|
No
doubt you will have heard of The Da Vinci Code. Ever since
Dan Brown’s controversial book about the legitimacy of the Church
was released in 2003, the world has gone conspiracy mad. Since then
the book has sold millions around the world and, predictably, has
been made into a film. Being a blockbuster movie of no small
significance, a tie-in videogame was inevitable.
The
Da Vinci Code is a 3D Third-Person
Adventure game similar in some respects to the Broken Sword
released on the PlayStation. Players must traverse several areas,
mostly those that feature in the film, find clues and solve puzzles.
The
Da Vinci Code follows the plot of the film fairly closely,
as well as offering extra locations to pad out the story, and places
you in control of the films two leading characters; Robert Langdon
and Sophie Neveu. Given that the film was not particularly well
received by critics, how will a game overshadowed by its tie-in
nature fare?
Characters
can navigate their environments in the standard manner, as well as
being able to enter a Stealth Mode and run, although not for very
long. Other than this the player is fairly limited in their movement
with no jump or rolling functionality. Most of The Da Vinci Code
involves searching for clues in various historical buildings linked
to Leonardo Da Vinci and his supposed code. Although this isn’t
anything that you wouldn’t expect from an Adventure game, The
Da Vinci Code unfortunately lacks any real charm, mostly due to
some  wooden voice acting, making each search for clues seem more
like a chore than an interesting experience. There are also various
Context Sensitive segments interspersed throughout The Da Vinci
Code, however these generally seem quite tacked-on, a feature
not helped by ropey character animation.
Occasionally
the player will be forced into combat with various adversaries.
Instead of a general Hack-N’-Slash style Fighting System, The
Da Vinci Code uses a Button Sequence system, similar to that
seen in Shen Mue. In general this system works quite well,
however when you are faced by more than one enemy you can be
interrupted mid-sequence making multiple-opponent combat
frustrating. There are also many opportunities to use the Stealth
Mode to eliminate foes. Most enemies can be defeated in two Stealth
Attacks, however if a makeshift weapon is at hand it can be used to
swiftly dispatch any potential adversaries in one blow. This makes
Stealth Mode very useful, especially due to some tragic enemy AI.
The
most redeeming  feature of The Da Vinci Code is easily the
puzzles and codes. Although some seem unnecessarily difficult, most
are well conceived and definitely the most interesting part of the
title. There is also a good variation to these puzzles and they are
interspersed throughout the title suitably, giving it a sense of
much needed freshness. That being said, some puzzles can involve
running around aimlessly looking for clues, which is never fun.
Whilst
The Da Vinci Code is playable, although hardly a huge amount
of fun, it lacks the production values you might expect. The
graphics employed are muddy and jagged and are well below par for
the Xbox. In fact they couldn’t really be considered average even
for the PlayStation2, a console that has long been performing at its
peak. Far worse is the animation which frequently stutters and is
totally unbelievable. There are also many other bugs such as Polygon
Pop-Up and Cross Pollination which leads you to believe that The
Da Vinci Code was yet another sloppy attempt to milk hype for
all it’s worth. Another issue you may notice is the lack of
official voiceovers for the lead characters, rather strange for such
a high-profile release. As a result  the voice-acting is quite poor
and does nothing to inspire you to complete each task. The music is
also pretty drab, making The Da Vinci Code a far worse game
than it could have been had it had a decent amount of time devoted
to it’s presentation.
The
Da Vinci Code has some nice ideas, and
does feature numerous, decent puzzles. However the title is cursed
from start-to-finish by poor presentation and, often, is downright
boring gameplay. If The Da Vinci Code was given longer in
development, or the developers had paid more attention the
presentation, it could have been a reasonable Adventure game, but as
it stands, only fans of the film should check out The Da Vinci
Code, and even then they shouldn’t expect too much.
|
