Winter
Wonderland Gamer Tuesday
Special: Disney's A
Christmas Carol
Developed
by: Buena Vista Games
System:
Nintendo DS
In what
seems to be an endless sea
filled with hundreds (if not
thousands) of A Christmas
Carol adaptations, I
think that Robert Zemeckis'
2009 3D motion capture movie
A Christmas Carol is
kind of underrated. Despite
some of the characters
looking kind of weird due to
the motion capture animation
employed to tell the story,
and focusing a lot on
3D-heavy action scenes, the
film is a very solid
adaptation of Charles
Dicken's literary classic
that captures both the
beauty and the grim imagery
of one's man trip into his
sad past, ignorant present
and dark future. But what
comes as the most surprising
is that Disney released a
video game adaptation of the
movie at the time of its
November 2009 release.

In Disney's
A Christmas Carol, you
follow the story of Ebenezer
Scrooge as he learns the
errors of his ways when he
is visited by the spirit of
his deceased partner Jacob
Marley and the three spirits
of Christmas. That's the
sort of premise that doesn't
seem to lend itself towards
a video game adaptation.
Yeah, the movie does have a
couple of action pieces, but
with a story that is as
character driven and
emotionally charged as A
Christmas Carol, how CAN
video game developers turn
it into a interactive video
game? That's why Disney's A
Christmas Carol has been
labeled as a mix between a
visual novel and a point and
click adventure... sorta.

Visual
novels are games which are
designed strictly to tell a
story, with limited
interaction coming from the
player. This is different
from story driven video
games where as you keep
playing and completing
missions, more and more of
the story is revealed to you
through cut scenes
in-between game play. In
visual novels, on the other
hand, you are plunged into
the story right away, and
the most common action
coming from the player is
pressing a button to
continue the story.

Disney's A
Christmas Carol tries to
differentiate itself from
the standard Visual Novel
game by adding short
gameplay segments. While
reading the story, players
can participate in
mini-games based on the
major events in the story.
You can aid the Cratchit
family in their Christmas
dinner preparations, help
Scrooge survive his small
predicament (and by small I
mean that he has shrunken in
size by the Ghost of
Christmas Future) and even
sing Christmas carols by
reading the lyrics
on-screen. You can also have
Scrooge interact with other
characters as he makes his
morning commute.

Despite the
presence of a heavy story
its briefs bursts of game
play makes it a nice
interactive experience
without getting in the way
of the story. Not only that,
you can also unlock the
original Christmas Carol
story, meaning that once you
experienced Disney's version
you can read about it as
Charles Dickens originally
envisioned it. The game also
features an interactive
calendar that unlocks a new
surprise till Christmas day
should you decide to play
that far into the year.
When
designing the graphics of
the game, Buena Vista
forgoes the film's realistic
CG animation for a 2D, hand
drawn presentation that is
very reminiscent of classic
Disney animation. The
character sprites are quite
large and the worlds are
detailed, giving the game a
soft and warm atmosphere
that will make players
nostalgic for a good old
Christmas season.

Despite the
fact that the film received
mixed reviews, Disney's A
Christmas Carol is both
a great film and a fun
little game for the DS. The
title doesn't try to push
the boundaries when it comes
to video game adaptations of
popular franchises and
stories, but it doesn't need
to, and it still manages to
capture the essence of the
film and the story as a
whole through short but fun
gameplay segments and a
story that has yet to lose
any of its emotional grip.
As Tiny Tim would always
proclaim: 'God bless us,
everyone!'