You could be forgiven
for thinking there was a new Harry Potter game. Both the visuals
in this game and The Polar Express are so
close to that of the Harry
Potter games that I wonder why EA hasn’t complained.

This game though features
the three Baudelaire orphans, each with their own skills. They
are told mysteriously that they have been
orphaned when a fire burns down their house. They are forced to live
with their evil Uncle Olaf. Klaus, Violet, and Sunny the baby are
each played in different scenes where their individual skills come
into play. Violet creates inventions from everyday objects a la MacGyver.
Klaus is the brains of the operation: his keen mind is suited to
solving puzzles and riddles. Sunny, being a baby, can get into smaller
spaces that the others can’t get to. She also has razor sharp
teeth that seem able to bite through almost anything from ropes to
wood and metal!

In true action-adventure
form, the orphans must undergo a series of trials, collecting items
to make into inventions that are used
to overcome obstacles. As is the case with most action-adventure
titles, the game’s tutorial is part of the game. A wonderfully
voiced (by Tim Curry) narrator, with tongue firmly planted in cheek,
guides the player through the requirements of each challenge along
the way. This is really a great feature that allows full accessibility
to the older children that the game targets. The only problem is
that this is the totality of the game: start new level, watch the
cutscene. A voice-over tells you that you need to collect items to
build a device to combat the current foe or problem. At this point,
you are free to wander the small area and collect the items. When
all are collected, another cutscene shows the invention being made.
You are then given the opportunity to use the device (all action
is done by left clicking). Whereas this doesn’t sound bad,
it’s just very repetitive. The puzzles, what there are of them,
are switch type and quite simple. Whereas I continued to play and
thoroughly enjoyed the concepts in the game, I just found myself
wishing there were more to it.

The graphics are wonderful
and children and adults will delight in them much as they would
in the Harry Potter series and The Polar
Express. Although not photorealistic, the graphics are colorful and
gothically dark and twisted, which is well in keeping with the feel
of the Lemony Snicket series. Cutscenes are well rendered and a delight
to watch, a bit like watching a movie or well-made cartoon. Mouth
movement was synchronized well with the voices, and characters’ facial
expressions added more realism and humanity to the characters. Having
recently seen pictures of the actors in the film, I can vouch that
the likenesses are very pleasing on the eye.

The interface is almost
identical to that of the Harry Potter. Each player chooses a save
game slot, which is updated at regular junctures
in the game. There are also points in the game that allow manual
saving should the player so wish. Although there is no true manual
saving, there are few instances that most would find frustrating.
Although I am always disappointed when a game doesn’t have
manual saving, this game, like the Harry Potter series, has frequent
enough saving to make managing the game only a very minor annoyance.
There is frequent opportunity in the game to collect health monitored
by way of a “misery meter”. Should misery overwhelm the
children, the game is over and recommences from the last save point.
The standard “WASD” setup is used for movement, the space
bar for jumping, and left-mouse button is used for all interaction
and actions. It’s a shame the programmers chose to use the
brackets “[“ and “]” for scrolling through
the different ammunition for the projectile weapons. Commonsense
would have suggested using the scroll button, the most common default
for games with action. Other than this, the game was easy to jump
right into.

I experienced
no difficulties installing or playing this game. It seemed completely
stable and
I experienced no glitches, freezes,
or crashes. There were slowdowns at graphically intensive points
but I attribute this to my system being at the lower end of the specifications.
Be warned, though, that when you start the game, be sure you don’t
plan to upgrade it. The readme states: “Save files should not
be transferred from one machine to another. Save games will only
work on the system they are created on”. This seems quite odd
that saved games have information incorporated into them specific
to an individual computer’s setup. I thought DirectX was supposed
to eliminate that…

Not having seen the movie
or knowing anything about the books means that I can’t comment
what fans of either would think of the game. Does it do justice
to the intended characterizations? I don’t
know. In my quest to discover a little about the world of Lemony
Snicket, I came across the homepage,
which contains many links to movie and book related information in
a roundabout
way. I gleaned from the presentation that there is a clever humor
inherent in the stories that would appeal to children and the more
youthful of mind. I never really found clear answers about the author
or the story series except to find that there have been eleven books
in the series by Daniel Handler. Even Count Olaf, the nemesis of
the Baudelaire orphans has his own website! The
mythos of the Lemony Snicket world holds many questions and hints
that are explored on various websites. These are a delight for scholars,
with the subtle and not-so-subtle references to real and literary
characters. Check out a couple of them here: http://www.quidditch.com/lemony%20snicket.htm and http://www.angelfire.com/ga2/LoneWolf/SnickStuff/LemonySnicket.html.

This game leans more heavily to action than adventure but is quite
an enjoyable, if repetitive, detour from pure adventure games. Children
and eye candy junkies will likewise be enthralled. This game warrants
a B for more open-minded players, but adventure game purists would
probably rate it a grade lower.

Final Grade: B
(find out more about our
grading system)

System Requirements:

• Pentium III 600 MHz or Athlon 800 MHz or higher processor
• English version of
  Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
• 128MB RAM
• 738MB hard disk space
  (plus 200MB for swap file and 60MB for saved games)
• DirectX 9.0b-compliant
  32MB video card
• DirectX 9.0b-compliant
  true 16-bit sound card
• Mouse
• Keyboard
• 4X speed CD-ROM drive