Children from around the world have started to loose belief in Santa Clause, the Sandman, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, mostly because a malevolent spirit, Pitch, has found a way into children’s dreams and is filling their nights full of nightmares. Alone they may not be able to defeat Pitch so they enlist the help of Jack Frost. Together the group travels to various worlds to rescue the children and rid the realms of Pitch’s malign influence...

Rise of the Guardians is a four players, drop in, co-op game based on the animated film. Aimed at slightly older children you travel through the realms battling Pitch’s minions, collecting objects and levelling up your characters.

The game opens with the Guardians enlisting the help of Jack Frost to travel the five realms, where if they remove Pitch’s influence and regain control of the crystal gates, children’s belief in Jack and the Guardians will grow.

There is not much of a tutorial, A for attack and off you go. As your Guardians level up other buttons come into play, but the overall control of the game is very simple, removing the need for any steep learning curve.

Combat is simplicity itself; basically in melee you have three head-to-head fighters (Santa Clause, Sandman and Jack Frost) and two characters with ranged weapons (Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny). The middle of a fight can be a confusing time, with Bunny and Fairy shooting off colourful bolts; it can often feel like you’re trying to fight in the midst of a firework display.

Even occasionally loosing track of which character you’re playing doesn’t significantly impact on the fights, as you can switch between the four, a useful technique when the group is being overwhelmed or one of your characters is running low on life.

Each realm is peppered with foes to fight, sometimes alone and sometimes as part of a rescue. There are boxes to open and goods to find, all of which have their locations helpfully displayed on a map. The experience points which you gain can be used to enhance various aspects of your characters and gems can be spent on either ability enhancing gems or on artwork from the film.

For an adult gamer, Guardians will only present a minor challenge, but for the intended age group, it’s a nice balance of skill and ease, which make the game enjoyable to play. Add to the generous and easily acquired accomplishments, on the PS3, the package makes for a rewarding experience.

Visually the environments are well detailed, but the lack of any camera control can be a bit frustrating.

Overall the game is well presented with a nice balance of elements, unfortunately the limited number of differing missions within each realm means that the gameplay can feel a bit repetitive.

7

Charles Packer