Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (PS2) (7+)

Herald rating: * *

What could be more fun than a video game about a kid in a candy factory? Well, a lot of things if the kid is Charlie and he's stuck in the virtual Wonka works depicted in this game.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the most disappointing game of the year. I wonder what went wrong?

The people who made it had everything they needed - a good story, fantastic characters and a good setting for video gaming.

What we get is a fairly boring, rigidly linear role-player that looks horrible and is frustrating to play.

Things start out promisingly enough in the snow-covered streets outside Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, where young Charlie chases a $10 bill fluttering on the wind. He finally catches it and uses it to buy a Wonka chocolate bar, which happens to have one of the rare golden tickets that will let Charlie and four other kids through the gates of Wonka's factory.

By the time you get inside, you, like the five lucky kids, are full of anticipation of the journey ahead. Then the game really starts and boots you in to the first of many inane treasure hunts.

The scenery of Wonka's chocolate factory is mainly in shades of gaudy pink, green and purple, which may look good in the film world, but are a turn-off in the game. I was hoping Charlie might look like he did in the wonderful artwork that accompanied many of Roald Dahl's books.

But no, this game is based on the movie of the movie of the book and much has been lost in translation.

With much prodding from Grandpa Joe and an insipid sounding Willy Wonka (not Johnny Depp), you set about gathering candy and trying to free the mountainous Augustus Gloop from a chocolate pipe.

To do so you recruit the Oompa-Loompas, those resourceful, singing dwarfs who made the 1971 movie so much fun. Unfortunately the Oompa-Loompas are more trouble than they're worth in the game. They get stuck behind objects and are unresponsive when you ask them to fetch bits of candy.

Controlling them might be easier if the gameplay was coherent. But the controls don't always do what you intend and you have to compete with camera angles that swirl around you, cutting off your view.

An ugly, cluttered information panel tells you how much energy you have, but will mean very little to a 7-year-old.

There are a few bright spots. Characters such as Veruca Salt and Violet Beauregarde are fairly funny, and so are the ways they fall victim to the factory and temptation. The musical score goes well with the game.

But in Charlie I was hoping for something like last year's Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events, a game from a movie that presented kids with challenging puzzles and an intriguing story, but had a dark edge that adults picked up on.

There's more sadness and irony within the walls of Wonka's factory than in most children's stories. But this game buries all of that in sugar as you plod along from one chapter to the next.

Before long you'll want to drown your band of Oompa-Loompas in a vat of chocolate.

$50