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Techtite's PC Game Reviews! |
"If you like games that are a little sinister --but not too much so-- you'll like this little platform game." ---from the review
----------------- Sidebar : ----------------- Pros: Voice acting from all the actual movie actors, including Jim Carrey; Baby in the backpack is a cute added touch; Nice translation of the story; all those kooky gadgets! Cons: Excruciatingly easy; even more excruciatingly short; not as involved as I've heard the video game version is. No additional sidebar comments for this review. Yet... ----------------- Feel free to contribute. As always, review submissions are accepted! ------------------
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Lemony Snicket'sA Series of Unfortunate Events
Click picture to order this game (PC/windows version) A Techtite Review
...so begins the latest movie tie-in game, for Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. This dark humored children's story translates well into a game, with some nice item quests and good graphics, and what's more; even the original voice cast from the film! It's actually a pretty nice game...even if, for the third time this year, the PC version is grotesquely dumbed down from its video game system counterpart. What sets this game unique from most is that you get to play as all three of the orphans, at various segments of a level. From the beginning of the game you start with the kids on a beach, where you learn how to control each of the orphans, which for the intent of this review we'll refer to simply enough as the boy, the girl, and the baby. Basically the boy handles the rough stuff, the girl handles the puzzle stuff and the baby handles the cute stuff. All three work together to gather parts for the girl's many inventions, which once assembled can even be used throughout the entire game. That's a cute touch. The story is based on the film, as based on the first three books. To keep a long story short for the purpose of a game review; you must help the orphans defeat Count Olaf's plans to take their family inheritance, and at times, even save the orphans' very lives from Olaf as well. Each level basically involves the orphans working together to find parts for a particular invention. The girl handles the puzzle solving, while the boy often kicks butt (once he has the right butt kicking invention, that is), while the baby can crawl in tight spaces. This is all a nice template for a game with a lot of potential, but unfortunately the game is made way too "easy" for little tykes. For starters in this "children's" game; which orphan is best for which situation is chosen automatically. Second: although you eventually obtain a small slingshot-like tool of sorts that can shoot the bad guys with bananas and feathers or eggs; the game itself decides automatically, for the most part, which projectile defeats which enemy. It would've been much more challenging to be attacked by various enemies at once, with each enemy defeated by different attack types. That isn't the case here.
Good graphics are only enhanced by great voice talent; specifically, all of the actual actors from the film! Count Olaf is not only voiced by Jim Carrey; he looks so much like his cinematic counterpart it's uncanny. Overall this game's primary goal is obviously to make a game kids can play if they loved the movie, or the book, so very much. This game is exactly the sort of movie tie-in game they're looking for, I would say, even if it is extremely easy.
If only the game was a little more difficult, I probably would've rated it much higher. Trouble is, even as a children's-oriented platform game this was a little too easy to rare highly, especially when considering the price for the game. It's currently about $10 less than your typical hot off the shelf PC game, and even at that discount a game that is easily completed in as little as one night just isn't good enough of a price/value curve. It's a cute game --and that's why it gets a marginal thumbs up, on-the-bubble -- and yet it's not as great as it could have been.
Mind you; this whole review may be different, had I played the video game version. In a similar comparison; the Spider-Man 2 game for PC was an easy as pie E-rated bore. The video game version was T for Teen rated, yet was admittedly a stunning, RPG-quality, free-to-explore masterpiece. Yet this is an unfair comparison because, unlike the PC version of Spider-Man 2, this game doesn't totally suck. It's just a little easy for older gamers --maybe even far easier than the video game, I don't know-- but for fans of the book, or the movie, this may be just what they were looking for. If you're buying games for very young gamers, check it out.
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Burnout
Near
Miss
Small
Crater
Large
Crater
Deep
Impact
If
there's one superb trait of the game, it's the graphics. Animation,
textures, levels; they're all superb, right down to the "baby" in
your backpack, who will even peek out and look at "you" the gamer,
on occasion. That's one cute touch among many, in a graphics environment
which may be very child-friendly (this is an "E for everyone"
game), but is still graphically impressive.
It
also has great voice talent; specifically, all of the actual actors from the
film! Count Olaf is not only voiced by Jim Carrey; he looks so much
like his cinematic counterpart it's uncanny. The kids' voice acting also
seems to show they got a kick out of being the voices in a video game. How
many kids would jump at the chance? Even Jim Carry seems to be enjoying
himself with the idea.
Then
again; if you're the sort of parent whose kids want a sinister game, yet
you're afraid to break the "E for Everyone" barrier until they're
older, then this is the game for you. It's an E for Everyone game, all
right, and yet this is about the most sinister of stories that they could
offer while pushing the G-rated envelope. In one scene, thunder and
lightning flashes through the windows, with the outline of their missing
aunt seen in the window glass; what just happened? It's done with cartoon
like humor, sure, but this isn't exactly a game about pink ponies and magic
mushrooms, is it? Yet with "weaponry" consisting of rotten eggs
and bananas, there really isn't anything too violent here. While this may
make the game labeled "un-cool" at the grade school lunchroom,
it's good news for parents, who are at that point be the ones buying the
games.