The quality of movie games is somewhat of an anomaly. Some make good use of the license at hand. Others extrapolate the license’s elements that would be most beneficial to a video game and take the rest in a whole other direction. The majority, however, are anything but a summer blockbuster. Most have trouble functioning as games, almost as if they have no compass to guide them.

The Golden Compass, based on one of this fall’s most anticipated The Lord of the Rings clones, is an action game that’s well aware of its incomparable challenge in achieving a film-worthy experience. It doesn’t try to be something it’s not. Forget the open-world nonsense so many games fail at. Forget the ridiculous missions that try to imitate a movie scenario no one wants to revisit. From the game’s point of view, The Golden Compass is about a bear, a girl and her animals*. And that’s exactly who you’ll play as throughout this journey.

*Isn’t there a children’s book with that theme?

Quiet on the Set

Iorek, the fierce, oversized bear hero of this saga, is an unbearable menace to his weakling enemies. His action-based gameplay made him the key character in launching this adventure. Before taking on a single puzzle, you’ll bash wolves and other creatures with the famed warrior. Push the X button to claw any nearby threat; push it again to start a brief combo. Press the X button while moving and he’ll perform a run attack – the perfect way to drop in and say, “Hello, nice to eat you.”

Additional wolves will make their presence known as soon as the first three or four have been taken out. Iorek isn’t worried about getting full though: the weather is plenty cold enough to preserve anything that won’t currently fit inside his enormous belly.

Although Lyra is second in the game’s introduction, she is actually considered to be the main character. Her hands aren’t nearly as deadly as Iorek, so you won’t be fighting much when controlling her. In fact, she chooses to run from danger at every turn. Her goal is to sneak around each stage, grab whatever items she needs, and throw objects to distract those who need to be distracted.

Lyra likes to climb, but ledges aren’t her friend. Neither are the tightrope-like areas that she’ll have to cross. You’ll have to push the analog stick forward while maintaining its centered position to get past those. A diagram pops up to show how far you’re leaning to either side; lean too much and Lyra won’t be able to continue moving. She’ll just stand there like an umbrella hanging from a clothesline, able to shield those below her from rain or UV rays. But like the umbrella, forever lifeless as an inanimate object, this position renders her incapable of accomplishing anything else.

 
“Look ma, no hands! Am I the coolest umbrella in town or what!?”

Since Lyra is unable to attack, her specialties involve two different kinds of manipulation. The first revolves around her spiritual manifestations, AKA the daemons she holds within her soul. They take the shape of four different animals – Ermine, Sloth, Hawk, and Wildcat – that aid in her in the game.

Use the Sloth to swing around a pole, just as Lara Croft would do with her bare hands. Hawk is the feathery friend that lets you swoop down from high places. Wildcat, though likely capable of defending himself in a dangerous situation, does not manifest to fight. Instead, he gives Lyra the ability to evade an enemy’s attack. Ermine is the last and most unusual of the bunch, bringing a special power that differs from what you’d find in the animal kingdom: insight. This ability lets you examine areas to solve puzzles, find objects, and perform scenario-specific actions.

Lyra’s other specialty is speech manipulation. While chatting up the locals, she can speak cleverly and get them to do whatever she wants (Obi-Wan Kenobi would call this a Jedi mind trick). But if she fails, she’ll fumble her words and sound like a buffoon. To ensure that doesn’t happen, perform well in the forthcoming speech mini-game.

“Does this mean the game uses the Logitech microphone to—”

Nope, sorry gamers. These mini-games are the common type: time response this, button mash that. Whack one enemy (in a 2D Space Invaders knock-off) but avoid another, and so on. You can use special conversational items (retrieved after thoroughly exploring each area) to increase your chances of success. They’ll make the mini-games less difficult by extending the time limit, by slowing the pieces, or by providing some other enhancement.

The Cutting Room Floor

This is quite the game with three distinctly different styles of gameplay. And, unfortunately, three distinct styles of boredom. The Golden Compass does follow the movie game mantra of “what you see is what you get.” But it also includes the element of repetition (The Iorek levels are full of sluggish, brawler-style button-mashing) and frustration (the mini-games are a tiring chore, Lyra’s controls are choppy at best, the manifestations are poorly utilized, etc.). It’s one large cycle of this review’s content, with lousy story sequences intermingled that were likely added to build our excitement in between stages. But they don’t. The voice acting is garbage, and the dialogue is terribly horrific – the frightening kind that makes earplugs a worthwhile investment.

Gameplay: 3.2
Nowhere near “golden” status, The Golden Compass is a boring, run-of-the-mill action game with odd puzzles, dull mini-games, and a hefty dose of repetitive button-mashing.

Graphics: 3.0
Lackluster. The Golden Compass uses generic textures, bland level designs, aggravating camera work, and a frame rate that’s nowhere near the level Xbox 360 games should produce.

Sound: 4.0
Voice acting gone horribly wrong. The music isn’t much better.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
Can we add cheap and frustrating to the mix? It turns out we can. Oh how I wish the game hadn’t.

Concept: 4.0
You can thank The Golden Compass for avoiding one of the biggest traits in movie game development (open-ended monotony) but not much else.

Overall: 3.2
Whether you’re a fan of the book, the movie or both, it would be unwise to invest any amount of money (even the cost of a rental) in The Golden Compass. Above the annoyances and lack of originality is the absence of something every game needs to survive: fun gameplay.