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The
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe from
Buena Vista Games is the videogame tie-in to the just released
movie of the same name. For those unfamiliar with the  story; four
children are evacuated from their home in war time London to a big country estate owned by an old professor. During they’re
time there they find an old wardrobe which acts as a portal to the
enchanted world of Narnia, where it’s always winter, but
Christmas never comes.
You
begin the game outside said wardrobe as Lucy and her first trip
into Narnia where she first encounters Mr Tumnus which helps tell a
little of the story, about how they would have evenings of
revelry in the beautiful spring, and of how the white witch
came and turned it into the wintertime land that abides now. This
is told in a wonderful little piece in which you play Mr Tumnus
going up a hill, infinitely more a more interesting route than just
reading it off paper. The story progresses giving you enough of the
story through character interaction to know what is going on, but
it gives you more than enough freedom to explore. One could argue
that there is too much freedom, resulting in the player frequently
getting lost. You have two Maps, a large one showing all of Narnia;
“From the lamp-post in the west, all the way to Cair Paravel in
the east” and the other showing the screen you are on at any one
point-in-time. The main problem with this is that the large Map is
very vague, and offers little in the way of direction; you must
rely heavily on your own memory of whereabouts are and the general
direction you need to take next.
There
seemed to be two main parts of the game. You have your travelling
round aimlessly killing bad dwarfs and boggles (yeah, the mind
does) and you have your dungeons, which are basically mazes which
start off small, but get larger as the game progresses, the idea
being that you must rescue the innocent creatures locked inside.
Initially this was an excellent idea; its worth lies in breaking
the story into larger segments leaving you less opportunity to just
run around aimlessly, talking to Mrs. Beaver. However, whilst
having clearly taken a small amount of inspiration from Untold
Legends: Brotherhood Of The Blade, it’s just a shame they
weren’t thought-out a little more, in the larger quests finding
the Boss may be an act of sheer luck and blind running around
rather than a methodical route of any
description.
There
are many Sub-Missions to complete, where the player talks to
animals on your way which in-turn earn you new talents and improve
those learnt. Unfortunately, although some prove most useful, most
are based on statistics, with which you don’t really notice the
effect of at all. When a character Levels-Up you can choose which
category to improve on (Health Points, Accuracy and Damage, Defence
and Willpower Points). Unfortunately you cannot go back and check
which statistics need improving on so you pretty much have to guess
which to pick.
Graphically
we see somewhat of an improvement on the Preview Code from last
years’ Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3
2005) there is more
depth to objects and environments; however it’s far from
detailing the  full extent of what the NintendoDS has shown us in
other titles such as Animal Crossing: Wild World and Super
Mario64 DS. Being brutally honest, much like The ‘Urbz:
Sims In The City it’s pretty clear that title began life as a
Game Boy Advance release. The Touch Screen is used to a better
extent, although seeing a close up of Lucy’s’ face every time
you look down is a little eerie.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe did
have a good concept to it; the way it breaks down the story and
puts it into game format is well done. There is enough of a story
to keep you going while introducing dramatically varying depths of
gameplay with enough action to make it something other than just a
series of generic set-pieces. Unfortunately, it really offers us
nothing new in terms of gameplay and in parts looks like there is
no thought behind it other than “hmm… movie cash-in”. In
short, there are much better games in this genre but fans of the
book or movie won’t go wrong with the NintendoDS incarnation. 
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