MadCap's Game Reviews - "Doctor Who: TARDIS"

In Doctor Who, the TARDIS is a technological marvel. Standing for Time and Relative Dimension in Space, the Doctor stole it a long, long time ago from his native Gallifrey and - while it always hasn't worked perfectly - he's been traveling through time and space in it ever since. But what is probably the most fantastic part about it is that it is bigger on the inside than the outside. From the outside, an onlooker sees nothing more than a simple blue box with a little light atop it. Once inside, however, the true nature of the TARDIS is revealed.

Indeed, within the TARDIS there have been rooms seen and mentioned such as the main console room, the library, the swimming pool, bedrooms, and so much more. Indeed, the inside of the TARDIS is almost a whole world all its own. Several of the television episodes have been set within the TARDIS, some using familiar rooms to the viewers and others still introducing new rooms with new functions entirely to add on to the closest thing the Doctor has to a home. So, naturally, a game set inside the TARDIS sounds like a neat time. The player could explore the depths of the place and perhaps get little nods to previous companions and delve into Doctor Who history as the other games have done in their own subtle way.

...and by "subtle way", I mean having collectible trading cards that are scattered around Skaro, an Arctic research base, and the TARDIS for some reason.

The plot picks up with Amy giving the Doctor grief for his regular bad choice of vacation spots, with him trying to find some way to not be sucked out of the TARDIS...and he gets sucked out of the TARDIS because...time wimey technobabble.

Yes, there's an explanation, but it's Doctor Who, it's ultimately not important to the story. See also: Every Doctor Who episode ever.

So, after the universe's worst game of charades, Amy is sent into the TARDIS's Drawing Room to find things to make a tractor beam and pull the Doctor back in. However, she unfortunately releases a time-eating entity known only as the Entity and when the Doctor gets pulled back in, he and Amy get separated by one thousand years. But when you've got a time machine, the distance of one thousand years is barely the blink of an eye and the Doctor gets to work on some jiggery pokery while Amy tries not to be eaten by the time-creature.

It may just be the fact that I'm playing these back to back, but I'm not overly fond of this one. The references are nice, but the game play has no real variations. Then again, it's all supposed to be in the same series, released relatively close together, so maybe it's better to think of the games as one big game altogether.

And in that case, it's alright. But I'm taking each separately so, yes, this game is good. Not all great, I still have problems with the character models, and I would have liked to known more about the Entity (which comes across as a proto-version of House from The Doctor's Wife), and I would have liked to see more of the TARDIS, but those are relatively minor complaints. The puzzles are starting to grate on me however, largely because they aren't puzzles. There's really no challenge to them, even if you do have to use trial and error - which you shouldn't - to solve them.

What this game does give is a chance to learn just what some of the things on the famous TARDIS console do. One of the trademarks of the show has always been the Doctor running in a seemingly hapzard manner around the console to manipulate the various levers, buttons, and switches to keep the big blue box flying, so it's kind of interesting to see just what it is he's doing when he's doing all of that,

Other than that, not too much to say. Less story than last time and less locale as well, Doctor Who has done more with less and what we do get is admittedly very nice.

Doctor Who: TARDIS is now available from BBC and BBC Wales Interactive.

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