The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian

by Ashley Coomer - 2008/04/02 10:48am

Movie tie-ins, by and large, suck. Whether you want to disagree with that or face the reality is neither here nor there, because we think they suck and that’s good enough for us. There is the odd occasion when movie tie-ins don’t go the way of the dodo, of course – we won’t refrain from saying the Harry Potter titles have served us well, and another movie game that wasn’t rubbish in our opinion is The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe. With that said we look at the sequel The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian with a hint of optimism.

“The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian is an epic adventure that provides memorable experiences as it takes players throughout the familiar areas of Narnia fron the second film. Fans of the films and books will relive the excitement, the battles and the memorable characters while going beyond the events of the film” said Craig Relyea, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing at Disney Interactive Studios. It’s never going to be Earth-shattering, but at the very least Prince Caspian could turn out to be worth of some of your time. The original game’s battles were rather fun to take part in, with the exploring and collecting elements also far from a mess. We’re not sure about the game providing memorable experiences as such (that might be saying a bit much) but what do you expect from someone trying to sell the game?

Prince Caspian is based on the second book in the series, of the same title, where the Pevensie children are taken to Narnia once more where a ‘thrilling, perilous new adventure and an even greater test of their faith and courage awaits them’. We’re told the game contains a level not included in the book or movie, and in this level – set between the events of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe and Prince Caspian – taking place at the castle of Cair Paravel, the children are told how Narnia was taken over by Telmarine hordes. By this time, Cair Paravel is depicted as abandoned ruins. So now you know.

Let’s face it, when you’ve completed the game there’ll be little more to do that watch the content you’ve unlocked through performing certain tasks and collecting certain items, but once more co-operative play has been included and yes, it’s drop in/drop out like before. The first Narnia was a lot more fun when playing with a friend, and we don’t expect things to be different here.

As far as graphics go, we’re disappointed, for the lack of a more descriptive term. It looks like a PS2 game – it is being released on said console after all – but with the power of the PS3 we expect more. A game of Narnia’s type should have tons of enemies and actually look good. Sadly not, it would appear.

There’s nothing genre-defining on show in Prince Caspian then, but it’s a movie tie-in so to expect such things to happen as a direct result of its release would be stupid. We don’t like to judge a book by its cover (pun not intended) but we think we’ll give this one a miss all the same.