Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 1.0 stars Terrible
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 2.5 (1.0 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Brett Todd
• Reviewed on: 07/28/2005
• Released on: 07/12/2005
• Originally published on GameSpot: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (PC) Review

Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie has a lot going for it. It's got Johnny Depp doing an eccentric yet endearing riff on Michael Jackson as crazy chocolatier Willy Wonka. It's got a bunch of nifty Oompa-Loompa musical numbers. And it's got surreal and colorful set designs that make you think somebody's been spiking the Everlasting Gobstoppers with LSD.

The Charlie and the Chocolate Factory PC game has none of these delights. There's no Depp to alternately creep us out and enchant us, no Oompa-Loompa odes to obnoxious children getting their just desserts, and no interesting visual elements. This game is terrible in every area, with unresponsive controls, choppy graphics, and uninteresting minigames that look and feel a lot like the free Java/Flash games available on the Web. It's a good thing that the chocolate factory's famed glass elevator doesn't really exist, because after playing this game you might be tempted to throw yourself down the shaft. Ostensibly, the plot of the game follows the movie, which in turn does a good job of tracing the events in Roald Dahl's classic children's novel. You play Charlie Bucket, the poor lad who wins a golden ticket entitling him to a tour of the chocolate factory of reclusive weirdo Willy Wonka. The only difference between movie and game is that whenever one of Charlie's golden-ticket-holding comrades--Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde, and Mike Teavee--is punished for his or her sins (which, respectively, are gluttony, greed, arrogance, and anger) here, you play a minigame to rescue them...or at least make sure that they don't come to too much harm.

This concept actually seems pretty promising for a few minutes, and it's certainly a better idea than the Oompa-Loompa factory management in the completely different console editions of the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory game franchise. But all the potential is wasted on boring minigames that are way too easy, even for little kids. They all center on simple tasks like collecting magical lollipops, clicking on mushrooms to save Augustus Gloop from the chocolate river, tilting a table to collect candies, bouncing the blueberry version of Violet Beauregarde around like a pinball, and clicking on Oompa-Loompas in the correct order to start them singing a rowing song (which they actually don't sing--you just get some musical tones indicating a song, like in the classic handheld game Simon).

Objectives are practically hidden with instructions so obtuse that you're often unsure of what you're supposed to be doing. Midlevel Oompa-Loompa challenges providing bonuses and keys begin with no instructions other than a title like Pinball! or Grab!, and end so fast that it's pure luck whether or not you can tell what's going on before you lose. And play time is stretched out with midlevel trips to Wonka's lickable wallpaper maze, where you wander corridors sampling candy flavors and doing Oompa-Loompa challenges to earn the keys needed to get out. This isn't a whole lot of fun. Although the descriptions of the oddball candy are entertainingly surreal ("Uncaramel! Wow, this isn't like caramel at all!"), generally you just pace back and forth for five minutes before matching the right door to the right key.

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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (PC): $12.95 - $19.99

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