Hands-On: Ben 10 Alien Force

You know what makes me happy? Quality 2-D animation instead of crummy 3-D.

So even though I may not be a Ben 10 super-fan (read: I’ve never watched the Cartoon Network series, a sequel set five years after the original Ben 10 show, where Ben comes out of Omnitrix retirement to save his missing Grandpa by transforming into a new bunch of aliens with superpowers…) I can appreciate the look and feel of Ben 10 Alien Force for DS.

The new game is being released for a PlayStation, PSP, Wii, and DS which will all have five new alien forms, like Humongosaur, a big humanoid dinosaur, for Ben to take advantage of, but the DS version has three exclusives, like Echo Echo, who may be short, but has a move where he stacks up copies of himself for a triple punch.

Transforming is really easy, since all you need to do is use the shoulder buttons to choose the form you want, and then tap it on the touch screen. If you fight effectively and collect a lot of Omnitrix points, you can upgrade six different areas (max health, combos) for each form from the menu screen between levels.

While it seems like a pretty typical beat’em up platformer, Ben 10 Alien Force looks to be a good use of the license, and also something that the target audience should enjoy quite a bit. I can imagine legions of happy elementary school-aged nephews toting this in their Ben 10 backpacks once it releases October 28.