ic-games Review - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

ic-games Review - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii ic-games Review - Home - Review, Preview and Interview for PC, Xbox,Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Information
Reviewer: James Collins
Developer: High Voltage Software
Publisher: Global Star
Reviewed: Playstation 2
Genre: Platform
UK Release: 22nd Jul 2005
Article Date: 24th Jul 2005
Difficulty: Hard
Retail Price: £29.99
Price Comparison:
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Score Breakdown

Experience:
Game Play:
Graphics:
Sound:
Overall Score: 45%

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Pros

Great Idea

Cons

Buggy

Can get complicated for kids

Disjointed

Screenshots

1 of 3

Without a doubt the biggest disappointment in the otherwise impressive 2005 adaptation of the Roald Dahl book, and the classic film ‘Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory' was the lacklustre Oompa Loompa rhymes, you see they never really had any oomph about them. The same is partly true of the kid’s platform romp of the same name that has been released in conjunction with the movie. However, things in the Chocolate game world get progressively worse, very quickly.

To be fair the game started off quite impressively with a polished intro alongside an excellent narration by Geoffrey Holder worthy of the story being told. Indeed most of the actors in the recent film (minus Johnny Depp) lend their voice to the experience. As most of us know, after shutting the doors to the famous Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka has decided to open up the gates once again to five lucky winners of 'Golden Tickets' hidden in Wonka bars throughout the world. As the story progresses only one ticket remains to be found, and poverty stricken Charlie is convinced it’ll never be him although he never stops looking.

You might be fooled at first play in thinking that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has something to offer, the melodies are fantastic, the moody visuals of Charlie’s downtrodden streets look realistic enough and everything looks set for a decent gameplay experience as you chase a $10 note through the streets. Then Charlie finds that golden ticket, the doors to the factory open up, and everything that was good about the game ceases to exist, and this one you can’t pin on the Oompa Loompa's singing talents.

And of course, any Chocolate factory game without the famous Oompa Loompa's is destined to failure and it was welcome to see developers High Voltage making great use of them, sadly though, the actual implementation has seen the developers best laid plans going awry from the outset. The idea is sound, you must order the Oompa Loompa's to operate machinery with simple commands on the controller. Pressing 'down' on the dpad will order the workers to stop, pressing 'right' will order them to follow and finally the 'up' command will order any nearby Loompa's to work. The more you progress; further (more specialised) Oompa Loompa's will enter the fray allowing you to hand down more complex orders. See a machine that has broken down? Ordering a mechanic Oompa Loompa to work on the machine will fix the problem, the same is true of the electrician Oompa Loompa and so on. Basically using and understanding the roles of each worker is paramount for progression and actually ends up making for 95% of the gameplay.

For example a mechanic Oompa Loompa may be needed to fix a machine that a worker can use to lower a platform, to reveal another specialised Oompa Loompa, who can open a door for Charlie to eventually walk through. Sadly though the AI of the Oompa Loompa's at time will cause even the most patient gamer to hurl their controller at the screen, those pesky creatures will get stuck behind almost anything, refuse to follow orders at times and just basically infuriate. To simplify matters pressing ‘left’ on the dpad at anytime brings up an information panel. Since during some of the later levels you’ll be commanding a large party of Loompas it’s welcome to see a panel showing you exactly who’s doing what and who’s standing around doing nothing. Since each mission also has hidden sweets scattered around the environment, the information panel will also notify you of exactly what still needs to be collected. As in most other platformers, the candy is just a glorified collection system for extra health but completists will be pleased to know exactly what is expected of them at any time.

Sadly the problems do not end there though; The camera control is single handedly the worst ever seen in a platformer, it’ll center itself at the worst moment, it’ll refuse to rotate enough for that tricky jump and all this at the same time as giving you the most extreme motion sickness. At times playing Charlie and the Chocolate factory is enjoyable, especially when you finally crack the puzzles, but at any time a number of problems can kick in, either the camera control, poor AI of the Oompa Loompa's or in the most extreme cases, problems that will force a complete level restart for you to complete the game and this last point just isn’t acceptable for a console game.

One area that surprised us was the lack of any real enemy, yes, you do get attacked by the rogue Wonka bots and occasional trained squirrel but this game certainly plays at a much slower pace than most other platformers. Essentially this is to be expected given the subject matter, the concentration on puzzles certainly does go some way into alleviating the boredom a lack of enemies may present. However the puzzles are at times completed through trial and error more than logical thought, but are nevertheless enjoyable enough to complete.

Even though the enemy count may be low there are still quite a few upgrades and skills that Charlie can collect to help his progress through the chocolate factory. During certain levels Charlie will fix Wonka machines that produce special candy, that once eaten, allow more advanced moves to be performed.

Charlie and the Chocolate factory started with brilliant presentation and gameplay and deteriorated from that point on. Although the novel twist of trying to save the ‘bad’ kids does add something for fans of the book, they’ll be advised to rent this title before the sugar sweet memories turn into a sour aftertaste after shelling out for this lacklustre platformer.

DETAILED GAME INFORMATION

Version Reviewed: PS2 Promo
Other Versions: PC, Xbox, Gamecube
Muliplayer: No
PS2 Price: £29.99
Age: 7+

USA Release date - July 22, 2005
UK Release date - July 22, 2005

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