MadCap's Game Reviews - "Doctor Who: Blood of the Cybermen"

A base in the Arctic...an alien force that has long lain dormant that threatens to take over, picking off the members of a scientific research station one by one as it seeks to destroy everything that makes humans human.

...huh, sounds vaguely familiar. Anyway, here's Blood of the Cybermen.

We begin with a man on a snowmobile apparently running and freaking out about something he's seen. In flashbacks, we see that an archaeological expedition has uncovered something undisturbed for centuries - a Cyberman arm. The Doctor and Amy, meanwhile, land at the ice floe where the man has apparently crashed his snowmobile and passed out. There's a quick bit to free him, moving around to get some water from the glacier through sonic screwdriver jiggery pokery to reive the man and then doing some platforming to get him out and the three of them back to the TARDIS.

And admittedly, these reviews following City of the Daleks are probably going to be a little shorter in the gameplay description department because...well, they're pretty much consistently the same. This is good, since it pretty much keeps it where anyone can pick up any of the games in any order and play them. It also means there's not a lot of variation or difference, and most of the mini-games can be won by just the rote method or just good ol' careful timing.

As for the rest of the plot, though, it's actually a really good one. The entire crew of the research station, as seen in the teaser, have been turned into "Cyber-Slaves", infeceted with a technoorganic virus that overwrites their humanity and makes them more like Cybermen.

Oh, right...history for people who don't know...basically, the Cybermen are like the Borg from Star Trek...in the way that the Borg are a gigantic and shameless rip-off of them. For the non-science fiction inclined (and if that's the case, why are you here?), they're aliens that want to convert all life in the universe into them. Simple enough.

So we have a really kind of chilling backdrop of Cybermen sending out a virus that completely removes humanity and turns anyone infected into a mindless drone that serves only the will of the Cybermen. Creepy.

This episode is also a homage to the Classic Doctor Who episode "Tomb of the Cybermen", which is admittedly more what they're ripping off than The Thing From Another World, though that connection is at least cheerfully acknowledged in the beginning by the Doctor and Amy, so plus there.  Still, Tomb of the Cybermen did come out before John Carpenter's version of The Thing, the most well-known iteration and it's Matt Smith's personal favorite episode so it stands to reason that they were more playing off of Doctor Who history than blatantly ripping off.

This one, akin to "Tomb", has the Cybermen being awakened from their icy grave, which will more certainly mean the end of the human race. Naturally, the Doctor has to stop it.

And naturally, baring a few game overs, he does. As we come to expect.

Really, that's all there is to it. There's some nice homages to the sci-fi of old, both Doctor Who itself and others and, while the plot is rather predictable, it's just pretty good. No real complaints other than those I brought up in City.

Doctor Who: Blood of the Cybermen is now available from the BBC and BBC Wales Interactive.

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