While the big screen adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are has taken outrageous liberties with Maurice Sendaks childrens classic, the inevitable spin-off game twists, pulls and mangles the beloved story out of all recognition.
Picking up shortly after Max first meets the Wild Things, the story veers off at its own bizarre tangent where stars are falling from the heavens and pounding the island, while evil shadow creatures devour everything they touch. Bewilderingly, Max and the Wild Things decide that building a tower to the moon will solve their fairy tale predicament, and so begins a platform-hopping, button-mashing adventure thatll be familiar to anyone whos ever played a pre-teen cash-in.
In terms of mood, Wild Things fans will dig the games dreamlike, almost foreboding atmosphere that subtly mirrors the melancholy of the movie and makes the game feel strangely reminiscent of oddball console classic Ico. But, sadly, thats about the only good thing there is to say about it: the action is cruelly repetitive, with players facing an endless parade of simple platform challenges and hack-and-slash battles that will frustrate even the most bored youngster; the graphics and presentation are spectacularly ugly, and do little to capture the surreal, dreamlike visuals of the film; and the plot meanders pointlessly and makes little attempt to imbue the Wild Things with any personality, making it likely that kiddy gamers will search for their console kicks elsewhere before they get even halfway through this tedious adventure.