Rise of the Guardians is an exciting new film from Dreamworks based on a popular set of children’s books. Rise of the Guardians: The Video Game is unsurprisingly, the video game tie in to the film.
When the evil spirit Pitch launches an assault on Earth, the Immortal Guardians team up to protect the innocence of children all around the world. In the game this means taking charge of one of the four Guardians, Jack Frost, North, Bunny or Tooth as you journey across the various realms that the heroes come from.
Superficially the game initially looks like any other third person film tie in but if you spend a bit of time with it, you’ll find out you’re actually playing a 3D version of the old classic Gauntlet. That’s right, hidden behind the very shiny graphics is a good old fashioned dungeon crawler (even though you’re not physically in a dungeon, your characters movements are limited by a set path through the realms). And it’s up to 4 player in multiplayer too.
It’s the multiplayer that really makes this game though: if your kids (or you) have a few friends round, the game takes on a new lease of life because instead of the 3 other characters being controlled by the console, you and your friends are all working together and it’s an absolute hoot.
The game is rated 12, so isn’t suitable for anyone under that age but is suitable for a great laugh for anyone 12 and (much) older. It’s out today, 30 November, on most formats.