Lemony Snicket’s: A Series of Unfortunate Events (PS2 Review)

Writing video game reviews is a very difficult occupation. Now, I’m not talking about plowing-the-fields difficult, working-a-double-shift-in-a-steel-mill hard or even taxing like spending a full day teaching a class of rowdy third graders. Each of those jobs are very much more important and involving, along with many others that I didn’t have room to mention, than sitting down and playing games for a living. Well, that’s not exactly true in the involving factor. You might be hard pressed to find an occupation that requires one to be so multifaceted. 

 

True, anybody can sit down and type up a review. Just as anyone can perform the duties of a police officer or doctor, however, the efficiency that the regular Joe can perform in one of those occupations is no where near the level that the truly chosen are capable of achieving. Reviewers must have reflexes like a cat, the patience of a priest, the deductive reasoning of a police detective, the attention to detail of an antique appraiser, the ability to express oneself in the written text like an author and the flexibility of a gymnast where gaming tastes are concerned. Just like most callings, there is more to it than meets the eye.

Not only do all of these requirements come into play, but one also must be able to put themselves into the place of your average everyday player. Normally, I’ll try to evaluate a game on how much I enjoy it, as my personal tastes are rather narrow. However, not every gaming genre matches well to the palate of every gamer. There is a minority of titles that will appeal to the majority of the public and these usually will receive a high rating. However, once a game falls out of that very tight grouping, the reviewer must now assume the likeness of a fan of the genre, even if they personally can’t stand to play games of this nature. You have to do a sort of out-of-body experience and transfer your consciousness to that of a player that looks forward to games of this specific genre. Now, you have to grade the title as a player of this magnitude would, and walk a mile in their shoes to see if this game is their cup of tea.

I can see a large group of people gathering pitchforks and torches, getting ready to storm the castle if I don’t quickly get to the heart of the matter. Well, my friends, I’ve taken this roundabout way to explain the how and why of my thinking process when evaluating a game so when you come to the end of this review you won’t be completely dumbfounded how this game received the score that it did. So without further adieu, let me introduce you to Lemony Snicket’s: A Series of Unfortunate Events.

However, before we get too deep into the review, let me give you a piece of advice: If you are neither a fan of the series or consider yourself to be a “hard-core” gamer, you really should stop reading now and go find an article on something more your style. In fact, as I take a page from the Lemony Snicket’s playbook, you really should stop reading now no matter if you have somehow managed to trudge your way through all of the unfortunate books or not. This review will be filled to the brim with some rather unpleasant circumstances and I’m sure that you could find something much more enjoyable to do with your time.

Lemony Snicket’s: A Series of Unfortunate Events is based from an extremely successful series of books. As of last count there have been 11 titles released, with at least two more waiting in the wings. Following along similar lines to the Harry Potter series, these are written for children, but have been adopted by the more seasoned reader because of their outstanding content and quality. However, unlike those of our young wizard, these books do not focus around the magical or the fantasy realms. Furthermore, readers are warned that if they are looking for a happy ending, or even a happy middle, to the story, that they should quickly close the book and look elsewhere for their enjoyment. The entire series is based on unfortunate events surrounding a trio of young orphans that seems to keep happiness from escaping from its dungeon. 

A Series of Unfortunate Events follows along the path of the first three books in the series, so those not familiar with the dreadful lives of the Baudelaire orphans should have no problem with being forced to do any backtracking. In fact, the game looks to be an interactive version of the movie due out in December, which just happens to have some massive star power of its own with Jim Carrey, Meryl Streep, and Jude Law all playing parts in the big-screen adaptation. Nevertheless, gamers will have the opportunity to share in all of the misery of the three orphans, as each of the children are playable and you have to utilize their individual talents to progress through the game.

Well, I’m sure that you are asking yourself what is so terrible about the lives of these kids. Coming from a wealthy family, you would expect their entire existence to be one of happiness and joy. This is far from the case. After a mysterious fire destroyed their home, and killed their parents, they were bundled off to live with a distantly related Count Olaf, who just so happens to be one of the six worst villains in the entire world. Blinded by the opportunity to get his grubby mitts into their inheritance, Count Olaf begins to contemplate a way to get the pesky children out of the way. With the help of his extremely bizarre henchmen, and some incredibly horrible acting talents, he begins his quest to acquire the Baudelaire fortune.

Violet is the eldest of the trio and her specialty is in the department of invention. Brought up in the tradition of MacGyver, she has the unique talent of making incredible contraptions from common everyday household items. Her inventions are very impressive and they are necessary for the furthering of the game. Her devices are character specific and can be accessed immediately with the excellent control system that Lemony Snicket’s has been given. Even though most of your missions are pretty linear, the inclusion of the different items allows for some wiggle room for the player and gives you a selection on how you would like to handle certain situations.

Klaus is the middle child and is the perfect union of brains and brawn. Since he is the only male child, most of the physical requirements fall upon his shoulders. Moving heavy objects or reaching distant ledges is some of his personal specialties. Moreover, he has been blessed with a photographic memory and can remember anything that he has ever read. What is even better is that he can actually put this knowledge to use, which comes in exceptionally handy when confronted with new and difficult situations.

Sunny is the youngest, and she spends most of her time babbling away in her very own language while being carried along on Violet’s back. However, being tiny has it’s advantages as she is the one who can be counted on to get in those exceptionally tight areas and reach inaccessible sections by her older siblings. She also seems to be part beaver, as see really enjoys chewing on objects and this really neat ability to gnaw her way through the stoutish of obstacles.

One of the really nice things that Lemony Snicket’s does for the player is switches characters automatically when specific ones must be used to achieve a goal or defeat an enemy. Furthermore, the difficulty level of the game increases progressively, rather than in big jumps, so that the player will be able to handle the later missions, which provide a deeper challenge, without being overwhelmed. Overall control for any of the children is very tight and the button layout allows for versatility without requiring the player to have to remember too much or conquer complex button combinations. On the downside, players are required to manually save their progress and there is no autosave feature available. One would think that with the target audience, Amaze Entertainment would have utilized a feature similar to that of another recent release, Shark Tale, which worked excellently and always kept the player’s data file updated. 

The storybook presentation is truly wondrous and the way that the scenes appear as if they are being drawn solely for the gamer really reaches out and touches something inside in a great way. When you flip to the back pages of the instruction guide, you will also be excited to see that all of the cast from the movie, including Jim Carrey as the despicable Count Olaf, have done the voice-overs for their characters and their Hollywood professionalism does nothing but raise the bar on how future games should be graded.

Your styles of gameplay are just as varied. Most of the game is presented in the standard 3-D platformer presentation. However, when players must rely on the talents of little Sunny, the game shifts its perspective to that of an old-school 2-D side-scroller. There are some interesting select mini-games, like the Simon-styled lock-picking episode or the PaRappa the Rapper version of vibrating a piano into tiny pieces, but none of them are anything truly original. You also have some select areas where the game is transformed into that of a First-Person shooter, but these are few and far between the rest of the chapters. Nevertheless, each style works well and has no decreeable flaws. There are some minor instances when the camera gets blocked by walls or curves in the path, but these are a slight inconvenience at the worst. The environments all have plenty of background action and the level layout is well done, even though they border on the simplistic. 

This is where the game reaches it’s limit and shows its true intended audience. The game is not overly difficult at all. In fact, I could not imagine that very few experienced gamers would have to spend much time working completely through it, as everything is basically out in plain view to be discovered. My first time through it took me about 7 hours and that was getting every piece of the puzzle that the game had to offer. There wasn’t much of a challenge to me at all, but I was not whom this game was created for. The younger target audience should find Lemony Snicket’s neither too hard or too soft, but just right for gobbling up in big tasty spoonfuls.

Extra content is extremely limited in Lemony Snicket’s. Players do have the opportunity to unlock hidden special movies or production photographs from both the game and the upcoming movie, but that is about all that you can look forward to seeing. There is no online play, multiplayer aspects, special minigames, or awards for completing the game. Nevertheless, the little that is available does give the player a nice look behind the scenes and should be enjoyed by fans looking for exclusive content. Owners of high definition televisions also can take advantage of the built-in progressive scan for some exceptionally sharp graphics.

As I stated way back in the introduction, Lemony Snicket’s: A Series of Unfortunate Events is not something for every gamer. While some would criticize this, I applaud Activision for not trying to overstep their boundaries by keeping the game playable for those most likely to actually pick up a copy. Nothing about the title is exceptionally innovative or groundbreaking, but everything that is squeezed onto the disk is extraordinarily well crafted. More content would have been welcomed, along with some incentive to keep on playing after you complete the game, as I actually enjoyed my time with the game, however I’ll settle for what it had and move on from there. Between the solid controls, the insightful humor, the storybook presentation and the excellent voice-overs, I could find no real reason not to highly recommend this game. If you are a gamer who is daunted by the massive amount of objectives that you need to complete in today’s games like Jak and Daxter or worried about the content for younger players, this is the title to stuff in their stocking.

Difficulty: 6

Control: 9

Audio: 9

Visuals: 9

Replayability: 6

Overall: 8.5