Journey to the Centre of the Earth (DS), THQ

Aug 7 2008

The thinking behind the decision to release the gaming spin off to the Journey to the Centre of the Earth movie as a DS-only title will probably never be known.

Surely with the high-end graphics consoles out there at the moment, a game which is a 3D-based effort seems ill at ease with the handheld format.

It’s a shame that this is always plugging in the back of your mind, because there are some decent elements in the game, but getting past the fact you’re squinting at a screen and the 3D doesn’t feel quite right is almost impossible. Control is shared out between the D-pad and stylus, but neither seem to achieve massive success as the game fails to grip you through the various puzzles, tasks and exploration you need to do.

The audio is probably the other main area of concern, with lots of grunts and moans providing the bulk of the sound to this game – it took a matter of minutes for the volume to be killed.

The problem with Journey to the Centre of the Earth isn’t that it does everything badly, because it doesn’t. It just doesn’t seem to do enough things well and leaves you wishing you could play a PS3 or XBox 360 version.