Released around the same time as the 2011 Spielberg movie, this isn't quite a straight adaptation of the film, but rather one that uses the same characters and some moments and remixes them into a similar but not identical plot.
Tintin (Adam Howden) a young reporter, stumbles into a plot to uncover the secret whereabouts of the treasure of the Unicorn, a galleon that was lost, to the captain's disgrace, in the 1700's. Tintin joins forces with Captain Haddock (Lewis Macleod) the last ancestor of that Captain and, along with his faithful dog Snowy, the try to learn the secrets and avoid the murderous hands of Sakharine (Alex Newman).
The way my gaming life is now, "Tintin" was a perfect game for me. The first half of the game is a relatively linear stretch through the story, where you play as one of the three characters and take part in relatively easy puzzle, platform and combat sections. The game mixes in sections where you fly a plane, or control a motorbike and occasionally has some swashbuckling too when Haddock recounts his ancestors story. Once that story mode is completed, you can play a second more freeform game, that uses the same mechanics but because of a conceit of taking place inside the addled and concussed mind of Haddock, the reality of the levels can vary and the platform mechanics are more exciting. This also allows you to play as Bianca Castafiore or one of the Thompson twins and each character has different skill sets. Once a level is complete then it can be attempted with any character and the level can be fully explored to find the items hidden on each one.
I understand why the reviews at the time weren't great. Had you paid £40 for a game that you can breeze through in a couple of hours I'd be annoyed too, but I didn't pay that much and I now can only find a couple of hours each week for gaming, getting to play something that allowed for consistent progress, like this, is pretty much exactly what I need. Occasionally some of the mechanics aren't as fun as others, I'm looking at you swordfighting, but generally the game gets back to the core platform mechanics pretty quickly.
Again, I can understand why anyone might be underwhelmed by it, but personally I really enjoyed it.
