Ratatouille: A Rat with a Mission Company: THQ Ratatouille looks like it will be one of those rare movie tie-ins that turns out to be fun. The premise behind the upcoming film follows a rat named Remy who is more of a picky eater than most of his kind. His taste for gourmet delicacies leads him into all kinds of trouble. The game follows a similar pattern. In the demo I got to play, I was able to scurry around a large marketplace running between Remy's friends and fulfilling various missions. The two missions that were posed to Remy in the demo were fairly simple and really helped to show off some of the mechanics that this game will have. Ratatouille is a platformer through and through. You will have to run, jump and climb your way through fairly intricate levels in order to fulfill these missions and collect as many golden stars as possible. While completing your objectives, you will have to keep a watchful eye out for humans, because they will be keeping one out for you. If a human happens to see you, you need to get away fast, because if they catch you, you will have to wiggle free or else be put into a jar and start from the last checkpoint. This looks like it will be a nice mechanic that should keep the game interesting since you seem to have to scurry in front of various people in order to reach your objectives. Levels in Ratatouille are also filled with objects that you can interact with. Most objects, like wooden spoons, can be used as weapons, while others are used to get to hard to reach places like wire tight-ropes and brooms or springboard anchovy cans. The first thing I noticed about Ratatouille was its visuals. I was amazed by how well Remy and the rest of the cast looked like their silver-screen characters. The level that I was able to play also looked good and really pulled off the dirty, French marketplace feel the developers were trying to convey. I was amazed by the amount of exploration I could do. You could just run from one side of the marketplace to the other completing the two missions that are given to you, but if you want to, you can sneak around the counters and do a little more exploring. You will typically be rewarded with more stars, which for those people who don't consider a level complete until they've gotten all the collectibles they can, will be a definite plus. Ratatouille will ship with an ESRB rating of E and is scheduled to come out on the Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii, DS, GameCube and original Xbox, along with the PC version that I was able to demo. Like I said earlier, so far this game not only looks like the film (something most films-to-movies can pull off), but also plays well and seems to be fun. -J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer Related Links: The Movie's Official Home Page The Game's Official Home Page