Lemony Snicket’s A Series Of Unfortunate Events – Review

What to do if game developers runs out of inspiration? Instead of using their own fantasy they steal existing stories and try to make a decent game of it. That’s the case with this game, folks. It is based on the children’s novels of Lemony Snicket and presents the adventures of the three Baudelairs orphans who seem to be living a nightmare, over and over again.

The game contains surprising elements from Lemony Snicket books and gamers experience the adventures of the three main characters Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire. Their wealthy parents died and left a fortune to the kids. But they cannot use it as long as they’re immature. After becoming orphans, their devilish uncle Count Olaf takes them into his house to take care after. Not because he loves the children, oh no he’s got other intentions. Yes people, he wants only one thing and that is to get his filthy hands on the Baudelairs fortune. But the 3 kids bundle their strengths to be one step ahead of Count Olaf actions. Violet is the oldest sister and the inventor of the family. With the strangest objects she can create handy instruments to beat enemies or to conquer any traps. Her brother Klaus is a couple of years younger but is a brave and smart boy. He isn’t afraid of chasing rats and has a passion of reading. Last but not least we have little Sunny. A baby girl with sharp teeth and she does excellent work by crawling into secret locations with extreme small entrances, to small for Violet or Klaus to enter.

The game intro is quite odd and strange. What comes into mind when somebody starts warning you to stop playing. That it isn’t going to be fun playing it and to NOT expect a happy ending. This is made to motivate rebel gamers who like unpleasant and scary happenings in games. After the intro you’ll get stuck in Count Olaf house and the children, those poor children don’t know what to expect. To give it their best shot and to please Count Olaf they start doing small jobs such like killing the rats. The controlling of the character is simple and you get good clues of what to do. When it’s action time, the button which needs to be pressed is visible on screen. Could it be easier? Also every character can be played separately and thanks to their individual strengths you can achieve the objectives and move on in the miserable life the Baudelairs.

Count Olaf has a rat canker in his house and one of the first objectives is to get rid of it to please their Uncle. But how can they achieve this without having the correct equipment? Violet knows the answer, but she needs some items to assemble a kind of weapon. Together they try to gather all items and as soon as everything has been collected you need to assemble it. Tadaaaa a lovely and easy to use weapon has been made and the brave Klaus takes care of the rats. After completing a couple of objectives you’ll notice the repetitive game play formula: a problem, Violet’s solution, item search, assembling and finishing the job. Sounds boring, doesn’t it? And it is quite boring. Although the objectives can be pretty funny and varied. I’ve played the piano like an idiot, had to put books back in the library in time and had to suck snakes with a kind of vacuum cleaner.

Upgrading of the characters is possible by assembling weapons. Klaus gets a weapon to destroy enemies, Violet gets a kind of vacuum cleaner to suck the enemies and little Sunny gets a air blower to get higher in the air and avoid obstacles. Later on the game more and more up-grades becomes available to solve the mysterious puzzles. And they are going to need it. The orphans will be transferred to other houses and people as the story moves on. But isn’t it Count Olaf who always shows up? Disguised with good acting skills?

The game play is really easy and in no time you’ll be rushing through the game in a quick tempo. The advantage is that it gives you a good feeling (yeah, I’m really good at this game) but I also began to wonder if this wasn’t a real kiddy game, not worthy for hardcore gamers. About 6 hours I’ve played this game and it was quite amusing but very short. In total there are 17 levels to accomplish. Together with the orphans you’ll explore the villa of Count Olaf, searching for the end in Uncle Monty’s labyrinth and race along Aunt Josephine’s house before you end in the lake of lachrymose. The searching for the items is too easy and the playground to search is very small.

What about the graphics? The intro shows a big book which opens and a storyteller starts to tell the story. As the story moves on, pages will be turned and a drawer draws pictures which goes along with the story to give you an artistic view. It is fascinating to see a new approach of starting a game. This will be repeated after a level has been finished and the animation moves on. Okay, intro and animations between gaming is always better then the game itself and this is also the case here. After the artistic intro you’ll see a very detailed environment and the graphics are..well, there not the best but not bad. Actually I find them acceptable and a good contributing to the game atmosphere.

Talking about atmosphere. As soon as you start the game and playing it, you’ll be impressed about the created atmosphere. Okay, the warnings given are overdone and it isn’t scary at all to play the game but you’ll be trapped by the atmosphere it is breathing. Even if you didn’t know that the author Lemony Snicket was the brain behind it, you’ll get the impression in the game that it contains a good story. Maybe a strange story after all but at least a story. Sound also plays a big part when it comes to atmosphere and it is very good and the perfect contribution. The character voices are spoken by real actors. Oh did I forgot to mention that Lemony Snicket, a series of unfortunate events is also a movie? With actors like Jim Carrey? Correct. Anyway, orchestral melodies are not overdone and will be continued during the game. The action sound effects aren’t spectacular. Would that be because the actions aren’t that spectacular as well? The game may have a superb atmosphere, graphically and audiovisual okay and yes it contains varied assignments but the game play is just too easy and not challenging enough for a hard core gamer.

Review by Wencke
Thumb Bandits European Correspondent & manager of GGU.

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