Coraline (Nintendo DS) - Review by Andrew

Introduction

Animator Henry Selick has been delighting audiences for years now teaming up with some of the most creative minds in the entertainment industry to bring some truly original films to the big screen. There's been 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' with Tim Burton, Roald Dahl's 'James and the Giant Peach' and this year: 'Coraline'. Based on a Neil Gaiman best selling graphic novel, the story centers around a young girl who has just moved with here family to a new and curiously strange house. The film is currently getting some incredible reviews, but what's the game like.

Gameplay

Without spoiling any of the excellent story or revealing any of the more important plot details, let's just say Coraline is an adventure with a handful of mini-games and a serious amount of exploration. Your main 'hub' is the house you have just moved into after relocating from Michigan. As expected there are boxes everywhere and both parents are busy sorting out the finer details of their new home. This leaves Coraline (who you control throughout the game) time to wander around the house and its grounds. There's plenty to explore too, as well as some bizarre characters to interact with. Eventually you'll discover a small hidden door and it's here the adventure takes a completely different direction.

Woven into the adventure are a handful of mini-games although mysteriously these can only be played within the main game and don't appear at the main menu even once you've unlocked them. These are all pretty standard fare though and you'll be challenged to a Bug Smashing game and a music-based one. The problem is that everything feels random so rather than delivering constant challenges the game instead allows you to wander around aimlessly until you trigger a happening of some description. This means a great deal of back tracking and had the game been more straightforward it would have been a much shorter experience.

Controls

While Coraline and some of the mini-games can be controlled with the d-pad and buttons we'd recommend you go down the stylus route. It's much easier.

Graphics

Refreshingly, the initial batch of screenshots does actually do the game justice, as the backgrounds and animation are stunning. There's also a lot of material lifted from the film itself used to push the story along as well as some minor scenes. The developers were clearly aware that this was one of their strong points so every screen has been skillfully crafted, demonstrating just what can be achieved on the DS, with the game area occasionally zooming in for a more detailed and immersive experience.

Sound

As usual with movie tie-in games, while you do get the original soundtrack, it does tend to repeat a little too much. Elsewhere the sound effects are excellent but there's no voice acting at all.

Dual screen

You'll quickly discover that Coraline is incredibly easy to control with a simple tap of the touch-screen. Simply decide where you want to go and she'll follow your commands, occasionally stopping to collect buttons or other useful objects. Even more impressively the developers have managed to implement a system that allows freedom of movement, meaning you'll never get stuck behind an object because of poor collision detection. The mini-games are just as intuitive although the 'mouse band' can be a little challenging.

Final comments

Coraline should have been an instant hit. It looks wonderful, sounds great and features the same quality animation that made the movie such a hit. Unfortunately the gameplay is severely lacking and the exploration section of the game simply forces you to wander around trying just about everything before you can progress. The mini-games don't do much to improve the experience and although they're average at best, there's no facility to replay them once you completed the game. In fact, after the initial play through, there's little reason to go back to this game unlike the movie, which you'll want to see again and again.

Pro: Very High Production Values, Nice Control System, Great Story.
Con: Aimless Gameplay, Poor Mini Games
Final score: 6.5

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