The big green ogre's back again in another movie-based videogame, this time under the guise of Shrek The Third. Obviously this game is one for the kids, rated at PG, so it's not really going to appeal to those of you with more mature tastes in videogames. But don't be put off, as it's still a fairly fun game that sees you taking control of the movie's major characters and then beating the hell out of everyone who stands in your way!

The game sees you following the same storyline as the film - I don't want to ruin anything here for those of you who haven't seen it yet, so I'll avoid going into much detail, other than to say it's a fun story with plenty of laughs along the way. You take control of Shrek and his friends as they run around trying to save the kingdom of Far Far Away. You get to control previous movie characters like Shrek, Donkey, Puss in Boots and Fiona, plus you also get to take control of two new characters from the latest movie, Arthur and the Sleeping Beauty.

What's nice is that the characters have different attacks and abilities. Whereas Shrek uses brute force to get past obstacles, Puss in Boots relies on speed and his agility to get around. Unfortunately, you don't get to choose who you want to play as at certain trigger points in the game; you have to switch to another character. The game is a mix of adventure and action, with a good dose of platform frolics thrown in. You'll find yourself running around various areas relating to the movie, jumping around from platform to platform and, more often than anything else, just beating up anyone who crosses your path. The cut scenes in the game are presented as a puppet show, which tells the story behind the next level - there's not much fancy CGI here, just a very twisted and mashed up fable.

You go around levels smashing boxes, barrels and crates (known as thingies) to collect the 'pixie dust' that comes out, a substance that falls out of defeated enemies too. This pixie dust gets added to your pixie meter, which allows you to perform some special moves. Each character has their own special moves; Shrek can either use part of his meter to stomp his foot on the floor, sending the enemies around him flying, or he can use all of his dust and slow down time like the bullet-time effects from The Matrix. At the same time, you're given the task of finding various objects within the levels; for example, you might be asked to find five golden hooks, or ten silver mugs. When collected, these give you some extra money at the end of the level.

Each level has a mini-boss from a different children's fable that requires different methods of defeating. You also come up against evil characters from the movie, such as Prince Charming, the Evil Trees and the terrifying Ice Dragon. Unfortunately, the game is totally linear though; there's only one route to the end, with no alternate paths to explore. Whilst some levels do have areas leading away from the main path, you'll only find some boxes and coins or other collectibles before having to get back on track. This is a shame, as games are becoming more and more open-ended these days, and it would have been nice to see Shrek follow suit. But as this is a traditional style action adventure, it's not that big a deal.

Shrek The Third also features some other modes, namely a multiplayer mode, and a handful of mini-games that you can access from the main menu. Oddly enough, the mini-games section contains some games that you can play with others, so I have no idea why they weren't just added to the multiplayer area. Under multiplayer mode, you and a friend can play a game where you use a catapult to knock down the other person's castle. The mini-games are so great that they can be more fun than the main game! Here you're be placed in different situations, like pirate invaders sailing their ships towards the beach you're on, and you're given the task of blowing them to smithereens with your trusty cannon.

Coming back to the main game and it looks great. The characters and the environment sport vivid shades of colour, the visuals reproducing the style of the film very well. It's undoubtedly going to attract kids, which probably means you're not going to get to play anything else on your console for a while! However, the quality isn't that great for a 360 game - it smacks of being originally designed for the PlayStation 2 and ported across without enhancement, as is the case with so many movie tie-ins. Whilst it looks fairly good, it's nowhere near reaching the potential of the Xbox 360's massively powerful architecture, which again is a crying shame when it's a full price offering.

The sound fails to really impress too; the music is basic at the best of times and the sound effects quickly grow old and stale. This only redeeming point for the audio is that it features some of the actual voices from the film's A-list celebrity actors. Even then however, most of the voices are performed by soundalikes, where the actual celebrity voices weren't used. In this respect it's a poor showing for a huge box-office movie spin-off game.

Even worse than the average sound and underpowered visuals is the frustratingly poor game camera. Honestly, you'd think that in this day and age where the videogames industry is worth billions of pounds that big name developers like Activision would at least manage to get the camera right. But wow this is an utter disappointment -and enough reason for me to warrant dropping a point or two from the overall score. Seriously, the number of times the camera just gets stuck, or doesn't show you where to go next, or changes mid-air whilst you are jumping from platform to platform is enough to make even an accountant go mad.

Unlike most games, Shrek The Third doesn't have a user-controllable camera, instead it moves of its own accord whenever you reach a trigger point in the level. For example, you might run into an area where you see a platform above you, and the camera moves up a little to show you more of the platform. Combine this with the camera moving around whilst you're mid-air in a jump and you'll quickly see why I nearly ripped the disc drive tray out of my Xbox 360 just to get this game away from me at times. Just imagine jumping towards a platform, then the camera moving stupidly to the area you're jumping to, so the direction of your jump is suddenly reversed and you end up back where you started. I'm not usually easily annoyed, but this really did get on my last nerve. What makes it worse still is that the unwieldy camera prevents you from getting 'perfect' levels (no deaths), and hence prevents you from getting some of the game's achievements.

I'd have liked to have seen some more attacks too; I hate it when button mashing inevitably gets you through the entire game. Throughout this whole game I might have pressed the block button twice - once during the tutorial and again when I tried to perform a special move and pressed the wrong button. It's seriously that easy. Just run into an area, wait for the bad guys to run towards you and then let rip by mashing the X button to beat your opponents into submission. You might want to press B on occasion to add a powerful attack, but that's it. The fighting here has about as much depth as a kiddies' paddling pool!

Shrek The Third is a brilliantly funny movie, as anyone who's watched it will attest, but the game leaves a lot to be desired by comparison. It's a decent game that's poorly implemented in places and unfortunately suffers from the condition that nearly all movie-based games suffer from. The symptoms usually consist of average graphics (unless you own a previous-gen console), no new storyline (everything's from the film) and an awkward camera control system (because the game's been rushed to be released at the same time as the movie). It is due to these shortcomings that I'd say it's better to leave this game Far Far Away! Unless of course you're six years old and love Shrek, then maybe you could bug your parents to rent it out for you.

Reviewed by Harmz Singh for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).