|
The
Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe is a
videogame title by Buena Vista Games of the film, soon to be
released, by Disney and Walden Media,  based on the books written by
C. S. Lewis. It follows the Adventures of four children, Peter,
Edmund, Lucy and Susan, from the time that Lucy first goes into the
Wardrobe and finds the magical land of Narnia, through the story as
the children help Aslan rescue the land and it’s people from the
clutches of the White Witch and her cruel winter. With SONY having
signed up exclusivity rights for the home console versions prior to
Christmas, the Xbox and GameCube versions are due to arrive early
next year.
Similar to the Game Boy Advance edition, the gameplay follows
a fairly basic Third-Person Action/Adventure formula. Running
around, attacking various creatures and solving small puzzles in
your path, you can swap between all four children at any time, who
all have different strengths and abilities.  The fighting is done
quite well, as the characters can also combine their powers to
produce stronger attacks, which are varied depending on which
characters are used. There is an extensive amount of enemies, all of
them based on the many varied Mythical Creatures featured in the
Motion Picture. Everything that needs to be done is instructed for
you, including who needs to do it, so there are no challenges on
that score.
The battles don’t appear to be quite as epic as what you would
expect from a title such as this. Fairly slow and a little clumsy,
he other children rarely participate in battles, often just standing
back and letting the character you have selected do the work. During
the major battles against lots of enemies, the army of the White
Witch is shown running past in the background while a few enemies
fight against the four children in the foreground. As mentioned
above, the children can combine their abilities so you can fight
with two swords or use fire arrows against foes, which is unique
with this type of game.
The graphics do look fairly good; people are portrayed very
well and the scenery looks realistic. The graphics look good with a
lot of attention given to the people and creatures, with the
cinematic landscapes just giving a finishing touch. However,
there’s no lip-synching which is rather disappointing. A new, AAA
title such as this could certainly represent the children with more
realism.
All-in-all, this looks to be Lord Of The Rings for
children, a cross-genre Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets.
It may live-up to being a game of a film and be just as epic and
breath taking as it counterpart, even if the base audience does seem
to be children; a little unsatisfactory for the serious
Action/Adventure gamer but for first time younger Action/Adventure
players this would be ideal. Definitely one to watch over Christmas,
due for release on
November 25th, 2005
on PlayStation2.
|
