Christmas Stories 2: A Christmas Carol

Christmas Stories: A Christmas Carol
by Elephant Games - December, 2013

Series links: Christmas Stories 1: Nutcracker, Christmas Stories 2: A Christmas Carol, Christmas Stories 3: Hans Christian Andersen's Tin Soldier

Available at:
Big Fish as Collector's Edition /



Everyone deserves a second chance – even the stingiest of them all.

Your Uncle Scrooge asks for your help, but some friendly Christmas ghosts have other plans for him… and you. Undo the bad turns in his life as your uncle’s alter egos work either with – or against – you to change the man’s fate once and for all.

The Collector’s Edition includes:

• Help Sherlock Cat find Santa Cat in the bonus game!
  
• Animate objects with Good Scrooge’s help
  
• Earn fun achievements and find penguin collectibles
  
• Get soundtracks, wallpapers, screensavers, and concept art
  
• Use the available Strategy Guide
  

Click images to enlarge
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Christmas Stories 2: A Christmas Carol

   

BASED ON DEMO


FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Be honest. Every one of you who played A Nutcracker Story is buying this game, sight unseen if necessary. I certainly am. 20 of my favourite reviewers could tell me it’s rubbish and I’d still have to own it – even if just for the wallpapers! Which are cool, btw, and some of the concept art is interesting too.

SIGHTS & SOUNDS

Beautifully crafted in loving detail, the best effort from some of the best game artists around. The images glow, and I swear, even before I got past the intro cutscenes I was feeling a little less “bah humbug” than I usually am by nature *cheeky wink*. The colourful and festive locations in the pristine beauty of a white Christmas I can only imagine (Australia, remember) just make me instantly more mellow. The cut scenes are the usual gorgeous, the animations sometimes even spectacular.

The music is stunning. I don’t know if it’s adapted classical like the last Christmas Stories, but it is delicate and fine and reminds me of an very expensive music box, complete with dancing figure. The voiceovers are fun.

And that is probably, with all this splendour, the finest feature of all – humour! The ghosts are funny!

WHAT’S HAPPENING

Your evil and miserly uncle seems to be having an existential moment, perhaps wondering who’ll be at his funeral, and writes to you for help. He’s asleep when you arrive, but the good Scrooge ghost is there to let you know you can save your uncle, if you save him from the bad choices he has made in his life. He then becomes your “cute offsider” for this game. A little later, you’ll meet bad Scrooge, and the dialogue between them is very amusing and I am really looking forward to more.

MAKING PROGRESS

Few HOPs so far, interactive list, bright colourful and imaginative. Imaginative puzzles as well. More of them, but not hard. There is an interactive jump map, which is very helpful and a hint that shows you the correct location and you can jump to it from there. There is also a journal, and of course, the Strategy Guide. It is all balanced nicely for an easy-ish game, but with 4 difficulty modes, there’s certainly plenty to make it harder. I’m of the “no strain, no pain” philosophy, forget that “no strain, no gain” mob, why aren’t they off playing something really hard – like maybe... Flight Simulator? *sorry, I’m a jolly mood tonight*.

CE BLING!

For these details, the game page says it all:

Help Sherlock Cat find Santa Cat in the bonus game! Oh how I loved the cats in the first game of the series!

Fun achievements (including one at least that is going to tickle your fancy),penguin collectibles (34), all different to look at

Get soundtracks (5) wallpapers (12) screensavers (2) concept art (12)
Use the available Strategy Guide

IN BRIEF

You couldn’t pay me to ignore this game!

I Recommend This Game!

JustTheFacts wrote:  ...I’m of the “no strain, no pain” philosophy, forget that “no strain, no gain” mob, why aren’t they off playing something really hard – like maybe... Flight Simulator? *sorry, I’m a jolly mood tonight*.
...

IN BRIEF

You couldn’t pay me to ignore this game! ...

LOL, JTF!  

Bonus Content Review!  
    

BASED ON COMPLETED GAME

BONUS CHAPTER

The main game was very long, and the bonus chapter was longer than most, but not excessive. It involves an entirely different quest from the rest of the game, with entirely new characters – yup, the cats – but mostly the same locations. The locations are existing ones, with only a couple of new ones, and only a little has been done to revamp them. Perhaps all the effort went into the creation of those entirely new cats. They are great, smart and beautiful!

The puzzles and HOPs were all new, of course, and the balance shifted a little in favour of HOPs.

STRATEGY GUIDE

The images were a bit fuzzy and sometimes the instructions in it were even less help than those in the game. Luckily, I didn’t need to use it much, except for a couple bamboozling puzzles. It stayed on the page where you left it.

The last chapter gives collectibles locations. This is a little frustrating, because there is a point in the game where you can’t go back to the beginning to collect the ones you missed. They were much harder than usual to find, too, because they were morphing objects, with their false image staying for a lot longer than their penguin selves, and you can only click them when they are penguins. I got one of my worst ever efforts, just on half the total!

WALLPAPERS (12), CONCEPT ART (12), SCREENSAVERS (2)

Elephant make the best wallpapers. They don’t just pick what seem to be random shots from the game that other developers do, they create them especially for the purpose of decorating your desktop. So they are much more attractive and suitable. Concept art, too, is excellent, showing progress from an initial idea towards final image. And you can save them.

MUSIC (5)
Unfortunately not the recognisable tunes from Nutcracker and traditional Christmas carols.

COLLECTIBLES & ACHIEVEMENTS
Morphing penguins (34), hard to notice and catch them. Lovely Xmas tree with hanging baubles, each representing an achievement. Many are quite tricky to get, but they are the usual performance based achievements.

This game does NOT have any replayable games, which I would say is a pity, but the game itself is so long, maybe not.

Despite no replayables, I am happy to rate this bonus content as 5 stars.