The Adventures of Tintin: The Game

The Adventures of Tintin: The Game
Image caption	PlayStation 3 cover art
Developer	Ubisoft Montpellier
Publisher	Ubisoft
Released	EU=October 21, 2011, NA=December 6, 2011
Genre	Action-adventure
Platform	PlayStation 3, PC, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (known as The Adventures of Tintin: The Game in North America) is an action-adventure video game based on the film The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. The game was developed by Ubisoft Montpellier together with the producers of the film, and published by Ubisoft. The version was published by Gameloft.

Plot

The Flea Market

The game begins when Snowy wanders away from Tintin, who is checking out a stall, and sniffs out the model of the Unicorn. Tintin then notices that Snowy is missing, and calls out to him. After Snowy finds Tintin again, Snowy leads Tintin to the stall where he discovered the Unicorn model. Tintin likes the model, and because Snowy looks so excited about it, he asks how much it costs. The stall owner says about seventy, and Tintin pays fifty, but the stall owner doesn't mind. Then, somebody cuts in and asks how much money it costs. When the stall owner answers, "I'm afraid you're too late. It's already been sold," he turns to Tintin and says that he will pay ten times as much as he paid the stall owner. When Tintin refuses, the man becomes frustrated and attempts to take the model from Tintin. Tintin holds on to the model, and then the man, one of the Bird Brothers, Max, gives up and walks away. A person reading a newspaper follows him.

The shop owner then asks Tintin to follow him, and leads Tintin to another man with a lot of books. The man sees the Unicorn, and brings out a book about it, called "The Unicorn, a Legacy of Failure." There is a picture of Sir Francis Haddock on the last page. Tintin then buys the book, as well.

Tintin goes to an alley, followed by Snowy, and places the Unicorn model on a trash can. He studies the model, and notices that there are markings on the sail. He looks at the book he bought, and notices a picture on the bottom left corner. It is a sail with an arrow around it. Tintin then discovers that he can turn the sails and make a picture. After he turns the sails, a picture is formed (at a certain point of view). The back opens, revealing a compartment, which holds a box, and inside the box is a scroll with a several numbers on it.

Then, Max, who had wanted the ship model, walks past the alleyway, and spies Tintin. He stops the two other people walking with him. He then tells one of the men, Nestor, to go get the ship model. Nestor tip-toes toward Tintin, then knocks the ship out of Tintin's hand. Nestor catches the Unicorn model, and runs away with Max and the other man. Tintin pursues them, but Max sends men to slow Tintin down, and it works. By the time Tintin defeats them, Max and the model are gone. But in the rush, Max drops his hat, giving Snowy the means to take Tintin to Marlinspike.

Marlinspike

Snowy and Tintin come to Marlinspike Hall. After climbing over the walls, Tintin runs to the front door, but decides that entering the front door is too dangerous, so he goes to one of the side doors. It is also locked. Then, Snowy chases a rat, and Tintin follows. Snowy follows the rat scent to a hole too small for Tintin, so Snowy goes in. Snowy finds a passage that leads to a door, and steps on a button, opening the door for Tintin. The door leads to an underground passage to Marlinspike, but the Bird Brothers are aware of it and have it guarded. After Tintin gets into the house, he notices the Bird Brothers going to the Naval Room, and then taking an elevator down. Tintin follows, and ends up in a dark room. Luckily, he has a flashlight. When he gets back out, he makes his way to the Naval Room. The Bird Brothers find him in there and attack him. Tintin defeats them and takes the key from Max. After he looks for both the Unicorns, (one of them is his) the Bird Brothers escape from Tintin, taking the scroll with them. Tintin follows, only to be chased by car. After Tintin is led to a dead end, the Bird Brothers think they have won. But just then, somebody knocks out the Bird Brothers. Tintin is about to thank them, when one of the men says that they have found the scroll. Behind Tintin, another man knocks Tintin cold.

After they drive away with the Bird Brothers' scroll and Tintin, Snowy decides to follow, after hiding from the men.

Karaboudjan

Snowy come to the ship Karaboudjan and enter it. Tintin wakes up and see he is in a cell. A man named Allan Thompson enter in the cell and force Tintin to say where is his scroll, but he refused. Allan decided to keep Tintin on cell and wait he talks. Snowy enter the cell and freed Tintin, they escape of the cell and goes to the control room where Allan was, on the way, he finds Captain Archibald Haddock, the former captain of the ship. Tintin arrived on the control room and confronts Allan. After a tough battle, Tintin beats him and takes the scroll of the Bird Brothers and a photography of Allan. He goes back to Haddock's room and asked if he is an ancestor of Sir Francis Haddock. He tells an story of the attack of the Unicorn by Red Rackham, he figured he was to confront the pirates and destroys the energy of the ship, which causes the ship sink. Tintin, Snowy and Haddock escape and fly on a seaplane, but Allan and his men escape too. Haddock said Tintin that Allan's boss was in the city of Baghar on Morocco, so they fly to Africa.

Bagghar

Tintin, Snowy and Haddock fly to Africa, but the plane crashed and fall on the desert. Two men approach them in a motorcycle with a side car. They are Allan's men, and plan to bring Tintin to the city of Baghar to meet with Allan's boss. Haddock knocks them unconscious and he, Tintin and Snowy steal their motorcycle and head to Baghar to continue their quest to stop Allan. In Bagghar, they discover that Omar Ben Salaad has the third model Unicorn and he is Allan's boss. After getting into his palace, they meet Bianca Castafiore, who is staging a concert there. Tintin finds out that Salaad wants to get the third scroll. After a fight with Allan, Tintin gets the third scroll and now has all the scrolls. Haddock tells Tintin that after the attack of the Unicorn, one of the servants of Red Rackham, Diego the Dreadful said "We'll follow you all the way to your accursed island in Brittany!". So Tintin and Haddock identified as Sir Francis' hideout and fly to the island of Brittany, in France.

Brittany

They land in the island, they find a way in on the caves. After they reach the castle of the island, Tintin confronts Allan again and beats him. He finds Haddock in a dungeon, they active two buttons in the ceiling and the wall opens. Behind the wall was a secret room that had old scrolls and a picture of Sir Francis Haddock. One of the those scrolls, have the Unicorn and and underneath it said "It is from the light that light will dawn". They put the three scrolls near the light from a candle and saw that the numbers were directions. When they try to leave the island, Allan caught Haddock and he told Tintin to give scrolls in exchange for the life of Haddock. Tintin gave the scrolls to Allan and he sent Haddock to the sea, but Tintin saves him. Haddock calculated the direction of the scrolls and found that they will give to Marlinspike Hall, He and Tintin left the island and flew to Marlinspike.

Back to Marlinspike

Tintin, Snowy and Haddock go to the Naval Room and they found a secret passage, but before they continue their way, the Bird Brothers, the butlers, some of Allan's men and some of Ben Salaad's men attack them, but they beat them and down the secret passage. Allan and his men, that they were halfway confront Haddock with swords, Haddock beats them and they free to continue their way.They found the treasure and a scroll of Charles II, Thomson and Thompson, who were there arrest Allan, his men and the Bird Brothers.

Bosses (Tintin Mode)

• Allan
• William (Francis Haddock history level)
• Diego the Dreadful (Francis Haddock history level)
• Red Rackham (Francis Haddock history level)

Mini-Bosses (Tintin Mode)

• Bird Brothers
• The Cook (Francis Haddock history level)

Bosses (Tintin & Haddock Mode)

• Red Rackham
• Red Rackham's galleon
• Red Rackham and his galleon

Mini-Bosses (Tintin & Haddock Mode)

• Castafiore's head
• Thompson's head
• Sir Francis Haddock's head

Differences from the Film

It is evident that the game's main campaign is based on an earlier version of the film's story, as there are multiple factors that contrast with what the film possessed, which include the following, but not limited to:

• The Birds Brothers from the original Secret of the Unicorn book appear and are still featured as antagonists, whereas in the film they were completely removed from the story's plotline.
• In the game, Tintin learns about The Unicorn's history as well as the Haddock family's from the naval shopkeeper featured in Red Rackham's Treasure sharing a book about them at the flea market, whereas in the film, Tintin learns about The Unicorn himself at naval library and museum.
• Sakharine does not appear at all in the game, neither as an antagonist or how he was portrayed in the original Secret of the Unicorn book.
• Allan and the rest of the Karaboudjan crew still work for Ben Salaad like how they did in The Crab with the Golden Claws book, except unlike in the book or film, Ben Salaad wants to seize the three scrolls of the Unicorn models so he can get ahold of the treasure himself.
• Haddock is never seen being drunken by alcohol in the game, instead it is just said he is heavily grounded on board the Karaboudjan.
• The galleon flashback levels of the game take place at day like in the original Secret of the Unicorn book, whereas in the film the galleon flashback scenes take place at night.
• Diego the Dreadful appears in one of the galleon levels, but does not appear in the film.
• In the game, the Karaboudjan sinks thanks to Haddock heavily damaging it while reenacting his ancestor's events, while in the film it never does plunge.
• Tintin, Haddock, and Snowy travel to Bagghar onboard a motorcycle and sidecar while being chased by goons working for Ben Salaad, whereas in the film they travel on camels and are never chased down.
• A character named Mohamed, a resident of Bagghar, appears as a former shipmate and old friend of Haddock, similar to that of Captain Chester from The Shooting Star. However, he does not appear at all in the film.
• The island of Brittany appears as a level and major location in the game, but did not appear at all in the film.
• The final battle and confrontation of the game takes place at Marlinspike Hall rather than the docks, where it instead took place at in the film.
• Thompson and Thomson only appear at the very end of the game, whereas in the film they appeared frequently throughout its story.

Reception

The PC, PSP, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii versions of the game received mixed reviews. Reviewing the Xbox 360 version, IGN wrote that "Tintin only has itself to blame for its shortcomings: for every exciting moment there's a turgid interlude which drags the overall experience down. While these distractions are more tedious bore than hair-pulling aggravation there's no doubt their omission would've made for a tighter and ultimately better game. By shoe-horning variety into the game it loses its focus, which combined with silly game design decisions – the dogfights really should've been left on the drawing board – and a handful of game-breaking bugs –Tintin crashed on more than one occasion during review – it's hard to recommend this to anyone other than diehard fans of both the comics and the movie." They awarded the game a score of 6.5 out of 10.

1UP.com described the game as "a frontrunner for Worst Game of 2011," and gave it a D. Eurogamer called the game "clever and deeply charming" but criticised the parts of the game that diverged away from its platforming core; "all of these interludes provide a little variety, but they're unconvincing in execution and a bore to play through." The co-op play was singled out for praise and described as "absolutely magnificent." Edge awarded the game 6/10 and raised similar points as the Eurogamer review. It also praised the quality of the graphics and level design.

However, the iOS and Android version received generally positive reviews from critics. On Metacritic they received a score of 84/100. Gamezebo gave the iOS version a glowing review, giving it a score of 100 and stating that "Gameloft's pulled out all the stops this time, and the result is a masterpiece of an adventure game, one that combines the point and click adventure elements with the best uses of an iOS device's attributes."App-Score gave the iOS version 9/10, also praising the features.