Welcome to my review of The Grinch: Christmas Adventures. This game is brought to us by developers Casual Brothers Games (Evil Dead: The Game) and is published by Outright Games (Jumanji Wild Adventures, TRANSFORMERS EARTHSPARK EXPEDITION).
It is available now on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC for a reasonable price of up to £35.
Trophy hunters will also be pleased to know that the platinum trophy in this game is pretty easily obtained.
The Game
If you don’t know the story of The Grinch, you really should get to that sooner rather than later. The Grinch is a solitary creature whose heart is two sizes too small and is a cranky so and so. His home is in the mountains and overlooks the town of Whoville where the Whos live. Our nasty green character plots to stop Christmas coming to Whoville and so on and so forth.
There are a few movies for it which are great, and I’m not actually sure if there’s any other Grinch games. But here we are with the latest game based upon The Grinch. For the purpose of my review, I was kindly sent a PlayStation 5 copy of the game.
It’s tailored to be completely family friendly, and better yet, it has two player local co-op. One of you can control The Grinch whilst the other can control his trusty dog, Max. If there’s only one player playing, control can easily be switched around between either character with the tap of L1. Simple enough.
The levels are set around the adventures of The Grinch and players must progress through each level using their puzzle solving skills. On top of that, there are a few different abilities that can be unlocked whilst playing through the game. My favourite is the candy cane lasso which is used to swing across large gaps or reach higher places.
Not The Gumdrop Buttons!
Some of the levels in the game involve you to creep around inside houses to grab presents and puzzle pieces. Whilst creeping around, if you make some noise, there is a detection bar that fills up. If this fills to the max, the gingerbread people inside of the house will start chasing after you. My wife was actually scared during this whilst a gingerbread person was chasing her. I was just laughing at how funny her reaction was. I must add, this wasn’t scary at all.
The graphics of the game have the style of the Dr Seuss book a lot of us love, and it translates very well into a game in my opinion. The sound effects in The Grinch: Christmas Adventures are rather basic, but they fit the style of the game. Not only that, but we must also remember this game is built with children in mind. So, they’re not going to go and use an expensive game engine with top of the range sound effects when it’s not really needed.
This all helps keep the cost of the game down on launch. You may be thinking “£35 on launch, that sounds like it’s going to be rubbish.”. Whilst that is kind of the case, it really isn’t. I had great fun playing this with my wife who really does not like video games, and even more, I played it with my niece who is nearly three years old at the time of writing. That’s something I’ll always remember.
There’s enough content in this game to warrant the price tag to be honest. Even more, the game is quite enjoyable for those of all ages.
Conclusions
The Grinch: Christmas Adventures is actually not a bad game at all. Both my wife and I had fun playing it together, and my little two-year-old niece wants to play it every time she sees me. “Oh no it’s a fider” is one of the most rememberable phrases I’ve heard from her, and yes, she says fider and not spider, bless her.
Overall, this is a great game for all the family to play together and take turns. If you’re keen to buy the game, you can visit the official site for more information.
I score The Grinch: Christmas Adventures an 8/10.
A code was kindly provided for us to review this.
