicable smiling face-switches. "Time for a cup of tea!" "Someone's stealing the stopcocks!" It doesn't make sense. It's like a committee of demented foreign pensioners tried to work out what English children think robots might say.
If you're a child, and you're reading this, you deserve better. I'm sorry people my age have slapped you in the face like this. But use the lesson well. Remember the hatred games like this rightfully deserve, and vow that you'll never produce such an execrable turd in your own adult life. Promise me that, and this won't have all been in vain.
Ouch, that was bad. Want to know if you should buy the Doctor Who DS game instead? Read our Doctor Who: Evacuation Earth review.
Now this is a great game!!! Congrats!!!
I wonder how can people waste time doing those kind of games... and I bet the reviewer thought at the end "why did I even waste my time playing and reviewing this.."
Hurray for Doctor Who!! Amazing Game in perspective!
The day they release a good Dr. Who game is the day the earth asplodes.
Oh god.
Great review, well written that had me in stitches. It's amazing the garbage they'll throw on the Wii fire.
Seeing a review like this begs the question - why not just release the Adventure Games on a disc? It's cheaper for them, and better for us. Corporations never cease to amaze...
Bitterly disappointed, but not surprised. BBC, how about giving it to a decent developer next time, eh? It's not like EA or Activision couldn't do a better job!
what people dont realise is that this is as good as it could have been. its doctor who for goodness sake, not an actually good scifi programme to start with...
Stop trolling and leave.
If on the off-chance you are serious, it's won awards. Bad shows don't win awards.
But yeah, this a disgrace although I never trusted the developers with the brand.
one of the worst wii games ever
Glad I got the ds one instead.
one word describes this
Meh meh meh meh I love meh
Why is one of the items a dog?
I've not been in to Doctor Who for a while.
Ergo, I've not really liked the newer stuff.
Ergo, I prefer watching episodes from back in the day of the dragons.
However, in defence of this shambolic game, it WILL still sell. Why? Because it's on the Wii and it's obviously for children. And parents will buy anything for their children if it has a big name strapped on it.
I won't even glance at it in stores though.
lol, almost as bad as flashlight or crazy frog racers (which got 4% in NOM something).
Meh, I knew this game was gonna bomb from the start, despite having a good interest in Doctor Who
wow. i realy like doctor who so very disapointed.
How could anyone expect anything else?
when the first batch of screenshots were released... we all knew... we knew it would suck.
It looked like a DS game for one.
the free PC games, had more care and effort in them. And had a competent developer. they wasn't amazing, but they was free, and decent.
The fact is, the BBC obviously didn't do research when they allowed this developer to make the game. Heck, I bet they havnt even watched the show.
If there are no good things, why was it giving 19% and not 0%?
Wow, the graphics look pretty good (if this was an N64 game).
Settling scores will go mad...
Well, i think it should have one plus point, (the ace sonic screwdriver remote). Guess the DS version is the one for me. Dissapointing.
Uh graphically this could be a bad N64 game!
Its clear not much effort was put into this, the PC games are pretty awesome if you play them and if you watch the show you'll relise that storyline is definately one of their strong points, even the DS game looked pretty good but seems a bit to childish, still better than this though.
...
...
...I'm still the biggest Doctor Who fan here...sorry...the SECOND biggest fan on the forum.
Honestly who would pay for something you can do for free? It would be a good game but why sell it?
So the only reason you should buy this is for firewood.
Oh I knew this would happen! Damn you Matt Smith and Karen Gilan! You guys were awesome! Let's just pretend this game never happened ok?
P.S If there are no good things about this game, where did that extra 19% come from?
now watch as it rockets through the the charts for 19 months
No, my point was that they should have just brought them out on Wii instead - they would've been a good-ish console game, and fans might have bought this.
No one here will buy this (or at least, they shouldn't)
No, my point was that they should have just brought them out on Wii instead - they would've been a good-ish console game, and fans might have bought this.
No one here will buy this (or at least, they shouldn't)
I completly agree with you. When I was younger, I never understood why my friends liked Doctor Who. I tried a few times to watch it but just found it to be utter garbage. The Stories are unbelievably rediculous and parts that are clearly intended to be dramatic and serious completly fall flat on their face.
aaaahhh!!!! it burns!!!!!! those graphics are N64 standered!!! it makes the snes doom graphics look like skyward sword!!!
fairplay its on my xmass list along with Wheelspin..
also is this multiformat? would prefer it for ps1
They clearly wasted their time, making a special Wii remote to promote a terrible game.
Man, the graphics looks hideous. They can do better.
If there's nothing good about it, why 19%?
It's official: Asylum hates children. Think of all the disappointed young faces come Christmas morning after they pop this in the Wii. The media sure is cruel when in pursuit of cash.
I knew this was never going to be good but I didn't think it would get this low a score. It's just a shame it will probably fly off the shelves.
Fix'd
I knew this game was doomed to failure. Doomed I say! I'm not a Dr Who fan myself but I can see even the most die hard fan being disappointed by this. Cheer up though Who fans, there'll probably be a good Christmas special....
Screw all you who haters!! DOCTOR WHO IS AWESOME!! . the games do look TERRIBLE! honestly when is there going to be a good tv/film tie in.
Both N64 and Wii versions of GoldenEye say hi.
I am actually really disappointed with the result this game got
After reading the review I completely agree with the score, but I had very high hopes for this game. When I heard talk of it months ago I thought it was shaping up to be pretty good but now I've been let down ... quite harshly 
Hahaha! Really glad you gave it a rubbish score ONM! I had an inkling from the start that this wouldn't work, but I did give it a chance but it missed the goal by 10 miles. The kids under 10 years old will play it just because it's Doctor Who and that's about it. Another tie-in rushed out makes me want to bang my head off the wall a few times.
The Adventure Games were decent, but nothing beyond that.
Stick to TV, books and audio dramas BBC, not games!
Ouch, that review was like kicking the developer repeatedly in the cods.
TBH, I'm not interested in the games, though if they did a decent one I wouldn't complain. It's all about the show, which has never returned to the glory year that was 2006 (David Tenant + Billie Piper = yay!)
Oho I'm so childish
Looks like a canned PS1 title.
Hmmm, I think ONM put up those PS1 screenshots as opposed to the ones for the Wii version for some reason. Shoddy.
I disagree. Dr Who is a great show IMHO, but it is fatally impossible to make a game of it. Probably because most developers are like you. No offence.
It's not even thqat useful. Wii discs don't burn.
If I had to play a doctor who game, DS game 2.
Wow.. 19%!!!!!!!!!!!!
i think it deserves a higher score: 70%
Why? Have you played it?
Oh yes! of course! Oh and there is also PS3/XBOX 360 War For Cybertron. thats good. Goldeneye rules!
Ok then when is there going to be a good doctor who game? A good game would involve a starwars battlefront style monsters battle!
Heh nice score. Might of been severall percent higher if David Tennant was still the Doctor. Ever since he left I stopped watching Doctor Who.
Then you missed the best series since Tennant's first one.
I actually think I saved mself. I looked at a trailer of Matt Smith's series and they looked appalling.
How did I know?
hmmmmmmm lol
"Take coveeeeeeeeeeer!"
Simply awful.
We have a 5 year old here. Kill it. KILL IT NOW.
Doctor Who trailers have always been appalling in my opinion. And trust me, the Matt Smith series did not have...
Tennant turning into Jesus due to the wishes of the people.
The Tardis towing a whole Solar System back into place.
Stupid little aliens made of fat.
The Master turning everyone on the planet into The Master.
Captain Jack.
Or...
Catherine Tate.
So its better by default.
Anyone reminded of the Sonic Cycle?
ONE OF THE BEST DOCTORS? He's terrible! He can't act properly and he tries to be like David T toooo much...he needs to be original.
I could see this faailing
His entire docter is based on "well blow me down with a feather iv got a bowtie!!!1!!!101!!" and karens is based on "lolz i like to shoutz a lots cos im made of fail"
Its no doubt the game is pants... at lest flashlight had a use
sorry for the trolling
When I first heard they were making a Doctor Who game, I thought "That will NOT be good!"
It would seem I could now make a living in fortune telling. Either that, or this was just so insanely predictable, that if you looked up predictable in a dictionary, it would have a picture of this game with the review score next to it in big bold letters.
Something I noticed. Finally got the game in Australia.
I also apologise in advance if this is a rather rude entry, but...
When you first start playing the game, in the beginning of Chapter 3 where you control Eleven for the first time in that little room. On one side is a schematic for the SS Lucy Gray. On the other side of the room are some movie posters.
I noticed, in the middle poster (press A to zoom and the Nunchuk to move around) has three names on it, one of which is uh... "Mike Hunt".
Risque and controversial content left over by some coder, perhaps?
I actullay wanna play this to see how bad it is
I got this for christmas.
Didn't ask for it though mind you.