Men in Black 3 Review
PROS
- Combat mechanic adds some sense of progress; provides a real goal to over come at times.
- Items give you more to work towards; similarly, playing with friends adds more of a time-sink.
CONS
- Throw-away concept and gameplay; combat hints at more depth, but never elaborated upon.
- Usual nudging towards IAP via poorly scaled time and gold costs.
VERDICT
Men in Black 3 gives fans a chance to play out a shallow and confused role in the agency, ultimately providing another basic freemium management title with a slick skin.
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Let it not be said that all 'freemium' titles are bad - sure they have their huge flaws, but time enjoyed is time well spent. With that said, time wasted is time not enjoyed and definitely not well spent and this is where the genre comes in to contention: If you lack the motivation, then what are you playing for? Men in Black 3 slides uncomfortably in to this second problematic kind of thinking, albeit presenting all the visual polish and flair Gameloft can muster, but it's not enough to mask a game that lacks any meaningful progression.
You come in to the agency as a rookie and are - strangely - dumped in to the overwhelmingly powerful position of cleaning up and expanding the facilities while also saving the Earth from a menacing threat. "But," you may ask, "how can I simultaneously save the planet from a real and immediate threat while also waiting 24 hours for my facilities to earn cash to get that new weapon I need?".
And there's the crux of it: Your motivation from the outset is not to save the world, but to build a base. Be it a new flower stand, a tacky souvenir shop, or a snazzy host of "RnD" divisions, the game is about amassing gold over time and promptly sinking it in to more buildings or items to repeat the whole mess.
On the plus side, there is a mission system and the ability to recruit agents to perform minor tasks for you, but everything you do has a price paid in energy, which takes time to regenerate as well or if you're flush with cash, a quick trip to the IAP store to refresh or side-step with 'T-Pulse's.
Gorgeous though the art and style may be, it's merely a skin-deep veneer over the same game you've seen played out too many times already. Sure there's combat, but it's just as shallow as you tap enemies without thinking.
Men in Black 3 is a tidy example of why fans of a franchise and gamers in general cringe at the sight of tie-ins; despite the wealth of ideas to exploit in the MiB world it's lumped with a throw-away concept that asks nothing of the player and returns much the same in kind.
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