The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Wii) Review
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (TCNPC from hereon in) is one of the latest video games to be released in time to cash in on the release of a major motion picture. Based on the second book in the Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S Lewis, TCNPC is an action game with heavy emphasis on fighting characters with some minor exploration and puzzle solving thrown in for good measure.
The game has 6 main levels, each of which has a number of objectives to fulfil. Exploring the level will trigger some objectives, whilst others will become available after a certain amount of time has passed. The first level, for example, takes place in a castle with the Telmarines beginning their attack on the castle. Your main task is to defend the castle which takes place with a number of objectives. More specific objectives will be to take down the Telmarine war weapons and to destroy Telmarine ships which are making their way to shore. Objectives throughout the game mostly adhere to such rules. You’ll be doing a lot of fighting and there will be puzzles to solve, though none of them are particularly hard or original. There doesn’t seem to have been too much thought into the objectives, as is evidenced by the objective in the first level to destroy the Telmarine war machines. I spent considerable time smashing the war machines but to no avail. It wasn’t until I paused the game and viewed the objectives, where it told me to go get a giant to help, that I realised what needed to be done.
Each main level you play in TCNPC will give you a number of different characters you can play with. Characters include the four children (Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy), Centaurs, Dwarfs, giants, and even Mr Tumnus. Each character has different abilities and/or weapons, so you will need to swap between characters in order to solve puzzles. As an example, the Dwarf can crawl through small holes due to his tiny stature. Characters such as centaurs are great for fighting due to their massive strength. Despite having so many characters, many of them do seem to play and feel pretty similar. You can play the game co-operatively, which is a nice addition. Doing so makes solving some puzzles more bearable as you don’t have to wait for a CPU controlled character to do their part (e.g., stand on a switch).
Control wise, the game does a pretty good job of making things simple yet effective. Not a lot of Wiimote gestures are used, and even when they are, they often have a button equivalent which gives you a choice of how to play. The combat is a bit dull, which is a shame considering combat has such a heavy emphasis in the game. Enemies also have very limited AI, which makes the combat far too easy. Other CPU characters also seem to have very minimal AI. You’ll find yourself wandering around the battlefield watching a bunch of centaurs (who, incidently, all look identical) fighting Telmarines. However, the Telmarine won’t actually die unless you defeat it yourself. It would have been nice to have comrades who had the ability to actually defeat an opponent, but alas, such is not the case.
Visually, TCNPC looks OK. Some of the locations you will encounter in the game are quite large and they are usually pretty detailed and relatively good looking. Character models are adequate, although there isn’t a lot of variety in regards to non-playable CPU characters. There are some minor framerate issues at times when there is a lot going on, but it’s bearable and doesn’t occur to often. The use of actual cutscenes from the movie is a nice touch, although going from watching a cutscene from the movie back to the game makes the visuals look pretty bland. I was expected a quality soundtrack from TCNPC considering the motion picture contained a rather nice score. Unfortunately, the music in Prince Caspian is totally forgettable whilst the sound-effects do little justice to the fact that it has been over 10 years since the Nintendo 64.
At the end of the day, TCNPC is game in which I could describe as been very average or better than average. In comparison to the AAA titles that we are occasionally blessed with, TCNPC is quite average. Comparing the game to other licensed games, and better than average comes to mind. The co-op mode is perhaps the saving grace of the game, as playing with a mate makes things much more interesting. At the end of the day though, it’s a basic action game with a large emphasis on combat (which is dull) with some exploration and puzzle elements thrown in. It’s a long way from being a great game, but it isn’t terrible by any stretch of the imagination. Fans of the movie will surely enjoy trekking through the land of Narnia. Gamers looking for a decent co-op action/adventure title might also consider TCNPC.
