Genre: Action/Adventure
Publisher: Buena Vista
Developer: Capcom
Release Date: October 11, 2005
If you've played God of War or Devil May Cry, you will already have a basic grasp of how to play Buena Vista's action/adventure title Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge.
In Oogie's Revenge, gamers play as Jack Skellington, who must fight his way through 25 levels of vicious enemies in order to prevent his sworn enemy Oogie Boogie from kidnapping all of the holiday mascots and proclaiming himself king.
Even though it is facing strong competitors, Oogie's Revenge is looking pretty good, and the fighting and the combo system seems to be working well. Jack is armed with a "Soul Robber," which lets you gather the souls of your enemies in order to purchase weapon and character upgrades along the line.
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Jack also has the ability to change costumes to turn into Santa Jack and the Pumpkin King, which gives your character unique attacks and different abilities. In his standard form, Jack uses some sort of whip as a weapon; as Santa Jack, he throws out "surprise" gifts; and as the Pumpkin King, he has the ability to throw fireballs. The controls are simple, and only the square and triangle buttons are used to attack, which might seem a bit simplistic, but it works well with the game.
The only issue I have with the controls is that once you are in an attack, you can't really get out of the combo. It isn't that big of an issue, but I can see it being a bit of a pain in later levels when you maybe swarmed by several enemies. We were only demoed the main costume, so it's entirely possible that the inability to get out of a combo might be a non-issue with the other costumes.
These costumes come into play a lot when doing the platforming portion of the game. The main costume must be used to whip from point to point, as well as to grab or pull up objects, and the Pumpkin King form is necessary to unfreeze the ice blocks. There are several more aspects that require certain costumes, which mixes up the game, and from this aspect, the game looks pretty fun and challenging.
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Overall, graphics looked pretty detailed, and it feels like what you would expect from one of Tim Burton's Nightmare movies. I do have an issue with the fixed camera, which means that at times, you may get stuck with an unfavorable camera view. This was noticeable in the level that was demoed to us, where a tree completely blocked my view, and I couldn't tell which direction I was going, which it makes it rather difficult to crack the puzzle.
I was pleasantly surprised by the great gameplay execution in this game, considering the popularity of other titles in this genre. It may not be as bloody as God of War, but that matches up with the intended demographic, since it is aimed at the younger teenage crowd. Even without the blood and gore – practically a requisite these days – Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge has all the makings of a hit.
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