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Buena Vista Games delivers a solid adaptation of the film, even if the title is a bit long. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is a fundamentally solid game that does a good job of integrating the material of the film with solid gameplay. The game should be fun to fans of action-adventure.
The game’s story mirrors that of the upcoming movie, which itself is based on the book. Essentially, it centers on four siblings: Edmund, Lucy, Peter and Susan. They discover a magical land hidden inside a wardrobe. This land, called Narnia, is populated by magical creatures including minotaurs and centaurs. The game begins with Narnia under the evil rule of a queen named White Witch. There is a legend in which four children will overcome this evil witch and restore the power to the land’s fair kind, Aslan the lion.
Developer Traveler’s Tales adapted the movie into an action adventure game. You’ll play as two-to-four of the children at any given time, with the ability to switch between them and take advantage of their special abilities. Peter, being the oldest, is also the strongest, Susan can throw fire arrows and snowballs, Edmund has climbing skills, and Lucy, being the youngest, can crawl through small spaces. You’ll encounter a number of enemies and obstacles in the different levels. These levels are pretty varied with lakes and forests being thrown in good amounts. The levels make good use of the character’s special abilities with certain sections having a clear character of choice.
The game’s combat is simple but fun to do. All of the characters have two attacks and a number of team attacks. They can climb on top of each other, throw each other around and so forth. As you progress, you’ll collect coins which you can then turn around and use to buy more moves and attacks. The takeaway is this: different portions of the game, whether it’s the combat, boss fights, or driving sections are well implemented.
The Chronicles of Narnia includes a two-player cooperative mode. The second player can come in at any time. This is very helpful since some levels are a bit much even for older gamers. The cooperative mode works very well since playing with another player is always more fun. That said, the AI during singleplayer is pretty sufficient.
The Chronicles of Narnia is a pretty good looking game. The characters look pretty good and animate very well. The game pushes a number of these characters onscreen at the same time which is pretty impressive on current-generation hardware. The environments are very detailed and varied ranging from frozen lakes to green fields and castle. The game’s presentation is top-notch, with plenty of high-quality clips from the movie included to tell the story.
The sound is equally impressive. The background music fits the game very well and is fitting for a game based on a movie. The sound effects bring everything to life and sound as you would expect. The voice work is top-notch, too.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is definitely a good adaptation of the movie. The production values and presentation is really good in the game. The gameplay doesn’t break any new ground but what is here is great. -- Jake Wilson, PGNx Media
---- Dec 7, 2005
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