Based on the upcoming film of the same name, G-Force puts players in control of a secret government-sponsored team of guinea pig agents on a mission that parallels the plot of the movie. When household appliances rise up become deadly Transformer-like robots, the G-Force team must use their special skills and weapons to bring an end to the madness. I spent some time with a demo of the Sony PlayStation 3 version game in E3's South Hall and came away pleasantly surprised with what I had initially assumed to be yet another quickie cash-in game based on a summer film.



Two things about G-Force immediately jumped out at me, but probably not in the order that you'd expect. Speaking as someone who once had guinea pigs as pets in his youth, the guinea pig character models in G-Force are absolutely adorable and cheerily accurate. Although armed with guns and gadgets, they are endearingly cute characters. While I could go on for a while longer about this, instead I'll get to what most people will probably notice first: G-Force is presented in stereoscopic 3D with the aid of the ubiquitous glasses. The 3D effect is optional and be toggled on the fly through the game's pause menu, and while it's a neat gimmick, I found the gameplay to be more visually interesting without the red/blue pallor washed over everything onscreen.

As for the gameplay elements, G-Force is a traditional action/platformer title in which the heroes run, shoot, scamper, and even hover short distances with the aid of a handy jetpack. When the action gets a bit too intense, it's possible to guide your guinea pig away from the action at high speeds in a sort of escape hatch maneuver, but most of my time in the demo was spent shooting down aggressive appliances and hovering up and through air duct mazes. It's nothing we haven't seen before elsewhere, but the gameplay was solid and moderately enjoyable. I imagine that had I seen the film before playing the game, some of the concepts and what appeared to be movie reference in-jokes would have made more sense.

Based on what I played, G-Force seems to be a conventional action game starring cute little characters and featuring a 3D gimmick. It's meant to compliment the film with story crossover moments and performances from the cast of the movie, yes, but it seems to have more going for it than a stereotypical tie-in game. I can't be too critical though. I mean, have you seen those adorable guinea pig characters?