Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The tale is still essentially the same here though it’s told a little differently. You play as Charlie but instead of touring the Wonka factory and getting your sweet jollies you have to help out the other lousy children that get themselves into trouble. In order to do this you have an expendable Oompa Loompa army at your disposal and an unlimited amount of candy to throw.
Gameplay:
Gameplay-wise Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is basically a generic platformer with some severe developmental issues. Charlie’s powers come from his ability to pick up candy and throw it and to control Oompa Loompas to do his bidding. Ordering around the mini slaves is questionable in nature but it’s even worse in execution thanks to unresponsive and abysmal controls. There is some variety to the slave labor you’ll endear yourself to but I’m the type of gamer that I’d rather be doing something myself instead of order a party member to go off and do a task.
There are some moments where you will just control Charlie and you should be prepared for crate lifting, downhill sliding and platform jumping. Again some bad controls make even these mundane chores bothersome especially when you have to repetitively press the button in order to get the appropriate action. Once you add in the factor of a treacherous camera system you’ve got an experience that insults you rather than offers enjoyment. You might want to save that box from your Everlasting Gobstopper as a barf bag, especially once the camera starts darting this way and that.
Sadly the game never gets better and if anything it gets more frustrating. You see Charlie (you) isn’t really given any form of direction about what to do in certain levels. This means that you’ll be wandering around with Oompa Loompa in tow trying to figure out what to do most of the time. Objectives range from collecting a certain amount of an item to opening a door and while they never really get all too complex, not knowing what the goal is half the time can be aggravating.
It’s amazing to me that a game so poorly glued together like this can still be made. There are several glitches and many times characters will become stuck in the environment. This is a blatant attempt at cashing in on the success of the movie and would have benefited from more time in development. Unfortunately it is rushed through and incomplete and in many cases highly intolerable. Go watch the movie and pretend that this game never existed and you’ll be able to sleep better at night.
Graphics:
Only slightly better than the gameplay is the visual aspect of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The game employs some acid induced coloring and lighting that make for some sickly sweet looking environments but overall things are mediocre here at best. There are a few very nice designs for characters and various parts of the game. The only problem is that everything is riddled with jagged edges, choppy animations and low resolution. Add to that a bunch of invisible walls and you’ve got some graphics that are almost as glitchy as the gameplay.
Audio:
Surprisingly enough the audio in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is actually fairly decent. While Johnny Depp doesn’t lend his talent to the game just about every other main character does so in that regard this project feels authentic. The music and sound effects are good enough but it’s strange that none of the Oompa Loompa songs made it into the final product. That’s kind of a staple of Roald Dahl’s classic and only leads to further disappointment here.
Conclusion:
The best way to describe Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is unrelenting mediocrity with a splash of laziness. Everything about this game screams second rate game development from the gameplay on down to the graphics. It is quite evident that there was not a lot of effort put into this project and that it was pushed out to meet a deadline date instead of waiting until it was a finished (or at least passable) product.
I can’t imagine kids even wanting to play this game and it is a weak effort to make money from a popular movie license. When a game is released in the state that this one is in all it does is serve as clutter on the store shelves and bargain bins. In the end this one is a definite skipper and should be avoided at all costs. If by chance you find yourself absolutely positively wanting to play this, at least get the Xbox version for the slightly better graphics and audio options. Skip It