The music is bombastic and suitably epic, the majority of the sound-effects clear and satisfying, with impacts accompanied by a musical tone a la Zelda. They were often good for a laugh, particularly in the co-operative game mode, during which they reference the absurd premise of the 'Tintin and Haddock' experience.

I caught myself stopping to listen to the enemies talking while they were still unaware of my presence.

This applies to the characters as well, who are skillfully acted both during cutscenes and in their ambient dialogue as they move through the game. The environments are distinct and interesting, colorful and engaging. The Adventures of Tintin has a simple, clean look that apes the design of the upcoming movie and successfully translates it into something eminently playable. Then there's the audio-visual experience. Combat is awkward and clunky, with stilted melee mechanics, but that seems to be intentional, as there is almost always a better way to dispatch enemies than punching them repeatedly. The Adventures of Tintin finds a balance far from the extremes of Super Meat Boy and Prince of Persia. This isn't a specific area in which movie tie-ins need to improve, but a general note about platformers that stretches back to the original Super Mario Bros.: making the controls precise and making them intuitive are two very different things.

There's an excellent texture to the motion, with good weight and a terrific sense of momentum, with detailed animations that serve to preserve the continuity between different movements. I never felt that I was fighting with Tintin, Snowy, or Haddock to make the character do what I wanted him to do. Other movie tie-in developers should take note. One gets a feel for the characters themselves, as well as their development, as they move through the game, and it feels good. Tintin's story feels complete, with a logical progression from each locale to the next and explicit and purposeful links between events. Too often, when a game comes out ahead of a movie's release, it either only tangentially touches on the story of that movie, a la Transformers: Dark of the Moon, or butchers the plot into an unrecognizable pulp, clearly designed more as a companion device to whet movie-goers' appetites for the actual feature. So what did Ubisoft do differently?įirst of all, the game hasn't butchered the movie's story. It's especially impressive, then, that The Adventures of Tintin: The Game, is a competent platformer that, at times, shows flashes of brilliance. Those based on upcoming movies have generally been doubly so, and if the movie and its corresponding game are aimed at a younger set, that's the death touch.

Licensed games in general have a pretty shoddy history, save some shining gems (which include the recent Batman games).

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