Sega Nerds

Review: The Golden Compass (Wii)

by Graham on December 26th, 2007

 

Well I’m sure you have all read Chris’ wonderful review about the Xbox 360 version of Sega’s latest licensed game. Chris’ opinion of the game was not too good, giving it a, below average, 4/10 score.

But what about the other versions of the game? Could Shiny Entertainment manage to pull off a mini masterpiece with the Wii version of the game? Could Shiny use the Wii’s motion sensors to the game’s advantage?

These questions and many more I deem to answer in this review.

First off I feel that I should explain that I am quite a fan of “His Dark Materials,” the trilogy of books from which the movie and game come from. I read the books a good few years ago now; long before the movie or game were ever announced.

Because of this, my take on the game may be slightly different to that of Chris’ opinion, as I knew what to expect from the story in the game, something I shall speak more of later.

Chris pretty much explained the story behind the game, already, so no need to go into detail about what is happening. I will be referencing Chris’ review a fair bit, so should you need to, I suggest you read that first.

Well enough of the introduction, let’s get down to business.

The Wii version is essentially the same as the Xbox 360, PC and PS2 versions of the game, but it does have a few added features, namely the use of the Wiimote.

However, Shiny decided that gamers do not need to use the Wiimote features for most things, and it is just an option. An example being that when you fight with Iorek, you can either waggle the Wiimote around to attack, or you can just keep tapping A instead. You don’t even need to change any options, you just use either one.

However there are moments when you can only use the Wiimote, like for Pan’s ermine intuition. Also there are segments when Lyra walks along narrow ledges, beams, and you have to balance. As you might have guessed, to balance, one needs to twist the Wiimote to counter Lyra’s body weight.

One thing that gets me about this is how strange it is, to incorporate areas where you need to use the Wiimote, and then negate other areas, which would have been better for using the motion controls, and instead gamers have to use the analogue stick.

Some of the game play issues Chris brought up in his review did not appear for me on the Wii version. Either the games play slightly differently, or one of us just couldn’t play very well (coughChriscough) ;).

Chris mentions that Iorek could not turn very quickly, when he needed to, and would keep moving for a second or two before registering the direction change. I did not find this at all. If I had to make Iorek change direction suddenly, he would. However he has a charging attack, where you run and hit attack, he will skid into enemies, which takes a second or two to recover from, (which makes me wonder if Chris kept accidently pressing attack while running…).

Also, during Iorek’s levels, when he comes to a gap in a path, you have to hit an action button, to make him jump. You are prompted on screen when to do so, so you know if you are going in the right direction.

Chris said at these points he/the game screwed up, and he would fall to his death on several occasions. I never (read: never) had this problem. At every one of these jump points, Iorek jumped and made it safely across. So it could be possible that Shiny rectified these problems for the Wii version, though I wouldn’t be certain of that.

Other than these couple of issues, the Wii version seems to play just as the Xbox 360 game does.

Overall the game play, for me, was not bad. Just it wasn’t very good either. I don’t know how to explain it better than that.
There are moments of play where the game feels very old and generic, and other moments feel a little fresher. Like Lyra’s platform sections. As Chris said, this was one of the better segments of the game.

I found these moments pretty interesting, and enjoyable. The only problem is that these sections are short lived. The game will mainly have you wandering around locations, talking to people, solving very small puzzles, which let’s face it, is not very interesting, as the puzzles and conversations are pretty uninteresting.

Chris also mentions how Lyra lies to everyone, and you will have mini-games within certain conversations. Should you succeed at the mini-game you will successfully lie. Fail and the person will see through you, and sometimes you get into trouble, (naughty girl).

One thing I should mention here is that Lyra’s main talent from the books is her ability to lie. She uses this gift (if you want to call it that) often throughout the trilogy, to help get her out of tricky situations. Also, without giving too much away, it serves a fairly important lesson for her in a later book.

So I am glad they incorporated this into the game, as it is one of Lyra’s main character features/flaws. The mini-games themselves are kind of fun, though very simple. However, I found these simple mini-games to be surprisingly challenging at times.

Yes I suck it seems, but the basic mini games were the one thing that held me back in the game. They aren’t impossible, but I did have to redo some of them several times.

Alethiometer time.

One other thing Chris went into detail about was the Golden Compass itself. However it’s not actually a compass at all, which Chris also mentions.
Using the Alethiometer and finding the symbols is another fun part of the game. I too enjoyed solving the questions you ask the device, and also searching for the meaning of the symbols.

But once again Shiny missed a trick with this. The Wiimote sensors would have been a fun, innovative way of using the Alethiometer. As it stands Shiny decided that it would be best to use the analogue stick, which works fine. But it just seems lazy that Shiny didn’t bother to use the Wii’s main features enough in the game.

Graphical disadvantage?

Of course one thing the Wii would never be able to do over the Xbox 360 version of the game, is better the visuals.

Chris went into some detail about how poor the 360 visuals are… well they don’t get any better with the Wii. They get much worse.

Chris mentions how the animals have some tufts of fur on their bodies, which looks crap. Well those tufts of fur are almost a luxury compared to the Wii’s bland, completely flat, smooth bodied creatures.

To give an idea of what the game looks like on the Wii, I would compare it to some of the Dreamcast’s, early and worst looking games. Actually scrap that. I would say that the visuals resemble that of the N64. While the polygons are smooth enough (no major jaggies or glitches), they are of a very low quality and just don’t look good, even for the Wii.

So about that story?

Another key point Chris brings up, is the story telling. Overall the trilogy of books has a very interesting and original story. But like Chris says, the game does the story no favours at all.

I managed to keep up with the story, but only because I have read the books. Even knowing the story, I, at times, still found myself saying “What the f*&k?!”The game would suddenly jump around from location to location, missing out some very key moments from the story. Like how and why Lyra became Mrs. Coultiers assistant. And also why exactly she decided to leave.

They also do not emphasise to importance of Daemons enough. Part of the story is about how an organisation is cutting Daemons away from children. But they do not show just how important the Daemons are, and why cutting them away is so bad. This is annoying to anyone who has read the book, as it is a big deal, and skimming over it takes away some essence from the world that Phillip Pullman created.

Also they seemed to change and add to the story slightly. I could be wrong, but one example that springs to mind, is when you are fighting the Witches.

In the book I do not remember any of the good guys fighting with the witches. They speak of other clans, but I can only remember the book featuring the good witches.

Chris mentions the use of both in game cut scenes and using FMV taken from the movie, to help explain the story. While Chris highlights this as a bad thing, I liked it.

The FMV helped to tell the story much better than any game cut scene would, and worked well.

I like this song, it has a groovy beat.

Another topic I agree with Chris on is the musical score.

Simply put, the music is beautiful. I would even go to compare it to Mario Galaxies’ wonderful score. It really sets the mood for the game, and makes it enjoyable to play at times.

While the game has so many flaws the music is pretty much perfect.

The general sound effects are pretty generic and boring, but do the trick. Chris complained about the voice acting, but I found it to be one of the better things. The acting is pretty spot on, and well done, especially in the cut scenes.
Missing a trick or two?

Not only did Shiny drop the ball as far as motion controls go, which would have been a boon to the game.

I feel they dropped the ball as far as the actual game idea goes. They have made an Action/adventure title here.

The game would have been better suited to a puzzle game. Or perhaps a RPG, or even a Point and Click adventure.

Now those kinds of games may not have appealed to the mass audience, especially the Point and Click. But what would any real gamer prefer to see? A shoddy, boring action title. Or a very well made Point and Click game?

The reason for me saying this is that there is not too much action in the books – it has some moments, but it is not the essence of the trilogy. But there is plenty of mystery, and puzzle solving to be found.

Summary:

Well the game doesn’t sound much better than the Xbox 360 game huh?

To be honest it probably isn’t. One good thing, every Sega Nerd should remember, is that while Sega has a credit on the box, they did not develop the game. So people cannot complain that Sega make bad games… they just support them.

However, one key thing that I should point out is that this game is not really designed for gamers of my age.  I have to admit though; I did find some segments of the game fun. And as a fan of the series I was encouraged to play on, just to see how they would progress the story.

The game is a child’s game. With the basic mini games and game play, it is too boring for older gamers. But I feel that should you give the game to a 5-10 year old, they might find the game a much more enjoyable experience.

It’s not brilliant, even for a kids game, but I think it would be fun for them.  That may sound a little stupid for me to say, but there are plenty of games around that adults would find rubbish, yet have sold fairly well, due to having a large audience of young gamers… Barbie games would be an example.

This is why I think the game deserves two scores.

Experienced Gamers: 5/10 - Average.

Young/Inexperienced Gamers: 6/10 - Good

[Images shamelessly stolen from GameSpot]

~G~

Tags: Golden Compass

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