The plot of the sequel is the usual fantasy fare. A wicked Uncle deposes a young dashing prince from his rightful place on the throne of the kingdom. Well sort of “rightful”. In as much as his family is in charge because their kinsmen invaded Narnia, slaughtered the inhabitants and drove all the CGI-enhanced weirdoes into hiding. It’s up to returning heroes Peter, Susan, Lucy and Edmund to help Prince Caspian restore the Kingdom of Narnia and banish the Telmarine invaders.

You control several characters at once, tagging between each one with a close proximity button press. A second (local) player can drop in and out to help at any time. Each of the characters has their own weapon and special ability. Prince Caspian and Lucy have bows and can shoot at targets to open doors or activate machinery. Edmund and Peter frequently utilise grappling hooks to climb up to ledges. Dwarves (and other diminutive characters) can go through small doorways to reach otherwise inaccessible areas. Characters are often required to work together to solve puzzles… wait a minute… haven’t we heard this somewhere before?

Yes, Prince Caspian takes a huge amount of inspiration from the Lego Star Wars and Indiana Jones games, swapping the cutely animated plastic figures with the wooden acting performances of the (older than they look) Pevensie children.

Coming from the same developer as the Lego titles (Traveller’s Tales) the lifting of huge chunks of game play is perhaps excusable and, in fact, it looks like Prince Caspian is actually running on a modified version of the Lego Star Wars engine. Certainly a lot of the front end navigation is familiar. Armour shards spill out of broken items as readily as Lego studs and there are unlockable extras to collect from secret treasure chests.

Big chunks of the movie including, I believe, at least one deleted scene are used to convey the story. These sequences won’t be enough for anyone unfamiliar with the plot beforehand. It doesn’t help that the Telmarines have a mask fetish so the boss characters are virtually indistinguishable from another.

As with most movie tie-ins, going from celluloid characters to in-game models just makes the graphics look awful. The jarring transitions between film and game footage are often made worse by the games admirable desire to expand on the adventures portrayed in the movie. At one point a section of the game ended with our heroes by a river. The adjoining film section showed them still on the beach where they started the level.

The combat in the game is simplistic and quickly becomes repetitive. If anything this title is even more reliant on button bashing than its Lego brethren. You’re given a couple of attacks and a block that remain the same throughout the entire length of the game. There are no combat upgrades or new combos to unlock.

The puzzles could have been a high point of the game. Unfortunately most simply involve picking up and placing items in clearly highlighted areas. This process is made more difficult than it needs to be by under sensitive activation zones. These glitches become a particular annoyance when you’re under attack. It’s also rather tedious to have to tap buttons to open chests or rotate an analogue stick to turn handles.

There are some good set pieces in the game, though. It’s fun to ride around on a giant, picking up enemies and using them as a club. The castle assault level is well thought out, sweeping in from the air, landing and dispatching enemies before they can sound the alarm. It just goes on a little bit too long.  In general, they’ve done a good job of converting the action from film to console.

The game saves automatically which cuts out the need for annoying backtracking on the rare occasions that you do die. Time limits are also fairly relaxed which is great for younger gamers.

It won’t take you long to complete the adventure. Certainly no more than ten hours even if you’re looking for every treasure chest in order to collect the otherwise easy achievement points.

Overall Prince Caspian isn’t a title that’s been cobbled together as a quick, easy cash-in. A fair amount of work and thought have gone into the game. Unfortunately the rather bland source material has spawned a series of homogenous levels. It certainly doesn’t have any of the charm, humour or the replayability of Traveller’s Tales’ Lego titles.

Fundamentally it’s not a bad game but even younger gamers won’t struggle to find more enjoyable titles to spend their pocket money on.