You get to help Wilbur as he roams about the past, present and multiple futures getting into mischief and trying to save the future from being altered in the past and generally mucked up by the Evil Bowler Hat Guy. It all starts off with Wilbur bouncing around the house and trying to find a way to get into the garage where his dad keeps the time machine. After running about and meeting all the other residents of Robinson Mansion, he finally gains entry and then leaves the garage for a moment, without locking the door mind you. Enter the villainous Bowler Hat guy who sneaks in and steals the Time Machine. Wilbur, feeling like the goof he is, decides to break into his father's lab to get the prototype Time Machine to go chasing off after the thief.

This then leads into the main part of the adventure as Wilbur bounces from the past to the present, to the past, back to the present, etc. attempting to fix the present by fixing those things that were changed in the past, and so on and so forth. Maybe I should go watch the movie so some of this makes sense…

Meet the Robinsons flows between being a story game [Ed. the game specifically doesn't follow the plot of the movie], an adventure game and a series of mini-games. Throughout the game there are numerous puzzles and challenges to be solved, like a set of bridges made of force fields that need to be constantly supplied with power or you fall through them to a shameful screaming death. One of the mini-games is very reminiscient of an old arcade game called Dig Dug where you dig through the ground to reach your goal while avoiding rampaging robot ants.

The game doesn’t really have levels per-se, the story leads you from one challenge to the next. Each challenge has its own set of objectives which are updated as you complete them, like going to find Cousin Laszlo who then sends you to the warehouse to collect something. Once in the warehouse you find that you have to work your way through a maze to get to that thing, then work your way back to the exit.

Some of the challenges include various mini games. You'll find yourself playing Chargeball, which is a pong style game where you face off against an opponent and each of you try to eliminate the other's barriers to gain access to the goal. The first to hit the goal with a Chargeball wins. Another of the mini games involves being encased in a spherical force field and rolling down a course that runs through the mansion, I like this one the best.

As you progress through the game you will have the opportunity to return to areas that you have completed and access the mini games located there. So when you need a break from saving the world you can just go and play for a bit, and then return to the mission at hand.

Wilbur will collect a number of devices to help him defeat the forces of evil, one of these devices is the Robinson Disassembler. The Disassembler will reduce an object to its component parts and then store them for later use. At various points in the game Wilbur will find blueprints for gadgets that will require a certain amount of these collected components to create. At which point all you need to do is find a Transmogrifier, insert the blueprint and voila! A new toy for you to play with. Amongst your other gadgets you will have a Chargeball glove, which is very useful for energizing certain machines, as well as destroying some very pesky robots. Havoc Gloves, the stylish digging tools which also send out a nasty sonic wave when you slap them together. A Levitation Ray, non-stop fun at parties as you dangle your friends four feet about the ground, also useful for disposing of certain bombastic bots. And of course the ever useful Scanner which will tell you everything you never wanted to know about that shiny pointy thing in front of you.

Even without having seen the movie, the game succeeded in sucking me into the story and keeping me interested in what was going to happen next. Especially while chasing Bowler Hat Guy, I kept getting just close enough to touch him and he would escape yet again. How annoying is that???

Some of the challenges that were presented were somewhat difficult, and though the story may be a good one for younger audiences, I’m not sure that the younger gamers out there would be able to complete some of the challenges. Especially through some of the mazes that require that you figure out the proper sequence to continue onward. A few of these stumped me for quite some time before I found the answers.

The graphics quality of the game was excellent and really promoted the cartoon feel of the environment. There were a couple of points in the game where it started to get a bit busy and there was a small amount of lag, but overall the game ran smoothly and consistently.

The UI is fairly simple, as are the controls. It shows the current gadget that is in your hand and the amount of power available for it, how many “life bubbles” you have and their status and which items you have assigned to which buttons. The controls do the simple “move around” thing and “select the gadget” thing. My one complaint about the controls has to do with the “targeting” mode. When you hit the target button, it will sometimes pick the item right in front of you, and sometimes will spin you around to select the item that is closest to you. This can be especially frustrating when you are in a fight with one of the various robot opponents and when you think you are going to target it, you end up targeting something else and give the robot a clear shot at your back.

Remember when I said you can find blueprints for gadgets? Well that’s not the only thing that you can find, there are also keys for Concept Art and Action Figures which can be viewed from the main menu. This, of course, gives you incentive to scan everything, you never know what you will find lying about. Besides, doesn’t everyone want to own a complete set of virtual Meet the Robinsons Action Figures? I know I do, to bad you can’t trade them with your friends…

My one other point of displeasure with Meet the Robinsons revolves around the endgame. I had been bopping about disassembling everything in sight, well all except Cousin Laszlo, he would just giggle when I tried to reduce him to mush, when I inadvertently activated the next mission in the game. Once you start it, you can’t go back, and for the most part I was not too annoyed at it occurring. But once I finished defeating Doris the giant mechanical bowler hat with legs and blasters, the game came to a sudden and very unsatisfying end. I didn’t even get a by your leave, it was just bing bang boom, roll the credits.

Now then, having completed the game to the very end gives one a certain amount of satisfaction, that is true, however, once the game was over it deleted my saved game and prevented me from going back in and roaming about the world and playing the mini-games that I had gained access to. Besides the fact that I still had blueprints to produce and places I wanted to just explore for hidden goodies. Suffice it to say I was not ecstatic about reaching endgame, especially without warning and then losing all the hard work I had put into it thus far.

Other than that little tidbit, the game is quite fun and definitely worth playing, especially if you like giving evil Bowler Hat Guy’s access to sophisticated time travel equipment so they can mess with the world around you. I’m sure there is much more that can be said about Meet the Robinsons, but you’ll just have to go and buy a copy for yourselves to discover what that may be.

Oh, yeah, now that your at the end of this little bit of craziness, you may want to run from your computer as this review still may, or may not, self destruct…..