	Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
	Developer: High Voltage Publisher: Global Star Software Release Date: Out Now Players: One	Words By:
Bill, candy store owner: “All right, all right, all right, what's it going to be? A Triple Cream Cup for Christopher. A Squelchy Snorter for Otis. A Sizzler for June Marie. And listen! Wonka's got a new one today.” Children: “What is it?” Bill, candy store owner: “This is called a Scrumpdiddleumptious Bar”. Thus started the masterpiece of childrens’ cinema that was Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, starring Gene Wilder as the outrageous and possibly insane Willy Wonka, this delightful children’s romp has entertained kids and grown-ups since its first screening in 1971. As is the fashion nowadays in Hollywood – one that Tim Burton seems to cherish – the film of the book has been remade into Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, this time starring the Burton stalwart Johnny Depp. So here we are again with a platformer tie-in to a modern film. Now, I approach these types of game with mild trepidation, often they are dire, twee, buggy, badly thought out, although some – such as the excellent Chronicles of Riddick – buck that trend. Unfortunately, I think that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory falls foul of the same traps that many of these tie-ins do. Let’s visit the story here. If you don’t already know the story of this game, then you are either under ten years old or from somewhere in the vicinity of Alpha Centauri. So, to quickly recap: the tentatively sane loner, Willy Wonka, owns a chocolate factory. Wonka hides five golden tickets in five of his chocolate bars. The golden tickets allow a person to visit the chocolate factory and have a chance of winning a ‘special prize’. Charlie is a poor boy who finds some money in the street, uses it to buy a Wonka bar and miraculously wins a golden ticket. He has a very irritating grandpa. Charlie and grandpa visit the factory along with the other winners who are stereotypical brats. Adventures ensue. So that’s the story. The game joins Charlie as he finds a ten dollar note, and you will control Charlie as he runs after it. Once this note is caught, you enter the game proper. Here you are treated to a jarringly colourful mixture of poor controls, vague directions and frustrating gameplay. In the game proper, Charlie can run about and collect candy for either health (great message to send to kids regarding their weight and teeth!) or as ammo. Different levels in the game have different ammo available, and you can use one that is most appropriate. In addition, you have the help of Oompa-Loompas. These diminutive folk are at your beck and call and, once you have found them, you can use a rudimentary orders system to tell them to either follow you, wait or work (which is context-sensitive). This system works reasonably well, but it’s pretty shallow. The main problems with the gameplay are threefold. First there’s the awful camera positioning. You can reposition it, but it moves so slowly that Charlie may have grown a beard by the time you can see what’s going on. Secondly, collision detection is laughable at best. And thirdly, I often had no duck strangling idea what I was supposed to be aiming to do. Or rather, I knew exactly what I had to do (for example, block some vents with jelly bean ammo) but I had no idea where or what these so-called vents were. In the end it often took an intuitive leap and a bit of trial and error to work out what was going on. Visually, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a very bright affair, and seems to mirror the style of the film reasonably well. On a properly calibrated telly, the colours are lush and bright, but if the brightness or contrast is whacked up too far (as it is usually in the default settings), the colours start to saturate your brain and it can be difficult to distinguish objects of a similar colour. Cut-scenes are either rendered in-engine, or played out in a series of static screens. I actually preferred this style to the fully rendered type. Sonically, the in-game sounds are cutesy and twee, but the voice work in the game was refreshingly good, with the actors doing a reasonable job of keeping the flowery dialogue running along. In all, this is rather what I would expect from this kind of movie tie-in. I’d find something else to play and go watch both films and read the book, plus its sequel. Much more entertaining.

Best Bits
- Voice work.
- Some cutscenes.
- Um… it’s cheerful and upbeat.

Worst Bits
- Gameplay problems.
- The vague goals don’t suit a kid's game.
- Camera.
- Visuals.


by: Scratchy