We’re on our second film of the Narnia chronicles now and every popular kids or Disney film needs a published game to go along with it, and here today we have Narnia Prince Caspian, the second of seven stories in the series. We still have a long way to go yet then. Like many games based on their film counterparts they follow the movie sequences quite closely, but of course they can’t follow the film scene by scene in game, they have to expand and adapt it for the audience interest, and for gameplay reasons. It doesn’t stray too far from the movie as it uses clips of the film in between chapters and levels of the gameplay, these act as explanations of what’s going on outside the game and why you’re doing what you’re doing, it works quite nicely but I’d recommend that you probably watch the movie first before playing the game properly.

Gameplay:

Like many movie based games there’s a line, and I call this the expectation barrier, for many hardcore gamers this line is very low upon these types of games as their audience, budget and time limit is a particular contributor to the quality of the product, with this title this is no different. There’s actually something worse with this title though, a lack of passion and inspiration. It seems with games that are based on movies, and vice versa, it’s easy to drop the creativity and slip into a repetitive and lackluster mode and it’s very apparent here, especially if you’ve played some of the Tt Games' previous titles. In no way am I implying precious Tt games are bad, it’s just this game takes a few too many ideas from previous titles. Tt Games are most recently popularly known for LEGO Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and the reason why these titles have done so well is because of their light hearted humour adaptations and their inviting, addicting gameplay features, proven now to only work with the LEGO titles. I can only imagine Disney Interactive lumbered Tt Games with the job of promoting the film to regular game players, and so they came up with a game which borrowed many points that made the LEGO game series unique and enjoyable, only to not fit within the fantasy world of Narnia. Looking at the game with a telescopic lens the structure becomes apparent. The game is broken up into chapters, six chapters in this case, and each chapter has a completely chosen sequel of missions, meaning, you can choose which mission you can do first. This already is similar to LEGO Indiana Jones where you can choose which movie, not a blamed feature in any case, it adds to the surprise I guess. The environments chosen in this game are well applied and give the game visual refreshment, although much credit probably goes to the film makers there. It’s just a shame none of this really reflects within the gameplay. The first poor aspect noticed within this game is how you’re just thrown into things with no obvious sign of tutorial, the story is easy to pick up as its followed along by movie snippets, but being thrown into a random battle outside of some castle I had never seen, I had lost my bearings a little, not to say that it’s a very hard game to pick up. It would be probably best to watch the movie first before playing this game, for that reason, and, not to be spoiled by the storyline, that’s if you’re into the Narnia series. Although this is a game open to many players, because it’s so easy to play once you get your bearings, basic implications say that you’ve should have watched the film first before you play this. What Tt Games probably had in mind here was now that you have watched and loved the movie, you’ll want to interact and play as the characters, this will also give you an idea of what kind of audience they were aiming at. The controls are extremely basic; they orientate around three buttons which change due to which character you’ll be controlling. The ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘X’ are the most commonly used, all three act as different action buttons. ‘B’ is normally for interaction with objects, opening doors, pulling levers and twisting valves , ‘X’ is for your fast standard attack, normally a melee or close combat weapon, and then you have ‘A’ which is your special attack/ability, could be a bow or a strong attack. Now, although that sounds complicated because of all the different things you can do with your characters, it really isn’t. This game has one of the shortest learning curves due to the lack of buttons being used; I would say in most instances it was too easy. Similar to LEGO Indiana Jones, there are short and simple puzzles, however, in this game you’re directed in almost every moment. Directed to press what button and when, and you’re normally navigated everywhere by points on your map, you could say this game is one big tutorial within itself. But again, you have to think who’s this game aimed at and generally the younger generation will be playing these kinds of titles. When you’re not breezing through the minor puzzles, you’ll be hacking and slashing. The combat is very shallow, a basic combo can be built up by pressing ‘A’ twice, and this also isn’t that challenging or rewarding. It can only become a problem when you’re fighting some of the later bosses, but that’s just frustrating due to how the game plays. There are two major factors to bring up in Narnia: Prince Caspian, one good and one bad. First the good point, this game doesn’t disappoint in variety. There are dozens of different characters to control throughout the game, and they all have their special uses for puzzles and bosses, but most of the time you can run around controlling your favourite character. There is also two-player co-operative, at any time in the game someone can ‘plug in and play’; you’ll just be controlling one of the other side characters in the mission. And this is a game you can come back to, once you’ve done as there are secret boxes to collect, secret levels to explore, and bonus footage to unlock. Like the LEGO games, you’re never stuck at what to do, is just whether you’ll enjoy doing it. The bad point to mention is that this game can be frustrating; there are a few too many control and maneuver bugs. The major one to point out is the camera controls, you have restricted control of the camera, it is set and it moves to the most obscure positions and angles sometimes that it could cause you to die over, and over. On top of that there's the lack of responsiveness when attacking enemies, aiming when throwing objects… this game hasn’t been finished properly.

Graphics:

Back to the expectation barrier, this hits the line point blank. This game is a great technical and visual achievement on the Xbox maybe, but on the Xbox 360? Definitely not so. And what’s worse, quite embarrassingly, is it slows down to fewer than 30 frames in those battle sequences. The in game cinematics are cheesy to say the least, in many of them the characters don’t speak, but about half way through the game the characters start speaking. It’s like the designers realised this wasn’t right and started adding dialogue in the middle. Things like this fitted in LEGO Star Wars, as LEGO characters don’t speak (at least not to my knowledge) but not this. I had mixed reactions in some scenes, the detail in some of the open wooded areas are quite impressive, and it could be quite immersive for the younger teenager, but for any frequent gamer, this would be disappointing. The graphics might be something you wouldn’t care about if the gameplay was quite involving, but unfortunately this isn’t the case most of the time.

Sound:

Sound effects are somewhat disjointed in this game, certain effects don’t suit and some effects aren’t even existent. Much so when you’re attacked or attacking something else, something just doesn’t feel right, it might be the lack rumble in the controller but whatever it is it makes fighting feel like a chore. The soundtrack on the other hand is fairly epic, suited and enjoyable to listen to. It’s kind of a mix between The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, so very fantasy fulfilled. I think most of the soundtrack though has been taken from the film, quite rightfully so as it fits in with the cinematic clips as well.

Longevity:

It will take you about eight to ten hours to complete this game, of course dependent on how much you explore and how frequent you play games. This might not seem that long for most gamers, but for any casual gamer this is probably plenty of time. The content is definitely enough to make sense of the story, at least I understood what was going on in a simple manner, there may be a lot more to it to in the film. But even if the game isn’t that long for you there are the chests to find, the bonus content to unlock and the secret levels to complete. All that on top of, probably another playthrough plus an hour or two with the extra content.

Overall:

Having never been a fan of movie based games, (and after playing this still not a fan of movie based games) it’s quite hard to judge this title in terms of recommendation. But what I will say is that if you’re a gamer who has had a bad experience with, or you just don’t enjoy the simplicity of movie based titles, and are questioning on whether this is any different to other run of the mills, then keep looking, this game won’t change your mind. However, if you have seen Narnia: Prince Caspian and really enjoyed the film but thirst for more action, then go ahead this game is probably for you.