PixlBit

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, based off of the recent movie, is centered on food and how it can apparently take over the world if you happen to create a machine that makes food rain from the sky uncontrollably. Taking control of Flint, a down-on-his-luck scientist voiced by "Saturday Night Live" star Bill Hader, you work your way through the town of Chewandswallow to eradicate the food menace.

Flint uses five different tools with ridiculous names to accomplish this. The Hot Enougher melts stuff, the Forkamajigger stabs things, the Upsucker Plus inhales liquids and then spits them out, the Chopper-er cuts things, and the Bigacious Pow punches things. At first, you are only equipped with one of these per level, but you begin to go out wielding multiple tools as you progress. They can also be upgraded multiple times, and they visually change as you do so.

The levels all follow the same format: some character complains about food doing bad things, Flint drops in and methodically works his way through simple puzzles to the center of the problem and then solves it. It doesn't get much more interesting than that. The puzzles rarely evolve past "there's something in the way, please get it out of there." The only other draw is the different sets of food pods you can destroy in each level. If you destroy all of them in the game, you unlock a secret ending.

There's also a cooperative mode in which a player can take control of Steve, Flint's pet monkey, who is just as functional as our lab coat-clad hero. There's plenty of moments where two players come more in handy, although Steve can't stray too far from his master (or vice versa) or he'll just respawn right next to him.

The graphics are poor and settings are often repeated. Overall, the game's presentation is very ugly. The only good things about the look are the 8-bit-esque introductions to each act and the humorous loading screens. The sound is also repetitive, but there is a considerable amount of voice acting from what appears to be the film's cast.

Cloudy is a fun and functional game that skews towards a younger age, much like the movie. It has subpar graphics and is very repetitive as the only major gameplay difference between levels is which tools you use. Still, if you liked the movie, you'd probably enjoy the game.

Naturally, the Wii version is on the lower end of the graphical spectrum and features some optional waggle.