The Golden Compass

Developer: Shiny
Format: Multi
Genre: Arcade

Will this big movie licence game head in the right direction?

As the Christmas season approaches the big-money movie licence conversions start to appear on the radar - and they don't come much bigger than this forthcoming title. If you're a fan of books and films you may have come across The Golden Compass already. The upcoming action adventure video game is based on the best-selling novel by Philip Pullman and is soon to be a major motion picture starring Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman.

The game goes beyond the film narrative as you slip into the shoes of Lyra Belacqua on a quest to rescue her imprisoned uncle and kidnapped best friend. Joining Lyra on her mission is her spirit daemon, Pan, as well as a giant and powerful armored bear, Iorek, and the mysterious Golden Compass - a truth-telling device that will help lead the way.

Gamers get to play both Lyra who uses her cunning and stealth to evade enemies; and Iorek who can pretty much batter anything in his path, thanks to having the kind of brute strength that makes videogames characters so much fun to play.

Actual gameplay details are still few and far between but we understand that in similar vein to other 'morphing' type games, players will decide which character to use in order to successfully progress through each level; and there's plenty of those - with eleven otherworldly vistas, including locations not seen in the theatrical release

Typically, in games such as these, you tend to get blanket coverage across all formats with little thought to building a game that's specific to the console it's playing on. Thankfully that's not the case with The Golden Compass. Both the PS3 and Wii versions will take advantage of each platform's motion sensor controller abilities with the DS handheld version promising an entirely new gameplay mechanic that also includes multiplayer modes!

Expect this game to really appeal to fans of the film -a release is scheduled just before Xmas.

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