The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn – review

First things first: you can play as Captain Haddock. For fans, this already makes The Adventures of Tintin a game of the year contender. Happily, it's also a cut above the average movie tie-in. This isn't immediately apparent from the story mode, which intersperses platforming sequences with a range of variably successful mini-games – waggling a cutlass to repel pirates as an ancestral Haddock is a lark; the aquaplane sequences less so. The real mileage, however, is in Tintin and Haddock mode, which sees one or two players romping through the captain's addled subconscious, collecting costumes and characters. While it's obviously pitched at younger gamers, more able players will enjoy the secrets and surrealistic flourishes. Some bits, such as the confrontation with Bianca Castafiore's disembodied, manically warbling head, seem as much inspired by author Tom McCarthy's psychoanalytic take on Tintin as much as anything Hergé wrote. Unexpectedly good fun.