The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader

There seem to be an awful lot of big budget movie tie-ins arriving via the Pocket Gamer Towers post owl these days.

The other week it was the excellent Harry Potter that was busy casting a spell over the mobile team. Now it’s the turn of the latest Narnia to try and win us over with its hidden Christian allegories and friendly lion called Alan (that’s his name, right?)

Alas, Alan* the lion doesn’t make much of an appearance in this, the third book/film/game in the Narnia series, which possibly is the reason why this one’s better than its rubbish predecessor.

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The game follows the plot of its source material in that usual disjointed mobile tie-in way, so anyone who hasn’t read the book or seen the film (me) is left wondering what on earth just happened.

In any case, you’ll be controlling three of the gang – Caspian, Edmund, and (very briefly) Lucy – as they take on lots of pirates on a boat, and then a castle, before saying goodbye to Alan and possibly learning a lesson or two about life.

Most of the game time is spent rushing around a semi top-down viewpoint of the action, hammering the ‘5’ key to swish the sword around in a default combo, picking up health vials, and encountering set-pieces.

There’s the obligatory vehicle sections thrown in as well during the nine levels on offer, although - this being Narnia - they take the form of a rowing boat dodging rocks, which is as exciting as it sounds.

In fact, while the graphics and animations are solid, and the combat fairly well done, if simple – not once will you use the ‘Special’ move that leaves you completely open to attacks - Narnia does feel a little by-the-numbers from Gameloft.

There are a few occasions during a level where there’s a clever bit of platform design, the moments where you need a torch to light up the path being particularly worthy of recognition, but it doesn’t have anything as memorable as, say, Sherlock Holmes’s explosive cart chase, Jurassic Park’s lab scenes, or all of Splinter Cell: Conviction.

This malaise isn’t helped by the lack of enemies you’ll encounter. It takes eight of the nine levels before something other than pirates start appearing, ignoring the mid-game boss Troll that the characters confusingly call both a ‘Troll’ and ‘Giant’.

It’s another short offering from Gameloft as well, coming in at under an hour’s play. This is alleviated by the presence of a ratings system, which ranks you on speed and coins collected, but I can’t see too many people returning to Narnia after the winter months are over.