As a kid, I read all seven of the Chronicles of Narnia books by C.S. Lewis, my favorites being the first volume (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) and the sixth one (The Magician's Nephew), actually a prequel to the series. The former is finally being made into a live-action film, so naturally there's a video game adaptation being release a few weeks early to get the kids primed and ready to drag their parents to the theater over the holidays. Actually, a lot of parents and other adults will probably be going to this movie anyway, because these books hold a special place in our hearts. The game seems aimed squarely at the younger fans, but some design problems and ambiguous objectives are going to leave a lot of kids in frustration.

The game takes the form of a linear, heavily scripted series of missions with a lot of basic combat against the White Witch's hordes. The combat gets tedious at times, but it can also be a lot of fun to smash up a big group of enemies or topple a huge ogre. Each of the four children has a few different attacks and combos, with more to unlock as the game progresses. You can also team up the characters two at a time, and each possible pairing has different abilities. The combat looks a bit ridiculous at first, as little Lucy pummels vicious wolves twice her size, but the kids look more like Lord of the Rings characters by the end of the story, having been equipped with weapons and armor to defeat the forces of evil. In fact, don’t be surprised if some parts of the game remind you of EA's Tolkien adaptations, because the Chronicles of Narnia game follows that blueprint closely in some ways.

One clear distinction is that you almost always have at least two of the siblings under your control (which allows for an on-the-fly two-player option), and can cycle through them at the touch of a button. Actually, you're required to often, because the levels are designed with all kinds of obstacles that can only be cleared by a certain character. The ones you aren't controlling are pretty stupid and will likely just stand there and watch you get beaten up by the enemies. Peter is the strongest, Susan can throw snowballs and shoot arrows, Edmund can climb trees, and Lucy can crawl through small passageways. The character-switching is overdone at times; I prefer their differences in combat. Peter and Edmund are clearly the bruisers, but Susan has the long-range advantage over many enemies, and even Lucy can be useful since she has the odd ability to tame enemies and make them defect for a little while.

Some stages are almost entirely about combat, which would be cool except the game tends to introduce enemies that can only be harmed by triggering scripted events (which you may or may not be able to figure out from the incredibly vague cut-scenes) or by pushing stick bundles into them. The stick bundle thing is mind-boggling, because it's used on nearly every boss in the game, including the final one, and it's just plain annoying. The bundles have to be pushed and rotated into position, which is a slow process as swords clash all around, and trying to aim the rolls across the level is a guessing game. If you miss, you'll have to run away so that the bundle's respawning position is off-camera before you get a fresh set. I would have enjoyed the game's boss battles a lot more if not for this poorly conceived mechanic.

The main problem with the level design, and you've heard me say this about many other games, is that the strictly linear missions want you to complete specific objectives without usually telling you what those objectives are. Sometimes the objectives are "explained" by extremely short cut-scenes that are no help at all. So you're left to run around killing endless enemies, hitting objects in the environment, and running over every single inch of real estate, hoping to trigger some kind of scripted event or get any indication at all of what the game wants you to do to proceed. This half-baked kind of level design kills the game's fluidity and constantly threatens to suck out all the fun. Sometimes it succeeds.

The game does look nice, if a bit drab at times thanks to Narnia's eternal coat of snow. The characters are modeled and animated well, and the environments look fantastic. There are liberal doses of movie clips to help tell the story, and they really give the game a boost, because the film looks great. A few of the clips are clearly missing finalized special effects, so that's a bit awkward, but it's no big deal. The game also includes a good bit of voice acting from all four of the young movie stars, and the music fits extremely well (though the volume seems to fluctuate between menus and gameplay). There is a ton bonus content, mainly consisting of DVD-style video features and time trial versions of the game's levels. The content is unlocked as you increase your completion percentage, which means hunting down collectible doo-dads in each level. I was tempted to keep playing and unlock more cool videos, but just about every level in the game has at least one or two frustrating bits that I'd rather not relive, and I gave up quickly after being reminded of that fact.

The main game is five or six hours long, about what you'd expect from a movie-licensed game these days, and you can keep playing much longer than that if you aren't put off by the problems I've described. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe captures little of the magic of the books, but it is currently the only way you can interact with these characters, so kids looking to "play the movie" can do just that. It offers nice production values but is not a great game in its own right. I suppose there will be plenty of time to improve the formula in the inevitable sequels.