'Code': Misery Trumps Mystery

"The Da Vinci Code" is an uninspired Hollywood rip-off. (2K Games)

After a lackluster film outing (in terms of quality, not box office gross), "The Da Vinci Code" video game brings more disappointment to Dan Brown fans.

What's the purpose of a movie-based game if the actors' likenesses and voices aren't used? Not only does the video game's Robert Langdon not look like Tom Hanks, he doesn't even sport the same long hair that made headlines. And Sophie Neveu's hair is red, which goes against both the book and the film. The voice actors are not sound-alikes, which is the way most game companies save money without the talent onboard, but they're not even good voice actors, a major problem considering the game's heavy reliance on monotonous dialogue.

Of course, gameplay is the key to any game, so even with Hanks onboard, gamers would get a really bad Hollywood rip-off of a good book. The graphics in this game don't live up to PS2 or Xbox standards these days. The game employs an archaic mano-a-mano fighting mechanic that requires players to beat up one bad guy before moving on to the next, which doesn't make any sense considering that multiple enemies always attack at once. Adding to the frustration, to knock out an enemy you must hit buttons in a certain order uninterrupted (something that the other enemies rarely allow you to do).

Beyond the poor fighting gameplay, there are plenty of puzzles, anagrams and riddles. These involve such tasks as using a black light to unlock symbols on the Mona Lisa or mixing chemicals to clean a painting. The game's linear story is aimed at the mass-market fans of the novel, but the uninspired gameplay and tedious art history lessons would bore even a symbologist.

-- John Gaudiosi

The Da Vinci Code Xbox, PS2 ($40); PC ($30) 2K Games/The Collective