The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - (DS, PS2, Wii)
Developer: Artificial Mind and Movement
Format: DS, PS2, Wii
Genre: Arcade

Less Tomb Raider and more grave robber

Alarm bells often ring when a game manages to make its shipping date to time exactly with its film equivalent. These ports scream at you of money-making enterprises, nothing more. A real shame time and time again (and again here) this suspicion is proved true.

And the real shame is that the film is genuinely good, a little cliched yes - but thrilling and more than often inventive. So why the bloody hell can't the developers build on this?

What it pulls off in terms of visuals and style it loses with actual gameplay. Opening sequences and rendered locations are great (despite a little frame rate lagging) with atmospheric and detailed chase sequences and exotic battle locations in tune with the depth of the film story. But it's just not fun.

We've had a decade or so now of Lara Croft-styled platform shooters and you'd have thought that ridiculously tricky platform jumping and by-the-numbers pistol shooting should have evolved. Perhaps this is the problem; in a frenzy of deadlines and cinema release schedules the developers have just used a solid engine and mapped on the skins without taking the time to make the actual gameplay shine with individuality.

From clunky camera angles, bizarre AI, the annoyance of being shot by out of frame bad guys, and boss levels to have you throwing the controller at the screen in frustration, this just fails to make the mark.

Resurrecting dead things may work for the film, but over in the virtual world, it just doesn't cut it.

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