The Adventures of Tintin Review: Reliving the Days of Your Childhood
| App Name: | The Adventures of Tintin |
| Platforms: | Universal (Optimized for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch) |
| Publisher(s): | Gameloft SA |
| Version Reviewed: | 1.0 |
| Genre(s): | Game |
| Release Date: | December 15, 2011 |
| Price: | $4.99 |
| Download |  |
If you’re anything like me, reliving the days of your childhood is a welcome reprieve. For those of us who were fans of the comic book series “The Adventures of Tin Tin”, the past few months have been no exception, with the release of the smash hit movie shot in motion capture.
For those of you for whom the movie might not have been enough, though, today we offer you The Adventures of Tin Tin game for iOS devices. The game is based on the 2011 film, though with a few tweaks here and there. As promotional game tie-ins go, they’re typically pretty disappointing. Fortunately for Tin Tin, that’s not at all the case; but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Just in case you aren’t aware of what The Adventures of Tin Tin is all about, here’s the scoop, via IMDB:
“Intrepid reporter Tintin and Captain Haddock set off on a treasure hunt for a sunken ship commanded by Haddock’s ancestor.”
So, a basic treasure hunting story. What more could an adventurous person want?
The launching point of the game begins with Tintin looking through a market place, whereupon he finds an ornate sailing ship model. Immediately after making the purchase, our protagonist encounters a rude man named Ivan, who offers to buy the ship off of Tintin. After being refused, Ivan stomps away in a huff, leaving Tintin rather perplexed. Not long after, Tintin is assaulted and has his ship stolen. Using his natural detective inclinations, he is able to surmise who he thinks is behind the robbery, and sets out to get back his stolen ship.
The Adventures of Tintin – The Game is an amalgamation of many different genres. One minute players will be using third-person stealth to sneak into a mansion, the next they will be on-rails, running away from an angry dog, solving puzzles, and competing in quick time events to escape. It’s a really impressive mix of ideas, and will keep the player interested throughout.
The controls are generally responsive, although sometimes the game didn’t correctly recognize swipes. Moving the character feels really smooth, with the on-screen virtual d-pad reacting well. At the start of the game the player is asked if they wish to turn on motion controls, and it’s something worth doing as there is some clever implementation further in. There’s also some nice interaction in cutscenes, where the player can tap the screen to collect coins as the camera pans around.
One thing that really stands out to me is the quality of the graphics. The game comes in at a hefty 846 MB, and the developers at Gameloft used every bit of that space to give the player a wonderfully thought out and imaginative experience. All character models look fantastic, especially Tintin, and the environments are superb.
As superb as the graphics are, the same can’t really be said about the voice acting, which is weak at best. Also, unfortunately my game seemed to suffer from a high number of crashes, and every time one happened it would take about ten minutes and multiple reloads for the game to work again. Obviously this was incredibly frustrating, and whole areas would have to be repeated.
Overall, I found this game to be fantastically entertaining, even with the periodic crash problems. Like I said before, most promotional tie-in games are incredibly subpar and have a rushed feel to them, but not Tintin. The game stands alone pretty well, even if you’ve never seen the movie. It’s easy to follow, but still gives a little bit of a challenge and mystery to keep you occupied, and it has a very clean nature to it, so it’s perfect for kids and grown ups alike.
The Adventures of Tintin comes with a $4.99 price tag, but for an immersive game like this, the price is well worth it.
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