Imagine a
delicious world filled with chocolaty treats. It’s a world where every
location is an organic, living, breathing environment that grows candy as if
it were a fruit or a vegetable. "Junk food doesn’t grow on trees," they say.
But in this world all that you know has been replaced by all that you dream.
If you could visit this world, pick gumballs off trees and scoop fresh candy
off the ground, Willy knows you’d never want to leave. It is his factory,
after all. Willy Wonka’s factory. And today he’s going to let you come inside
for a visit, Golden Ticket in hand or not!
From the
perspective of storytelling, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is pretty
faithful to the movie. Years have passed since anyone has been seen going in
or out of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. It appears that trucks enter and
exit to pick up candy shipments, though that’s never proven.
One day, for
reasons you’ll learn during the course of the film, Willy Wonka decides to
give a few kids the chance of a lifetime. Purchase a Willy Wonka chocolate
bar, enjoy the smooth texture and the rich milk chocolate taste, and you could
win one of five Golden Tickets. When all but one of the tickets have been
found, Charlie nearly gives up hope. He’s one of the poorest children in the
neighborhood. He can’t afford a chocolate bar. Or can he?
Against all
odds, a ten dollar bill blows in Charlie’s direction! He runs after it,
climbing over trucks and boxes to chase after it. Finally he grabs the bill
and cashes it in for candy. Just as unlikely as it was for the ten dollar bill
to appear, when he opens the chocolate bar he’s in total disbelief: it’s the
last Golden Ticket!
From here
Charlie enters the factory, which is where the first level begins. You do get
a chance to control Charlie during his chase for the runaway bill, but it’s
more of a mini-game than an actual level.
The rest of
Charlie’s journey is not unlike the one Willy Wonka fans are used to, except
this time it’s set in an interactive world. Gameplay objectives had to be
based on the movie and fit into the story, leaving the developers with few
options to express their creativity. I’m sure you already know what I’m going
to say next: a game that lacks creativity is barely a game.
That’s
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s biggest problem. In case you couldn’t tell
from the goofy box art, this game’s appeal is not as broad as the novel or the
movie. The target market is kids. Young kids (five or six) who have never
played through a Sonic or Mario game before. I say this because Charlie and
the Chocolate Factory is an action/adventure, minus the action or the
adventuring. There’s jumping, platform hopping, item collecting, and candy
throwing. But there aren’t any moments where you get to take on a task and
complete it.
Almost every
level is a repeat of the previous one. Environments are small and linear. The
entire quest consists of finding Oompa-Loompas, who will follow you around
until you tell them to go work on something. Their primary purpose is to fix
machines, which they do automatically every time you press up on the
directional pad. Charlie himself can throw candy at trees and other objects to
release additional candy pieces. These pieces may be as common as a health
replenish item, yet in some cases they are all you need to collect to pass a
level. Additional items may be snatched, and even though many of them are easy
to get to, your time would be better served elsewhere than being wasted on a
virtual candy collection.
Candy
power-ups let Charlie float, or turn robots into green clog balls, among other
things. The balls can be thrown into pipes that are leaking what appears to be
a toxic material. This is nothing new in the puzzle world, but the awkward,
unreliable controls feel very foreign. Charlie and his ball must be completely
still before it can be picked up. That’s pretty crazy, considering this is a
game for kids, and what do kids love to do? Run around. Wouldn’t it have been
great if they could have ran as much as they pleased, grabbed all the balls
they could carry, and throw them without having to stop? If it could be done
on the PSone it can certainly be done here.
Charlie and
the Chocolate Factory’s one redeeming feature comes from an unexpected place:
its soundtrack. I spoke with the game’s composer, Winifred Phillips, shortly
before playing the game, and everything she said sounded incredible. It almost
sounded too good to be true – can you think of any movie-based games that have
a soundtrack that can compare to the film? A soundtrack that can stand on its
own?
It may be
the first time in the history of games, but Winifred has done it. Her dreamy,
hypnotic themes will fill your ears with visions of sugar plums dancing in
your head. There’s a certain amount of peacefulness in the music. It’s got a
classic sound that’s only found in old movies and musicals; a relaxing style
that’s comparable to bigger and better games, and should have been featured in
something equally as entertaining as the magic that pours out of the speakers.
Like a
colorful, sweet-smelling treat that tastes ultra-sour, Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory leaves a lot to be desired. It’s a kids’ game, but who’s to
say that kids will enjoy a repetitious journey where nothing ever seems to
happen? There’s more eventfulness in the story – that’s not something you can
say about most games.
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Gameplay: 4.0
Nothing to it.
You don’t get to fight larges bosses, solve mind-boggling puzzles, or search
for hard-to-find items that have a purpose. You don’t get to do any of the
things that make an action/adventure game an action/adventure game. Your sole
purpose for playing is to more or less relive the experience of the movie,
only this time you’re forced to complete boring objectives that were not a
part of the original story.
Graphics: 6.0
Willy Wonka’s
world is appetizing, though not as delish as the eye candy presented in the
film. The environments are bright, colorful and mimic film’s worlds well. They
don’t, however, have the best animation, the most realistic character designs,
or an accurate polygon depiction of Willy Wonka.
Sound: 9.0
Spellbinding
music from God of War composer Winifred Phillips. Her choral creations are as
complex as they are entertaining. Players of all ages will be delighted by its
deep yet whimsical presentation, filling ears with soothing sounds not
commonly heard in movie-based games. Expertly written, brilliantly composed.
Difficulty: Easy
Did I say easy? I
meant SUPER easy.
Concept: 3.0
What a waste of a
good license. Zero original ideas demonstrated. Zero original content. Zero
anything! It’s barely a game. Only the youngest, most devoted Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory fans will get something out of it. But at some point in
their life even they will get bored.
Overall: 5.0
Charlie and the
Boring Factory. It’s hard to make a fun game based around these kinds of
properties, but that doesn’t justify bad gameplay, or a lack thereof.
