Customer Reviews

The Golden Compass

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

By tradition, games under license from blockbuster movies fail miserably. There have been notable exceptions of course (JAMES BOND: NIGHTFIRE springs to mind) - but THE GOLDEN COMPASS is far from being such an exception. In fact, of all the movie-based games, this one is very close in taking the cake of the WORST ONE EVER!

Where should I start: this is a console game atrociously ported to PCs under a rush order to make it to the pre-Christmas market - with all the awkward controls and unpolished graphics to prove it. The camera placement and movement will hinder your view and movement more often than help you. And I thought the NEVERWINTER NIGHTS camera to be bad...

Graphically one could offer solid arguments this being aimed at children not much older than their 5-year old computers: low resolution, oversimplified models and awful animations. To compound the visual failures, there are a great number of moments when pixel-blinking and unfinished edges totally ruin any gaming immersion.

I would comment on the gameplay if there was one worth mentioning. What this game consists of is a uncoordinated jumble of ThirdPerson action, simplistic puzzles and balancing mazes. All badly executed.
There are far better ThirdPerson action-shooters out there. And even if there were none other,I would still NOT be able to recommend this to anyone.

To those of you who have not already read the book (or watched the movie) the story will prove almost impossible to follow from the game alone.
Don't even get tempted.

Even if you are a fun of Philip Pullman's books and loved the movie stay away from this one: it will greatly disappoint you.

The graphics on this game are HORRIBLE. It is inexcusable that such a shoddy piece of programming is tied to an excellent story. I couldn't even get this to load on my older computer (2 years), and it barely runs on my new computer. Do not waste your time or money. First review gives all the details.

First, save your money! The PC version of this game is atrocious...the user's manual omits mention of important aspects of game play, and the program itself hangs in several places in an irreversible manner, requiring a crash-and-burn exit, thereby losing prior progress. The excellence of the books apparently drained all quality out of the game, leaving nothing, nada, nichts behind except for the pain of having spent $27.99 of good US currency for it.

I bought this game for my grandchildren. They had seen the movie, and this looked perfect for them. I loaded the software with no problem. I started the game and played it for a few minutes to test it, but suddenly my screen froze. I could not shut my PC down, I could not restore it to an earlier state, NOTHING!It was dead in the water! I had to call tech support, which took an hour. The rep advised me to re-load the operating system (Windows XP) with his help. But finally, he managed to have me restore to an earlier state with some manual commands.
This was an expensive game, and an elaborate one. I would have expected the manufacturer to have tested it thoroughly before releasing it. It caused me a lot of grief and expense. And, my grandchildren never did get to play it!

Do NOT buy this game, you could be sorry.

This game fits its price perfectly! It was so much fun and definately worth the full $0.01 I paid for it.

This is definitely one of the better video games that comes out based on a movie. The graphics are great, gameplay is swift and never gets boring, and the storyline follows the book and not the movie (yay!)

You are a girl named Lyra who lives in another world and goes on adventures in the north to save children kidnapped by the "Gobblers"

You also get to play as Iorek Byrnison, an enourmous armored bear, which adds some action to the game.

Don't litsen to the people that say it crashes systems; as long as your system meets the requirements, you should be fine and cutscenes should play at normal speed.

Maybe they forgot to look at the system requirements before installing the game, or maybe some Amazon users have a hard time reading.

I highly reccomend this game for any child over 12, since it does have a lot of violence, and moments can be scary (it's in the upper range of E10+, almost T).