Review: Night at the Museum 2

Confession time: I actually rather liked the first Night at the Museum movie. There I said it. I know it’s cool to hate on Ben Stiller (and to be fair I usually do) but I thought the first film was good in the ‘take your brain out and enjoy it’ sense. And that’s exactly what this game of the second movie is. Right up until it abruptly ends after a little over three hours.

Shorter than Napoleon

In three hours and forty minutes (including a break to make a cup of tea) I had not only completed Night at the Museum 2, but I had also collected all 1000 achievement points. I had collected all of the coins, bubble-gums, magnets, postcards, everything.

Now I’m all for short games; I actually believe that a shorter, more concentrated game can provide much better value for money than a game that hangs around for 60 hours and doesn’t do anything remarkable during that time. But there’s short and then there’s SHORT, and Night at the Museum 2 certainly doesn’t deliver anything remarkable.

The story, for what it’s worth, involves Larry Daley (voiced by Ben Stiller) going after the Magic Tablet of Ahkmenrah, which has been stolen by Ahkmenrah’s evil brother Kahmunrah. With pocket-sized Octavius in tow Larry sets out to save the world with his flashlight and key chain.

Fun?

And you know what? It’s actually pretty good fun. I know it shouldn’t be, this is a kiddie-friendly movie-licensed game after all, but it is. The platforming action provides light entertainment and, while never challenging to a veteran gamer, is just the right difficulty for its intended younger audience. My niece only stumbled a couple of times in the hour she was playing, which didn’t lead to frustration or cries of ‘help me get me through this bit’.

Larry’s tools of destruction, his flashlight and key chain, have been well implemented into the game. Larry’s key chain acts as a whip, enabling him to reach higher platforms, and his flashlight is given mystical powers by the golden tablet. As Larry collects the golden ingots (nine in total), which have been placed in different locations by the evil trio helping out Kahmunrah, Al Capone, Ivan the Terrible and Napoleon, more abilities are bestowed upon him. From repairing items to taming beasts, bringing paintings to life or calling down bolts of lightning to disable his foes, the powers are intuitive and more interesting than pressing X to hit enemies with a torch (which is how I assumed the combat would have been before I started playing it).

However some of the abilities are a wasted opportunity, as they either come too late in the game to be used more than a couple of times, or just aren’t as cleverly used as they could have been. The same goes for Al Capone, Ivan the Terrible and Napoleon. Here are three adversaries that could have added more depth and longevity to the game, but they do nothing other than appear in cut-scenes and make cameo appearances in game.

Larry doesn’t dally

Other than a tight deadline, I can’t see why more wasn’t done. Octavius (used once and only for two minutes) and Jebediah Smith could have provided another take on the gameplay; experiencing the museums as pint-sized heroes would have been interesting and very entertaining for the youngsters. There are also other characters that could have been used more (Teddy Roosevelt for example who, despite featuring on the back of the box, doesn’t appear for more than 30 seconds in a cut-scene).

In addition the mini-games are pointless and I can’t imagine anybody ever playing them more than the once that they have to in order to complete the game. Rotating stone columns and moving Trilobite’s into their correct position isn’t much fun the first time.

So you’re left with a game that provides surprisingly enjoyable family-friendly fun, but one that doesn’t last longer than four hours (five if you’re a child) and misses opportunity after opportunity. If Night at the Museum 2 lasted closer to eight hours, and capitalised on some of the missed opportunities, I’d have no problem in recommending it as a family-friendly title. Or even in its current form if it was an 800 (at maximum 1200) points purchase from the XBLA. Charging £29.99 is laughable though, much more so than Ben Stiller will ever be.