By the sound of the title, you’d think this was a kids game. It definitely is, and it is released under the Xbox 360 Family Games branding.  But don’t dismiss it entirely, that’s not a bad thing.  Sometimes you need a title that you can have your kids play and not be shooting, slashing, and killing everything in site.  You do “kill” things in this game, but you’re “killing” Gummi Bears, donuts, giant burritos, broccoli, pomegranate, and other assorted foods.

Just what is this game, anyway? It's based on the upcoming Sony Pictures movie based on the book of the same name, it puts you in the roll of Flint Lockwood, or in multiplayer, Flint and Steve the Monkey, who is Flint’s buddy.  For those into heavy metal music, Flint appears to be a combination of Edward Scissorhands and Wayne Static, the founder of Static X.  Steve the Monkey looks like, well, a monkey.  Flint invented the FLDSMDFR, which is short for “Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator”.  This acronym is spoken like a word, which sounds pretty ridiculous, but in the spirit of the game, it works well.  But how do you say FLDSMDFR without sounding like a goofball?  This machine makes food fall from the sky, but in huge portions.  How does one get rid of all of this giant good?  Well, your character is a genius inventor, so you use his inventions.

These inventions:

The Hot Enougher, for melting stuff like butter, giant scoops of ice cream, and gummi bears

The Forkamajigger, for lifting and stacking zuccini and steaks, and for pulling apart spaghetti tornados

The Upsucker Plus!, for sucking up liquid like grease, guacamole, and honey, and spitting them back out

The Chopper-er, for slicing up broccoli, gummi bears, carrots

The Bigacious Pow, for breaking and pushing things

The Outtasighter, a catapult-vacuum-Zamboni type machine

The gameplay is fairly simple, you take Flint and go around breaking and destroying food, clearing paths, and saving the people of Shallow Falls who are trapped by giant broccoli, being attacked by pomegranates that fire fruits, and gummi bears, among other things.  As you go along, you collect Hydrons and Hydronic Foodpods, which will upgrade your inventions to tackle the higher levels of the game, which total 20 in all.  The game has a lot of voice work, and the voices sound pretty good, but can get a bit redundant- Flint announces what invention he is using when he whips them out.  When you have to quickly change from one invention to the other, back to the other, it sounds strange, however it does remind you what weapon you are, so if you picked the wrong item, it can be helpful.  It’s not intrusive, but it may annoy some players. On levels where you have to save people, they may remind you that they need help, or you’re going the wrong way, or you’re taking too much time.  The environments look simple but good as well, there are times when you'll want to pan out or look around and check things out to see if you've missed something, or a couple of times, where you're supposed to go next.  However you won't be able to check the environment out.

You start off with being able to use one invention on a board at a time, and you eventually are able to hold multiple inventions at once, depending on what the board calls for. For instance, one level will have you chopping up broccoli and slicing apart gummi bears, so you are armed with the Chopper-er.  Another level you may need the Upsucker Plus, to suck up grease to allow you to push hamburgers around to different areas of the level, the Bigacious Pow, to destroy cookies of an ice cream sandwich, and the Hot Enougher, to melt the ice cream of the ice cream sandwich.  Speaking of the Chopper-er, there's a certain level of satisfaction when you go up to a bunch of gummi bears, and take them on like you were playing Ninja Gaiden- no blood, just gummi pieces.  Especially after you get passed the noises the bears make, making sounds like tree frogs during springtime.  This made me wonder if they were playing on the gopher from Caddyshack sounding like a porpoise.  Maybe something put into the game to bring parents into the experience of the game, much like movies put in tidbits so adults can enjoy the movie where the kids may not understand yet.  That's what stuff like Animaniacs and Aladdin's Genie thrived on.

The Outtasighter is a vehicle that shows up every now and then, which is part vacuum-part catapult. Hot chili in your way?  Suck it up with the vacuum attachment.  Giant burgers or burritos in the way?  Pick them up with the catapult attachment, and fling them of the screen.  You can get rid of the chili by using the Outtasighter, or by filling the Upsucker Plus with grease, honey, or guacamole, and spraying it all over the chili.  Don't worry, the goo you suck up with the Upsucker will replenish itself automatically after a couple of seconds.  On the boards that require you to "clean up" the chili on the ground, getting the chili cleared for 100%  doesn't necessarily mean you have to clean up every last drop- you just have to clean up enough to reach 100%, which seems arbitrary.  The Upsucker Plus can also use the honey to spray on certain walls that have to be climbed, allowing Flint to scale the wall by slogging up the honey-covered wall.

Graphically, the game looks pretty good.  It's by no means cutting-edge graphics, but they get the job done, and bring the cartoon Meatball world to life.  I hadn't noticed any slowdown in the game, and there is little clipping, if any, and no screen tearing.  The sound is simple if not repetetive, but how many different sounds can squishing food make?  Musically, it sounds good but it starts to loop, but it doesn't get in the way or become overbearing.  Some of the graphics and sound effects for the menus look and feel retro in style, even using an old familiar font you have seen spread across games from the later 1980s and into the 1990s.  It may have been interesting to see if they could have included avatar support as playable characters.

After levels are completed, you will be shown a still shot, on a TV screen, but the voices will be telling a story of what’s going on and what’s coming up next.  It would have been more involving for  the player if there was a small clip from the movie.  It may not take you that long to play through the game, although to unlock everything it may take you a little while longer.  One last thing, to truly beat the game, you have to collect everything- so you're kind of forced to destroy every single Hydronic Foodpods.  Eh, ok..  if I want to hunt them all down and destroy them all, but kids will probably want to hunt them all down and complete the game to its fullest.  Those a minor low points to an otherwise enjoyable title that you can allow your kids to play without worry, or you can join in and do some multiplayer levels with them.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is Rated E for everyone, and is a good budget title to add to your family gaming collection.

In-game images from GamePress.