There are some franchises that, on the surface, appear to offer quite a lot to a movie tie-in game, but ultimately leave them wanting. Ice Age is one of them. It offers three decidedly diverse characters in a setting rife with conflict, yet the game struggles to understand quite what to do with them.
Perhaps three main characters is simply too many? If there was only the one, it'd be easier to developer that character's abilities, purpose and goal, but the three animals of Ice Age worked in the film because they pulled against each other. In Mammoth Mayhem, they're individually entertaining natures are severely curtailed.
You take control of Sid (the sloth), Diego (the sabre-toothed tiger) and Manny (the woolly mammoth) as they attempt to rescue stranded prehistoric animals trapped by the rapidly encroaching ice age. The maps are very basic mazes, with different levels, bushes and trees forming their walls. Navigating them to reach the stationary woodland critters takes the specific talents of each film star; Sid can climb vines and start fires, Diego can jump gaps and slash with his claws; and Manny can provide a bridge for the others and move heavy objects.
With perseverance, many of the game's levels reveal some quite entertaining puzzles that demand a small amount of lateral thinking to figure out how to reach a marooned beastie. Manny, for instance, might have to provide a ledge so Diego can jump on top of his back and span a particularly wide gap. These aspects are the most entertaining parts of Mammoth Mayhem, and almost make up for the laborious trek around the ever-increasing maps looking for the puzzles to complete.
For a younger player, this game could well provide a decent bridge between simplistic, cutesy adolescent games and more challenging adult-centric titles - requiring them to put some time and thought into solving a moderately difficult level (the difficulty mainly comes from the time constraint rather than than the actual puzzle mechanics) instead of simply pressing buttons without much thought of consequence. Being shored up by a popular kid's film license would undoubtedly help in this respect, so if you've got young 'uns at just the right age to be playing games and watching the Ice Age movies, Mammoth Mayhem is definitely worth considerating.
For older gamers, however, a movie tie-in brings with it certain expectations, and were this a game in its own right it might have been free to inject a bit more entertainment where it was needed. But straining under the weight of a micro-managed license is never conducive to a good game development, and it feels distinctly reigned-in. The name 'Mammoth Mayhem' hardly fits, either, since there's absolutely nothing manic about the gameplay here. It's a slow and lumbering game - bereft of any dynamism the pressured theme and title might suggest.
However, should your family demographic fit the narrow profile mentioned above, it's not a game that should be quickly overlooked, though a few minutes research around Pocket Gamer might well reveal a couple of other titles with a bit more life in them.
Ice Age: Mammoth Mayhem Review
Too slow to maintain much interest, although once you've finally located the well hidden puzzles, there's a few minutes fun to be had
Spanner Spencer
Yes. Spanner's his real name, and he's already heard that joke you just thought of. Although Spanner's not very good, he's quite fast, and that seems to be enough to keep him in a regular supply of free games and away from the depressing world of real work.