The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe [GC]

Take combat, for instance. It's simple, yet varied and rewarding. Each character has two primary attacks at the beginning of the game and there are even team attacks that pairs of siblings can use together. Peter can grab his brother and swing him around like a human mace. Susan can toss Lucy as a mini-projective. And Susan can climb on top of Peter to fire arrows without sustaining damage from enemies crawling on the floor. These combo attacks all sound funny. Heck, they're downright dopey. But they work well and it lends combat a distinctive flair.

You can purchase advanced moves as your progress by collecting coins. Moves like Wolf's Bane and Ghoul's Bane affect specific creatures, letting you kill them in one hit while other abilities let you heal yourself. You can also purchase certain offensive moves (short-range and long-rage) that affect all enemies. The game also lets you buy different combo attacks, healing abilities and even a few techniques for putting certain enemies to sleep. About the only thing you can't buy or improve is weaponry and armor. Not that it's necessary, but it would have been a nice addition. Still, practically every move in the game is useful in combat and they all look cool to boot.

The stages themselves offer great variety. You'll encounter fallen trees, frozen lakes and other naturally occurring obstacles to circumvent. Susan can ignite her arrows and scorch a path through bushes, for instance, and Peter can chop through fallen trees. Lucy can crawl through tunnels and caves to open doors, and Edmund can climb posts and trees to reach important objects. In addition to all this, most stages have a bunch of unique obstacles. In the first few stages, Lucy's the only character light enough to find a path across frozen lakes so her siblings can follow her. Try this with any other character and they'll just fall through the ice. At other times, Susan will need to fire her arrows at a cliff to trigger a rock slide. These are just a few examples, but there's no need to spoil more. Suffice to say that Narnia throws a ton of surprises your way.

About the only thing worth whining about is the monotony of some of the later stages. You'll need to slay wave after wave of beasts near the end of the game and it gets tiresome after a while. And since Narnia lets a second player join in at any time and take control of one of the characters, some of the stages can feel somewhat overwhelming. If you're playing alone, you'll crave assistance from a live player during certain parts. And while the AI controlled characters handle their own, their not the best helpers in the world. And at certain points in the game, particularly the later stages, you'll really need all the help you get.

In terms of presentation, Narnia is one good-looking, good-sounding videogame. Each stage boasts a ton of snazzy special effects. Characters animate smoothly, regardless of how much is going on on-screen. And sometimes, there is a ton of stuff going on. There's one level where you can literally see hundreds of detailed, well-animated beasts marching in the background. Environments, too, are equally impressive. There's a nice variety of them too; from frozen landscapes, to ice castles, to green fields and more. Make no mistake, Narnia is one damn good looking game. And yes, the sound is just as good. Everything from the clang of swords to the musical score sounds top-notch.

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