Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

There’s no knowing where you’ll be going…

NA release: 15th July 2005
EU release: 22nd July 2005
JP release: N/A
Developer: High Voltage Software
Publisher: Global Star Software
NGC Magazine Score: 40%
Mods Used: Widescreen Hack

Released at around the same time as the 2005 film (which I’ve not seen, but Depp is nowhere near as good as Gene Wilder), this game has absolutely nothing to do with the film, featuring its own version of the characters and its own version of the story (including moving it to being set in the USA). Wonka in this is just Michael Jackson (played by someone doing an impression) and everyone else is just bland. There’s no songs and everything is rushed along.

This does at least try new things. You play as Charlie and have to get the children unstuck from the various contraptions, using the Oompa Loompas as help. You’ll have to gather them across the level and assign them to jobs, like a basic version of Pikmin, but it’s better than just being a basic platformer.

Unfortunately, the game has a lot of physics puzzles and the physics are just completely and utterly broken. Not far in the game is a section where you have to get balls into some vents to stop them, with spikes blocking your path (the balls go straight through them). For each attempt you have to get an Oompa Loompa to release a robot, throw a beanstalk item to catch it and then throw gobstoppers at it to make it move.

Except that nothing is consistent about this. Sometimes the balls barely move, sometimes they roll nicely, sometimes they just fly upwards and out of the map. To make matters worse, the balls explode after a short amount of time and you need to repeat the process of getting a new one. Nobody wants to do that just to contend with broken physics again.