Movie to video game transitions are known to be relatively mediocre releases, usually looking to cash in on a more popular hit film by releasing a video game adaptation. The Sony Pictures and Columbia Pictures release that has recently hit cinemas across the globe is ‘Open Season’, which is an animated movie with the two main characters being Martin Lawrence who voices the big grizzly bear Boog. Then we have Ashton Kutcher who is the annoying and some what weird looking deer known as Elliot. As animated movies go you usually find an odd couple in each one, but it will be interesting to see the transition of Open Season to a video game. Can Ubisoft bring out something special and break the norm of the dreaded movie to game conversion that is sure to concern any developer undertaking a movie to video game transition?

Open Season closely follows the plot of the movie, with Boog being looked after by Beth – she certainly likes her animals and despises hunting and hunters. The main character you control throughout the game will be Boog, on a select few levels you will get to play as Elliot instead. Beth decides to take Boog in the back of her truck for a ride around; it is at this time on a journey out with Beth that she spots what appears to be a dead deer tied to the front of a hunter’s car on display. She approaches the store to talk to the hunter who is known as Shaw, it’s during this time that Boog gets a surprise and finds that the first thought dead deer tied to Shaw’s car is in fact not dead and asks for your help to release him. Boog leans over and releases the deer who you later find out is Elliot. As Elliot escapes, Shaw spots Boog releasing Elliot whilst he is conversing with Beth, and rants and raves with the basic mutterings being that one day when Boog is released into the wilderness, he will hunt him down and make a nice rug for his fireplace! Luckily for Shaw he gets his chance sooner than he thinks as Elliot finds Boog in Beth’s garage later that night and tempts him out of his comfort zone with treats. Before you know it they both end up in the wilderness where they meet some other animals and some not too pleasant hunters.

Gameplay

The Gameplay is typical of similar action adventure games in the same genre with the basic premise being on you controlling Boog and running around with your new best pal Elliot. Together you will find other animals and make new friends to help you get from point A to point B. As you are fresh-meat so to speak then most of the animals are not too fond of a big old grizzly city bear – in turn many animals will not allow you to pass through certain areas, such as squirrels in trees; they will throw nuts at you if you try to get past. Using Elliot as the distraction here is the key to progressing – throwing Elliot at the tree will result in the squirrel coming down and Elliot talking to him whilst you run past. As you progress through the game you will befriend many of the animals and Boog can use them in a similar way to Elliot i.e. grabbing a squirrel and throwing it at a tree where a hunter is nearby will result in the squirrel throwing nuts at the hunter from the tree and leaving him dazed long enough for Boog to run up to him without getting shot and scaring the crap out of him with Boog’s mighty roar. Other animals that can be used include rabbits and skunks, picking up a rabbit and attempting to throw it will take you into a first person view, here Boog must throw the rabbit at a hunters face, upon doing so the rabbit will bite and claw the hunters face – at which point shortly after the hunter will run off in shock, screaming. There are a very few select levels where you get the chance to play as Elliot which is similar to Boogs’ outings, the only difference being you can not roar at hunters to scare them off, obviously. You must get close enough to a hunter and taunt him by waving your rear-end at him and shouting at him to get his attention, by doing this the hunter will become so angry that he won’t shoot at you but instead he will run after you and if he catches you it’s game over – the idea here is of course to not get caught but to lure a hunter into a bear trap or a campers fire, as the hunter is that angry he will not be focusing on traps or even fires in front of him; once he runs into a trap or fire he will run off in pain/shock. Elliot’s other outings are a bit more entertaining than the basic running around from point A to B; which is how the main bulk of the game plays out. Elliot has a few missions where he must stand guard and be played from a first person viewpoint – one of Elliot’s missions involves a large pink bra and some spiky hedgehogs - the object being to launch the spiky hedgehogs with the use of the pink bra (slingshot style) into the near by hunters – thus scaring the unsuspecting hunters off with the pain of a spiky hedgehog being launched at them.

Graphics

Open Season is a multi-format title appearing on the PC, PS2, Xbox and Game Cube; as usual with other multi-format titles the Xbox 360 version doesn’t look as good as it could do due to the likely fact that it is just a spruced up Xbox or PC port. That is not to say that Open Season on the Xbox 360 is a slouch in the visuals department - it is not, it just doesn’t look as good as it could do and it shows. Some things look nice, more noticeably the animal fur and water effects but everything else seems rather bland from the grass to the leaves on the trees.

Sound

Clearly the sound is one of the more uninspiring points about the game. With the likes of Martin Lawrence and Ashton Kutcher you expect some form of light humour thrown in; however all you get is what sounds like uninspiring last minute recordings for the game and during the game’s cutscenes the duo come off more as annoying and become tiresome instead of humorous. We also have the likes of Billy Connolly as McSquizzy the squirrel, who is the leader of the Furrytail clan and pulls off a rather convincing and humorous performance. There are a lot of other actors voicing many of the other animals in the wild – they all seem to pull off a much more convincing and humorous performance for their respective characters. In general the majority of the other characters sound as if a better effort went into their voice recordings for the game than the voiceovers for the main duo of Boog and Elliot, which is a shame.

Longevity

Not much here to keep you coming back for more, once the single player game is completed then you may find you want to replay specific levels to find some hidden items (to get some achievements) that perhaps you did not find on your first play through the game. As you progress through the single player game though, you do unlock new mini games which can be played with an extra player – no Xbox Live play unfortunately, so local play only. These mini games will add some replay value as some of them are relatively fun for a short period.

Overall

Open Season does have some entertaining scenarios in the game, but only in the minority. The majority of the game’s levels do feel repetitive. If you like to get some easy achievements from the game, then these can easily be attained. Finding some of the hidden items requires more effort than others and finding some of the other hidden items can become very boring as you explore the rather dull looking environments. This game I’m sure will be more popular with the kids as it is relatively easy to get into with some entertaining levels – although those are few and far between though I’m afraid.

The Pros

The Cons