Journey to the Center of the Earth (Nintendo DS) - Review by Andrew

Introduction

It appears to have been the year for the old Saturday morning serial type of big screen outings and this, together with Indiana Jones and the latest Mummy offering (which also stars Brendan Fraser), is proof that the public still enjoy a traditional action romp. Journey to the Centre of the Earth is by no means original though and is instead from the great pen of Jules Verne whose around the World in 80 Days and 2,000 Leagues Under the Sea have both received countless remakes. One thing which does concern us about the game though is the sheer lack of information we could gather before its release and rather than receiving the usual fanfare, it's more or less snuck out under everyone's radar or are we simply being a little too paranoid? Let's see shall we...

Gameplay

During your journey you can play one of three different characters: Trevor, Hannah or Sean all of whom bring a variety of skills to the mission. Trevor, for example, is an explosives expert whilst Hannah is good with ropes. Sean is probably the best all rounder though with his ability to climb walls and mine for minerals. The game itself is all about exploration with the ultimate aim on each level being to uncover five Runes in order to gain access to a deeper chamber. These can be tricky to locate and are generally in the very corners of the game map. Fortunately uncovering another gem makes all the Runes appear on the handy map. I say handy but to be honest it is rather difficult to follow and it's not always obvious which direction you should be heading in. There are no real puzzles as such and as soon as you arrive at a dead end you'll generally see 'on-screen' text telling you just what to do and more important what character to use.

In addition to walking around you'll also get some action sequences, which generally link various chambers. The majority of these involve you simply falling or 'surfing' whilst using the touch-screen as a controller but the game's savior is the mine cart chase. This works on a similar principle to the other games but isn't over until you have all members of your team in one cart whilst avoiding the various obstacles and dead ends. At the same time you are attempting to stay upright on the tracks whilst your cart appears to be gaining speed. It's this illusion that you are out of control that makes this section so exciting and had the developers managed to in some way capture this for the rest of the game they would have been on to a real winner. There's a little sailing and running from the odd dinosaur to be dealt with too but these are not nearly as much fun as tearing around the rails in a rickety old cart.

There's little in the way of replay value although in the absence of a Multiplayer the developers have added a rather confusing and un-entertaining mini-game. You could always extend the game by finding all the missing objects and artifacts but to be honest once you've played this once you are unlikely to pick it up again.

Controls

As with the majority of games pretty, standard stuff although some of the rope jumps can be tricky due to the fixed camera angle.

Graphics

The visuals here are average at best and the front-end interface could use a little cosmetic work. The animation is not the best we've encountered on the DS recently either with some characters moving in a very unrealistic manor. Elsewhere the developers have to be congratulated for attempting to produce the whole intro with the in-game artwork. This actually works reasonably well and the main male character does look somewhat like Brendan Fraser, which is a plus as there's little other reference made to the movie.

Sound

While the soundtrack really wants to be something special the outcome is far from it and the average gamer could come up with something far superior. The sound effects follow suit and the most you are likely to hear from the three main players is their rather unthreatening screams as they fall off yet another cliff.

Dual screen

To be fair the developers have attempted to use the touch screen in a number of different ways and during the main game you'll have use it to dig for precious stones and artifacts, set explosives and climb walls. None of these are particularly interesting and they do tend to slow down the gameplay after the ninth or tenth time you've done exactly the same thing. The touch screen is also used as a controller on one of the many 'traveling' sections such as falling down shafts, 'surfing' though holes and the entertaining mine cart chase.

Final comments

You would imagine that given that the majority of games released for the DS system are movie or TV tie-ins that a much higher percentage would be at least good but unfortunately this latest offering from THQ provides further evidence as to why they have attained such a poor reputation. It's by no means as bad as some other similar titles but the tiresome and repetitive gameplay does grind you down and rather than approaching anything like fun you'll start to see the whole thing a bit of a chore. A definite try before you buy title but if it's action you are looking for your probably better off with the superior Lego Indiana Jones.

Pro: Varied Gameplay and the Mine Cart Chase
Con: Terrible Music and Far too much back tracking.
Final score: 5.1

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