If you haven’t seen Wreck-It Ralph yet, you’re really missing out on a fantastic movie — get thee to a theater! In the meantime, though, you can enjoy a taste of the movie with the Wreck-It Ralph app. Here’s a quick rundown of the app, plus a way to win a free copy! Disney Interactive provided GeekDad with five download codes to give away to our readers.
The first game, of course, is Fix-It Felix Jr., the one featured in the movie: Ralph climbs the building and smashes a bunch of windows, and you (as Felix) show up with your golden hammer and repair them. The controls are simple: you move with the thumbstick on the left and hit the hammer button to repair a window. Meanwhile, you avoid the bricks that rain down when Ralph punches, and the ducks that fly across the screen. Some open shutters and flower boxes prevent you from moving in certain directions, and as you progress through the levels you’ll have more of those to avoid.
A recent update does include the bit (shown in the movie) where the Niceland residents give Felix a medal and a pie and throw Ralph off the side of the building, but I’m still a bit disappointed that it doesn’t start with Ralph saying “I’m gonna wreck it!” before he climbs up. Surely that couldn’t have been hard to include. There’s a free ad-supported app called Fix-It Felix Jr. that only includes this version of the game, in case you want to give it a shot.
The second game in the app is Sugar Rush: Sweet Climber. Sadly, it’s not a racing game (maybe that’ll come later), but is loosely based on the scene in the movie where Ralph is climbing the candy cane tree. It’s an endless-jumping game, where you tilt to control Ralph and he bounces from branch to branch, collecting candy and other things. Miss a branch, and the game’s over. There are double-striped (well, green-striped) branches that disappear after one bounce, diet cola bottles for a Mentos-fueled rocket, and marshmallows that slowly float up for a short bit. Not terribly exciting, but if you like endless-jump games then here’s one with Ralph.
Finally, there’s Hero’s Duty. I’m having fun with this one, even though it’s not a first-person shooter like the game in the movie. You play as Sergeant Calhoun, and you’re basically in a single large room where waves of bugs spawn and attack you. When you complete a level, you step back on the elevator and beam up to face the next room of bugs. There are various weapon pick-ups (the flamethrower is my favorite), and you only get one life (but you do get some more health each time you complete a level). It’s a dual-thumbstick game: movement controlled by the left thumb and gun controlled by the right. The graphics are decent and the various sizes of bugs are interesting to deal with, particularly the eggs that hatch little tiny swarms. Of the three, it’s my favorite game, although Fix-It Felix Jr. gets points for replicating the game from the movie.
There’s a “coming soon” for a game called Turbotime, which will presumably be the older racing game shown in the movie. One other fun touch about the app is the Game Central plug motif: you hit the outlet button to return to Game Central and then enter the other games through the plug.
The Wreck-It Ralph app is only a buck, but if you’d rather try to win a copy, fill out the form below and we’ll pick five winners at random on Friday at 5pm PST and send you a download code! If you can’t see the form below, click here to enter.
*Thanks to Disney Interactive for providing the review code for GeekDad and the giveaway.*
