My exposure to the world of Narnia is quite limited. Outside of seeing the movie's trailer a few times on TV and in the theater I
don't know much about C.S. Lewis' popular book series. I looked forward to seeing what I was
missing, after all this is a beloved series of books that a lot of people seem
excited about, perhaps it's about
time I journeyed into the world of Narnia and saw what all the fuss was about. Unfortunately, like so many movie games that
came before it, Narnia is probably best experienced in another venue than the
Xbox.
Despite the game's epic tone, the Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe tells a
pretty standard story set in a fantasy world governed by good (a lion) and evil
(a witch). However, before even getting
a glimpse of the world of Narnia the game features you helping four kids escape
sure-death from bomb dropping war planes, avoiding adults in a London home, and
generally exploring traditional (and very non-fantasy) hallways for coins and
special items. Before too long the
children discover a mysterious wardrobe that, much to their surprise, sends
them into the snowy world of Narnia.
Much of this game is spent on your adventure going through
the snow covered forest, generally making you battle (and avoid) ogres, wolves,
minotaurs, and other traditional fantasy enemies. You'll meet up with some friendly talking
animals who eventually reveal that there's a prophecy that four children will
help good overcome evil. Could these
kids be those young warriors the faithful are talking about? Of course they are, if they weren't what
would the point of the game be?
Since the story centers on the four kids you will have a
chance to switch between them at just about any time. Each child has a different skill that is used
throughout the game to solve puzzles, outsmart enemies, and so on so
forth. For example, Peter, the oldest
boy, is strong and wields everything from a stick to a sword (perfect for
killing whatever gets in his way). Lucy,
the youngest girl, is a terrible fighter, but excels when it comes to healing
the rest of the party and fitting into small areas the other characters are
unable to reach. The oldest girl, Susan,
is strong at throwing and using a bow and arrow. And then there's Edmund, who acts like his
older brother and can also climb up poles and other objects to avoid trouble.
The puzzles put each child's skills to work making even the
youngest and most vulnerable character useful.
As you progress through the game you'll find that the children's skills
improve, allowing you to perform bigger moves and solve more elaborate
puzzles. Susan, for instance, starts by
throwing tennis balls and snowballs. She
eventually upgrades to a magic set of arrows and is even able to put enemies to
sleep by playing her flute. Each character
has this kind of evolution, ultimately giving you enough strength and moves to
defeat even the most evil enemies.
Outside of the puzzles, the game itself is really nothing
more than your standard hack-n-slash adventure game, the type where you're
basically doing the same moves over and over from one level to the next. Each character has an attack button and a
special ability button, so there aren't all that many moves to burn through in
the game. Actually, I found myself
spending 90% of the time just mashing the X button to get rid of any attacker,
even the larger characters. Scattered
through the levels are a number of coins that you can turn around and use to
buy special moves and abilities. This is
all well and good but most of these moves are performed using the same button
combination and are fairly unspectacular … if not downright useless most of the
time.
Even though you can switch between the four characters, you're never in control of more than one child at a
time. This means as one person takes the
lead the rest will hang out behind you, occasionally doing something useful
like helping you fight. But maybe that's giving them too much credit; I found that for
much of the game the characters you're
not playing as just stand back watching you fight. There are plenty of things they could be
doing, from using their arrows to take out enemies in the distance or maybe
going as far as to heal you, but in order to perform these tasks you'll have to switch characters and do the moves
manually. On the bright side the
children you are not playing against generally don't
take any damage, so you'll only need
to worry about your health during those tense battles.
This journey through Narnia features fifteen different
levels which may sound impressive until you actually see how short they are. Some levels are no more than a few minutes
long, and most are nothing more than a few different "rooms" where
you do battle and solve puzzles.
Ultimately this isn't a huge
problem, but considering that more than half of the game is all set in the middle
of a snow covered forest it may see like you're
just playing the same level over and over.
To make matters worse, most of the game isn't
very hard; it's the type of
adventure that always tells you where to go and will essentially solve the
puzzles for you. In the final few levels
the developers ramp up the difficulty (by throwing dozens of enemies at you),
it's nice to have a challenge, but
it left me wondering why more time wasn't
spend on balancing it out.
To the game's credit, each of the levels open and close with
full motion video segments that are pulled straight from the recently-released
theatrical film. These aren't long
segments (generally only lasting a minute or two), but they do a good job of
filling in the story and motives for each level. My only complaint about these video segments
is the way they transition from the FMV to the polygonal characters. The video itself looks so good that when it
shifts to the in-game graphics it can be a little jarring, especially when you
see how plain some of the actors end up looking.
The graphics in Narnia are good, but nothing you haven't
seen before. You're fighting the same
type of fantasy villains you've seen in countless other adventure games, none
of them straying too far from the traditional look. The backgrounds are good, but with so many
snow levels it's hard not to wonder if they are just repeating
backgrounds. The animation is equally
unspectacular; it's all pretty basic stuff you've seen in every other game of
its type. That doesn't mean it's bad,
it's just not the highlight of this experience.
Perhaps the biggest problem with Narnia's presentation is
the use of fixed camera angles. Early on
this camera system may make sense, especially if you don't know where to go and
what to do … but as you start meeting up with enemies with long-range attacks
you'll find yourself constantly being bombarded by objects coming from
off-screen. Although they are few and
far between, the off-screen enemies are a real problem and make a few moments a
lot more frustrating than they need to be.
Thankfully the audio in Narnia is a lot more impressive than
the visuals. The score sounds like it
comes straight from the movie and fits the scenes nicely. The voice acting is also quite good, both in
the FMV sequences and the in-game stuff as well. Unfortunately, the sound effects are pretty
underwhelming, especially since they tend to recycle the same sound effect time
after time. Thankfully you'll be too
busy fighting through hordes of enemies to concentrate on the game's sound
effects.
The Chronicles of
Narnia may be based on an epic book, but that doesn't
mean this game has an epic length. With
only fifteen levels it's easy to
beat the game in six or seven hours, something most gamers can easily do in one
sitting. While there are a lot of hidden
items to go back and collect, I doubt many gamers will worry much about them
after they've experienced the entire
story. For one thing, the extras you
earn are all pretty weak (such as a video showing the voice actors reading
their line). Another problem is that to
get these items you have to do completely ridiculous things, like hit a chair
ten times to get ten coins or move a desk around enough to get a special item. Just because it's
in a game doesn't make it any less
of a chore, and chores are rarely fun.
But beyond graphics, beyond the easy puzzles, and beyond the
fixed camera angles there is one thing I just can't get into, and that's how
the story in this game unravels. While
the full motion videos do a fine job of showing you parts of the story, it
seems like some of the scenes are just kind of skipped past in order to present
something with more action. I got the
feeling while playing this game that it was designed exclusively for people
familiar with the source material, people that would be able to fill in the
blanks left by the game. I have no doubt
that there are millions of kids who know the story inside and out, but this
game could have used a few more scenes of explanation for those of us unfamiliar
with the original book. This works more
as a companion piece to the movie than it does a game with a strong story.
Fans of the book and movie will probably find a few things
to like about this game, but it's awfully hard to look past some of the game's
glaring problems. In a lot of ways this
like a kinder, gentler Lord of the Rings game, but at the end of the day it's
just another movie game with good, but not great production values. It would have been great to see some of the
puzzles fleshed out more and some better fighting mechanics, but the game is
what it is. This journey is not
essential, but if you feel like you're being called for it, then I suggest you
give it a rental and see if it's the type of thing you'll still be interested
in when it's over.
