March of the Penguins (Nintendo DS) - Review by Chris

Introduction

Games based around documentaries are quickly becoming the rage with smaller developers. We're beginning to see more and more of them as they allow these developers to get a foot on the ladder for games development. There have been few games however that mix both penguins from an award winning documentary with Lemmings style puzzle yet developer Skyworks has done just that, having developed a game based loosely around Luc Jacquet's Academy Award winning film March of the Penguins, with the game sharing the same name. But with the source material being hugely successful critically, does this have what it takes to survive the frozen wastelands or will it leave you feeling cold?

Gameplay

March of the Penguins is a title that can be tucked under the label of the 'edutainment' genre of games. Taking the basics of what the documentary was about, the game aims to provide some fun puzzles while educating the demographic, in this case young gamers, about the life of the emperor penguins of the Antarctic. And yet, while the game succeeds in trying to provide educational information about these animals, the source material that is the documentary does not provide adequate material from which a game can be made. As such, those who have watched the documentary will be baffled by what the game has to offer in the gameplay department and much of what is here will be lost on kids for various reasons.

Playing out more like a lesser version of Lemmings, the majority of the game will have you trying to create a suitable pathway through a level to help a select number of penguins complete their migration. To do so, you'll have to make use of various items available to you at the touch of the bottom screen, with these including ice ramps and stairs, tents which the penguins can bounce on and fire which can be used to melt certain obstacles to progress through the level. You'll need to make use of a combination of these to safely transfer all of the necessary penguins to the goal. But even if you don't manage to create the necessary path and the penguins fall off of the ice, the penguins rejoin the game at the start. Yet this is only the beginning of the challenge, with challenge being the right word due to the difficulty of some of the puzzles which make them completely unsuitable for the young audience the game is aimed at.

As well as shepherding the penguins safely to their goal, you'll also have to collect a certain amount of snowflake icons in the levels to progress but due to the placement of these, there is another level of added difficulty which makes gaining these at times very difficult. Alternate level types, such as guiding a penguin to find a mate or guiding a penguin clutching an egg through a maze, do little to add any decent amount of variety or any level of enjoyment to the game; rather elongating the process in many cases beyond the length they should be. Should you perceiver through the tedium of what is on offer, there is nothing else to do giving the game no replay value.

Controls

Bar some minor use of the d-pad to move the camera, the entire game is controlled by way of the touch screen, although you can move through the menus with the d-pad and the A button. The game is relatively simple to control but the touch screen controls haven't been implemented well enough to the point that they are often unresponsive and require multiple touches to even get the game to recognise what it is you are trying to do. Similarly, the controls are often hampered by icon placement on the touch screen, with these being too close together and too small making specific selection more difficult than it should be.

Graphics

Having been released on the Gameboy Advance alongside this version, there is very little difference between the two games. Arguably, both look exactly the same which isn't a good thing given the increase in hardware power available with the DS. The levels are presented in 2D, along with all of the character art, and it looks dated to say the least with an abundance of white and blue being used to colour just about everything you'll see. All of the levels and the character models are extremely small making management of the puzzles during the levels difficult and the menu interface during the stages is similarly small making it hard to pick out what you need.

It's clear the game had all the visuals carried over from the Gameboy version in the hope of quickly rushing the game onto store shelves but unfortunately, it ultimately works against the game. The only instance where the game has had some new input visually is for use on the top screen where an overview of the level is present in most of the stages but strangely obscured by a binocular effect to simulate the idea that a biologist is watching the penguins. Even with this slight addition, the game isn't a very good looking one, being passable at best.

Sound

Audio is not one of the game's strong points, with the game having a focus on providing some simplistic background music to do little more than create a slight piece of atmosphere. It is simplistic but it manages to be enjoyable while the rest of the game isn't which is a feat in itself. There is, however, a lot of repetition of the audio and as such, it will begin to grate the longer you play.

Dual screen

The game makes very little good use of the dual screens. Although gameplay takes place on the touch screen, with the game being controlled largely through this, the top screen is wasted with an image of the level you playing through obscured by a binocular effect. It's not in the least bit helpful considering you can see everything anyway on the touch screen.

Final comments

The documentary hardly brought enough content which would make a suitable or enjoyable game yet somehow, developer Skyworks felt it could and should be done. Unfortunately, the result is a game which isn't suitable for the demographic it is aimed at, due to being too complex. Similarly, the game's content is drawn out to unnecessary levels meaning that even those who enjoyed the documentary will grow tired of it long before the end. March of the Penguins on the DS doesn't work as a game and in the end, it's something which should be avoided at all costs.

Pro: Puzzles can be a nice challenge...
Con: ...But for the most part they are tedious, presentation is awful, controls are unresponsive
Final score: 2.5

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