This game is an interesting curiosity in the ReBoot franchise, since the cutscenes were produced by Mainframe themselves. The game itself is non canon since the show's creators had no involvement with the game, but they assigned a team to work alongside with EA to work on the game. Based on the cutscenes using models from Season 1/2, and the fact that we have the Season 2 voice cast voicing the characters, I imagine that these cutscenes were produced around the time as Season 2.
Titled 'Countdown to Chaos', the game's story is set before the events of Season 1, and involves a plot by Megabyte to use tears in order to access the core of Mainframe. Bob's mission is of course, to mend all of Megabyte's tears and prove to the citizens of Mainframe that he has what it's take to be a Guardian. There isn't much more to the story, and the cutscenes mainly serve the purpose of tying the various different worlds together. Even then, things just appear to get thrown into the plot at random. The most jarring of these is at the end of the third sector, Web Creatures are thrown into the plot with no explanation to how they got there, and likewise, once you've defeated the Web Creature boss, we see a few Web Creatures getting chased by CPU's and then they're never brought up again.
As for the gameplay, it's not the best. Essentially, all you do is mend a set number of tears in each level and then collecting key cards that will unlock a vid window the player can use to access the next level. There are enemies in the levels, but destroying them doesn't really achieve much asides from meaning there is one less enemy trying to attack you.
The game is difficult, but that's mainly due to poor design. For instance, the tears pull you in when you're trying to mend them, meaning you have to mend the tears while making sure you don't get pulled in. Likewise, the enemies are relentless and shoot barrages of bullets at you. Even the turrets, who are supposed to be the weakest of the enemies you face, end up draining your health.
For some reason, Bob has a gun in this game. I don't know why they decided to do this since he never uses a gun in the show outside of the games. There are three modes to the gun - standard bullets, energy blasts, and rockets. The standard bullets have unlimited ammo, but the energy blasts and rockets both require ammo. Using any gun or Glitch power up drains the bar, meaning you can't switch to one of the other weapons once you're out of ammo for one of them.
Luckily, this game has some cheat codes to make this game easier. I'm normally against using cheat codes in games, but honestly, I see no other way to beat this game without using cheats. The first four to five levels can be beaten without the use of cheats, but once you get to that first boss, you'll need to make use of the infinite ammo cheat since taking out the boss with only the standard gun is pretty much impossible. Then there's the flight mode cheat, which makes your zip board work like it does in the show, and I cannot imagine doing the last half of the game without that cheat since it feels like the developers just gave up and thought that no one would get that far into the game.
One of the more interesting aspects of the game is how the cutscenes change depending on how well you do on the levels. There's various different cutscenes for when you get a game over, usually showing that Mainframe has now been turned into Megaframe. Dying on a level due to an enemy doesn't resort in a different ending to the levels, but if a tear explodes, it triggers a section's bad ending. The amount of tears that explode during your playthrough also depends on the game's overall ending. There's three endings depending on how you did - there's one ending where Mainframe is completely destroyed, one where Bob managed to save Mainframe, but there were several casualties (including Enzo), and one where Bob saved everyone. The first two endings end with Bob using a 'revert command' to go back in time and fix the tears he wasn't able to the first time around.
This game also takes certain liberties with the source material. For instance, the third sector Beverly Hills appears to have a Roman Bathhouse aesthetic, something that we don't see in the show. The viral binomes in this level also appear to be dressed like centurion soldiers for some bizarre reason. When I first played this game, I was incredibly confused. 'Is Bob in a game right now? If so, why hasn't he ReBooted?'. While you do get to do battle with both Hexadecimal and Megabyte, most the bosses are invented for this game. The first boss is a large vehicle called a 'Mega ABC', the second boss is the aforementioned large Web Creature, and then the third boss is a 'Giant Binome'. However, one of the cooler bosses is Clash. Clash is supposedly the original form of Hack and Slash that Megabyte unleashes after Bob has managed to mend most of the tears he's unleashed. When Bob defeats him, he splits into three elements - Hack, Slash, and Scuzzy (who was supposedly the creature's brain).
It's clear that there was no BSNP involved in the making of this game, so that's probably why this game's tone feels kind of weird. The game's plot seems like the kind of thing that would have been in the first Season, but it feels a little bit 'edgier' for the sake of being edgy. Bizarrely, this has resulted in the game getting a 15-17 rating in the UK/Europe. While I wouldn't place it in the 3-10 category, there's not really anything in the game that I feel pushes it out of the 11-14 category (image taken from Haku's ReBoot Museum).
While I can see this game is pretty mediocre, I still end up having somewhat of a fun time playing through it. It's by no means the best game I've ever played, but I can't help but enjoy it. I have fun exploring the sections of Mainframe (albeit somewhat out of scale). It makes me laugh when Bob says 'Holy Killer Calamari!' when attacked by a squid monster in the sewer level. I also love how one of the enemies in level 2 tries to run you over with a forklift, reminding me of this gem from Mystery Science Theater 3000:
In spite of the fun I had with this game, I definitely wouldn't call it a good game, and wouldn't recommend playing it. This game was made at the time when licensed games normally didn't have as much care and effort put into them (while there were some exceptions to this) and just relied on the brand recognition to shift units. If anything, I would recommend hunting down the games cutscenes on YouTube since sadly, that's the only place to watch them. While EA were contacted about the possible inclusion of the cutscenes as a special feature in the ReBoot DVD box set, EA simply responded that people should just 'play the game' if they wanted to watch the cutscenes, ignoring the fact that the game was a. no longer in print so the only way to access the game would be to either buy a second hand copy or emulate it, and b. the game is borderline impossible to beat without using cheat codes.
Nowadays, most licensed games seem to be relegated to mobile games since they're cheaper to produce. Luckily when a licensed game does appear on a console, it appears to have a lot more effort put into it (i.e. Insomniac's Spider Man game, Alien Isolation). While sadly, it's highly unlikely we'll ever get another ReBoot game, I personally would love a ReBoot game similar to the Spider Man game released on the PS4 last year. One which features a free roaming Mainframe where you play as Bob, either playing through an original story or simply playing through the events of the series. Heck, you'd have plenty of options for alternative costumes since you'd have all the outfits that Bob's worn in the games as well as other outfits he's worn throughout the series. However, this remains a pipe dream of a game that is likely to never exist.
Next week: We look into the tumultuous history of ReBoot's broadcast in the UK
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