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The Da Vinci Code |
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Written by Ben Mcfadden
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Thursday, 01 June 2006 |
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The Da Vinci Code is one of the fastest selling books of all time. It sold 40 million copies and was quickly made into a movie. Despite the movie receiving mixed reviews it looks set to become a summer blockbuster with its first weekend sales looking very promising.
So how do you make one of the most controversial books of all time into a game that will be enjoyed by millions of gamers ?. The storyline of the film has all the building blocks of a great game. It starts with a murder in the Louvre, you then attempt to solve the murder of the Louvre?s Curator Jacques Sauniere. In doing this Harvard professor Robert Langdon and brilliant French cryptographer Sophie Neveu uncover a 2000-year-old conspiracy by using clues encoded in the paintings of Leonardo Da Vinci. The game play in parts is very tedious and slow. Despite this the game creates Dan Brown?s story very well. The various locations are recreated very well and the game has a good feeling of free roaming in most parts of the game. The only downside of this is when you have to search for a clue it can hold you back from the next section. This can result in going over the section again and again until you find the item you need to advance. You can play as either Harvard Professor Robert Langdon or Sauniere's cryptographer grand-daughter, Sophie Neveu, you make your way around 11 chapters of familiar locations solving cryptic posers as you go. The game does not support any form of multiplayer function so you can only use one character at once. Once you find an object or item the game switches to ? Examination mode ? where you can examine the item in very close detail allowing you too look for clues to help you advance to the next section of the game. If you have never read the book or watched the film some clues are just to hard to solve. You will end up just guessing to try and get the correct answer, and most of the time this works. But when you do end up solving a clue you are treated to a little Da Vinci picture which give you a little bit of satisfaction. Other than the clue solving the game play is sometime stale involving you aimlessly wandering around churches, art galleries and stately homes hoping to stumble across an object of interest. There are some section that involve fighting but the fights seem very stale and somehow don?t always fit in to that section of the game play. The fighting is very structured and involves using various button combinations rather than giving the feeling of being able to fight how you want. As you go through the game you build up a library of knowledge which you can refer back to during the game. This can help to jog your memory on clues further into the game. This is a nice addition to the game and should appeal to fanatics of the book and movie. If you collect various Da Vinci work throughout the game you can unlock secrets such as concept artwork and extra puzzles to solve. These are not needed to complete the game but will appeal to die-hard fans and people who want a bit extra from the game after completion. The various locations are created in amazing detail including such famous locations as the Louvre Museum and Westminster Abbey. The one downside is that the game takes place mostly at night so often the screen is very dark and detail is hard to pick up. Another good point is the music. It fits in very well with each location. Very eerie and sinister music is used to create mood and tension during the better sections of the game. Overall the game creates the story very well, the locations and attention to detail is brilliant in all section of the game. The only drawback is that game play is very inconsistent. There are small section of action then you will have a large section of the game where you just run around trying find an object, this can become very annoying after a while. I think this game will not appeal to seasoned gamers who enjoy action type games. For fanatics of Dan Browns book this game will appeal to them, the story and locations all make the book come alive. The only drawback is the on / off game play. Format - Xbox, GameCube and PlayStation 2 (reviewed), Graphics - 9/10 Sound - 8/10 Game play - 5/10 Overall - 6/10 Ben Mcfadden - Console Central |
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