Nintendo The Golden Compass - Nintendo Wii

Where would videogame developers be without the humble Christmas Hollywood blockbuster? At the end of each year we witness a raft of kiddy-friendly cinematic hits, each fighting for the attention of the youngsters. With an almost depressing inevitably these are usually followed by a flood of videogame tie-ins, which unsurprisingly often turn out to be sub-par rush jobs programmed as fast as possible so they can cash in on the hype generated by the release of whatever movie they’re based on. Sadly, despite the almost uniform crapness of these games, they continue to sell like hotcakes.

The Wii version of The Golden Compass will undoubtedly shift a fair few copies. The movie on which it’s based, for those of you that care, is in turn inspired by a children’s fantasy novel penned by Philip Pullman; it’s the usual hokum that we’ve slowly grown accustomed to over the past few years - although to be honest after the excesses of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter we’re growing a little tired of this kind of caper. Sadly, we don’t even slightly resemble the target audience so our opinion of this popcorn event is pretty much useless.