Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Review

With the recent release of the new Charlie and The Chocolate Factory film, it was inevitable that a game would follow in its wake. The anticipation of Tim Burtons latest magical film has certainly roused all those feelings of excitement I got hen I watched Charlie and The Chocolate Factory as a kid, it’s made me remember all my dreams of being desperate to run riot in Willy Wonka’s Factory. I wanted to meet an Oompa Loompa, I wanted an everlasting gobstopper more than anything in the world, I wanted to own that factory. Let’s see if this game makes all those dreams come true.

Story/Gameplay
The character that we play is Charlie Bucket, cutscenes show us that Charlie is a boy who belongs to a poor family. Willy Wonka is offering 5 children a chance to enter his wonderful chocolate factory, all they have to do is find a golden ticket which are hidden in 5 of his chocolate bars which are sold all over the world. Charlie has no money to buy any of the chocolate bars, so he has no chance of winning a golden ticket. Until luck should have it, Charlie comes across a $10 bill which you have to catch. Once you have caught the $10 bill more cutscenes follow which take us through the story until we arrive in the chocolate factory where greedy Augustus Gloop falls in to Willy Wonka’s amazing chocolate river and gets sucked up into the pipe. Here the real fun begins (or does it?), your first mission is to get Augustus out of the pipe. As instructed by Willy Wonka you have to solve several puzzles throughout the factory with the aid of Oompa Loompas.

Each Oompa Loompa has a different job such as harvesters who collect candy from high trees, welders who weld broken pipes together, and electricians who fix broken machinery. You control what they do with a simple command using the directional buttons on the D-Pad, up for telling them to work, right for follow and down for asking them to wait. It is often hard to control the Oompa Loompas as they seem to have a mind of their own half the time, they don’t follow you when you ask them to, and they shrug if you ask them to work. (Usually meaning that they can’t do the job that you have asked of them.) Basically the Oompa Loompas do all of the hard work whilst you control them and tell them what to do. In the meantime all that is really required of you is to collect items, jump around a lot, and throw everlasting gobstoppers at enemies which are few and far between, you can also throw your gobstoppers at trees and machinery to release candy which give you extra health, or you collect them as a side mission to every level. As you work your way through the factory, you gain special abilities through candy power ups. These include being able to throw jelly beans to turn wonkabots into vineballs which you use to plug toxic pipes, wriggly candy which you throw at enemies and it wriggles back to you and a bubble gum bubble which serves as a space hopper. Wow, a bubble gum space hopper I hear you say, how cool, well not very to be honest. Unless you hit ‘x’ at the exact right moment, your bubble bursts and your enjoyment with it.

At times throughout the game it is very unclear what is required of young Charlie, therefore a lot of your time is spent running aimlessly about trying to figure it out (although Grandpa Joe is there to give hints if you need him). And at other times, although you know what to do it becomes very frustrating to complete the puzzles due to the impossible camera angles. The camera is primarily set on follow but it doesn’t “follow” very well and is very jumpy at times (those who suffer from motion sickness would be well advised to stay clear of this game!). It is almost impossible to aim during certain parts of the game making for very frustrating play. It has to be said that the game also suffers badly from frame rate issues, more noticeable in certain parts of the factory than others.

Young children appear to be the target audience but they would find this game repetitive, frustrating and pretty pointless, I can see them turning the PS2 off and throwing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory very hard at a wall.

Graphics/Environments
The actual chocolate factory is very mechanical looking, and doesn’t give you the feel of being in a world where fantastic sweets are made. In the first room where everything is supposedly edible, nothing looks as if it could be eaten. It didn’t want to make me jump into the screen and drink from the chocolate river as I always did whilst reading the book and watching the films. The character animations are poor to say the least although Willy Wonka himself looks the part. All animations are jerky at times, and although the cutscenes are nice in their concept art style, they don’t convert to 3D very well. It looks cheaply done, which is something that is common amongst movie to game titles.

Sound/Deaf Gamer
The game generally sticks to the story through narrative cutscenes and all instructions that Willy Wonka gives are through speech. There is no option to turn subtitles on so this would make for a very unpleasant gaming experience for the deaf gamer. Most of the actors from the film leant their voice for the making of their game characters, excluding Johnny Depp.

The only saving grace for this game is the soundtrack. The music is very fitting for the environments, and it does not get repetitive or boring. It is quirky and entertaining and at times quite spooky and dark. All the imagination lacking elsewhere seems to have been invested into this fabulous soundtrack.

Girl Gamer point of view
Unfortunately there is nothing much I can say about the girl gamer point of view. This is intended for small children of both sexes, and I doubt it would appeal to either in any particular way. The lead characters – as usual – male however.

Summary
In summary I have to say that Charlie and The Chocolate Factory brings nothing new to the gaming world. The puzzles are annoying, the graphics aren’t the best, the camera angle is frustrating and with no options to change this, or to add subtitles it fails to deliver anything near to a solid package. If you are determined to play this game, then my advice is to rent it first, or borrow it off your 5 year old relative who will no doubt be paying you to take it away.

Review by Leyla

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