The War of the Worlds

 Xbox 360
The War of the Worlds Image
Metascore
55

Mixed or average reviews - based on 30 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
5.1

Mixed or average reviews- based on 7 Ratings

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  • Summary: The War of the Worlds is a 2D cinematic platformer inspired by the work of author H.G. Wells

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The War of the Worlds - Arthur Diary Video 3

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 30
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 30
  3. Negative: 12 out of 30
  1. ZTGD
    Nov 4, 2011
    96
    With the amazing dark look, the awesome soundtrack and the superb narration by Patrick Stewart, War of the Worlds is one of the best XBLA games I have played in a while. And, for only 800 MS points, you would be silly to pass up this gem.
  2. Gaming Nexus
    Jan 3, 2012
    83
    The War of the Worlds may not tell the most original story of the year, but it's a stylish action game full of exciting moments you won't soon forget. Sadly there are a few control issues and frustrating puzzles that hurt the overall pacing. However, even with these minor complaints, The War of the Worlds is a great adventure that is well worth your ten dollars!
  3. Cheat Code Central
    Oct 26, 2011
    72
    It's an excellent story, but once you've played it once there's not much to do besides go back and do it again, trying not to die for the game's most challenging achievements.
  4. Game Revolution
    Oct 28, 2011
    58
    The presentation is the game's highlight while the gameplay, unfortunately, doesn't meet that same degree.
  5. GameSpot
    Nov 14, 2011
    45
    The War of the Worlds adapts H.G. Wells' classic novel into a visually appealing platformer that unfortunately falls short in a number of key areas.
  6. Gameblog.fr
    Nov 24, 2011
    40
    This adaptation of the best-seller, narrated perfectly by Patrick Stewart, but the visuals and animations are clearly sub-par. For a platformer reminiscent of Limbo, it's particularly bad, since it makes the levels hard to read, and the poor gameplay doesn't help at all, making it frustratingly difficult. Too many shortcomings for a title that could have been quite nice, too bad.
  7. GameShark
    Dec 4, 2011
    25
    Say what you will about the 2005 Spielberg film adaptation turning the invasion literature into an explosive action romp, it probably would have been a better starting point for the game adaptation. Then again, maybe this is a project that should never have got off the ground to begin with; after all, some pages are better left unturned.

See all 30 Critic Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. PC-Gamer-Fan
    Oct 26, 2011
    6
    Best looking XBLA game ever made to date. Incredible atmosphere & amazing graphics combine with Patrick Stewart's voiceover to give a veryBest looking XBLA game ever made to date. Incredible atmosphere & amazing graphics combine with Patrick Stewart's voiceover to give a very strong atmosphere which is very cinematic & involving. You really want to find out what's coming next.

    Unfortunately the game has massive problems which is such a shame as it really does look fantastic & plays like an interactive 2D platform game movie in the best possible way.

    The problems I am talking about are as follows:

    1: Unforgiving ridiculously difficult gameplay.
    2: Constantly dying & only progressing through trial & error as the objectives are not clear at all.
    3: Poor checkpoint placement so you have to backtrack a lot on certain sections.
    4: Very hard to attain achievements for completing the game without dying make this virtually impossible to ever get all 200GS on. Most players will struggle to get even 50GS for beating it once as the achievements are very poorly written & do not give enough reward to players for beating the game. It should have given all the achievements for beating the game once! let alone without dying!!!
    5: Hazard animation timing is too severe/critical so this contributes to you dying a lot.
    6: Pixel perfect unresponsive controls.

    Such a shame as I can see no way this can be fixed or tweaked with any patching. Casual players will avoid as its too time consuming to replay the same section over & over for hours just because the game does not make it clear how you can progress.

    If it did not have these problems & was an easy to play/progress game with more checkpoints/gameplay options (there are no difficulty selections) then I would give it 10/10 its really a stunning looking atmopheric game which is faithful to the original HG Wells source material & without a doubt an alltime great 2D platformer if only it had enough QA testing these problems would have been ironed out before release. As it stands its a tragic release as the game promises so much but the unforgiving gameplay, poorly conceived checkpoints/achievements & unresponsive pixel perfect controls cause nothing but frustration to the player & add nothing to the experience only remove you from the game as you start to question why on earth they did not make the game much easier & more about experiencing the story/presentation instead of fighting against the poorly tested finished product.    … Expand

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