Robots eh? I seem to either have had a soft spot or been fascinated by them all. Robbie the Robot, Marvin the Paranoid Android (from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy), Huey, Dewey, and Louie (from Silent Running), the robot from Lost in Space (I don’t think he had a name), K-9 from Dr Who, R2D2, that mean thing from The Black Hole (was it Maximilian?), Johnny Five from the Short Circuit movies, Robocop yeah I know, he’s a Cyborg), The Terminator, Kryten (Red Dwarf), Bender (Futurama) ... But never mind about them - what would happen if humanity deserted a polluted Earth and forgot to shut off the last robot...? And what if he just happened to be cuter and more endearing than E.T. and R2D2 put together?

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, the film's creator, Andrew Stanton, says he was just trying to tell a love story...

Anyway – what was I talking about? Ah yes, the WALL·E game; It’s the 22nd century, and the Buy N Large mega corporation has taken control of every facet of life on Earth, including the government. Overrun by un-recycled trash, the planet eventually becomes so polluted that it can no longer support human life. To save mankind Buy N Large sponsors a five-year evacuation to outer space aboard hundreds of massive Starships, the largest of which is the Axiom. There’s just one problem, however - the planet is still too toxic to return to, and 700 years later only one rusty little WALL-E trash-compacting unit remains operational. As WALL·E (it stands for: Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth class) hunts the seemingly barren city for trash to compact and stack he finds a tiny plant in a pot, and sticks it in his belly storage area. WALL·E’s existence is lonesome as all the other robots have either been shut down or are broken; his only company is his pet cockroach and his only comfort is his favourite video, the musical Hello Dolly (which for me is probably the most disturbing thing about the movie). One day the peace is shattered when a rocket ship lands in the city, nearly flame-grilling WALL·E in the process. From the rocket emerges a beautiful white flying probe droid that turns out to be called EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator). After a few adventures together WALL·E is so taken with EVE that he offers her his plant, and she takes it with great glee. WALL·E doesn't understand the significance of this discovery and shockingly, once EVE receives this sample of organic life she shuts down, and is soon picked up by her ship.

Understandably WALL·E doesn’t want to lose EVE and clings to the side of the ship, and the adventures continue in space. Onboard the mighty Axiom colony ship you meet lots of other robots, from cleaning bots like M-O (Microbe Obliterator - he acts like a jobsworth traffic warden) to security robots that just want to shoot you for being a WALL·E. You even get to zoom around in space playing as EVE for a few levels, and the size of the Axiom and the amount of outer space you get to play in is quite impressive.

WALL·E’s only real ability is to compact trash into cubes, but he can use various types of cube for different purposes. They can all be thrown as projectile weapons, but some are heavy and can be used to trip levers, some glow with energy and can be used to energise things, and the cleverest of all, the magnetic ones can be used to repel or attract metal objects to WALL·E’s advantage. Unfortunately, whilst it’s a nice game mechanic the whole trash cube thing is a bit underdeveloped and repetitive. Other nice ideas include magnetic walls that WALL·E can roll along to bypass obstacles and ‘tumbler’ sections which WALL·E can rotate to form different routes and puzzles through a level. Each level has plenty of hidden secrets for you to seek out for achievements and extras like concept art and skins to make WALL·E look different in the multiplayer games.

WALL·E’s multiplayer levels consist of ‘Robot Tag’ (shoot each other over 9 maps), ‘Keep the Cube’ (hold on to a trash cube whilst everyone else tries to shoot you and steal the cube over 3 maps), ‘Eve Aerial Arena’ (fly through rings to capture them in an allotted time) and just one co-op sub game level,so if you see 'co-op' on the back of the box, don't get too excited. This co-op mode is a ‘simple’ matter of passing a block to each other in order to be able to stop the clock from running down. This mode could quite possibly drive you to distraction as knowing which clock needs stopping and getting your partner to throw the cube to you in time is not an easy process. All these modes are perfectly playable but I can’t help thinking that the development time would have been better spent making a proper co-op mode for the story mode – the subject matter is perfect for it and co-op games are so popular right now, especially one that a parent and child could play together.