Imagine a delicious world filled with chocolaty treats. It's a world where every location is an organic, living, breathing environment that grows candy as if it were a fruit or a vegetable. "Junk food doesn't grow on trees," they say. But in this world all that you know has been replaced by all that you dream. If you could visit this world, pick gumballs off trees and scoop fresh candy off the ground, Willy knows you'd never want to leave. It is his factory, after all. Willy Wonka's factory. And today he's going to let you come inside for a visit, Golden Ticket in hand or not!

From the perspective of storytelling, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is pretty faithful to the movie. Years have passed since anyone has been seen going in or out of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. It appears that trucks enter and exit to pick up candy shipments, though that's never proven.

One day, for reasons you'll learn during the course of the film, Willy Wonka decides to give a few kids the chance of a lifetime. Purchase a Willy Wonka chocolate bar, enjoy the smooth texture and the rich milk chocolate taste, and you could win one of five Golden Tickets. When all but one of the tickets have been found, Charlie nearly gives up hope. He's one of the poorest children in the neighborhood. He can't afford a chocolate bar. Or can he?

Against all odds, a ten dollar bill blows in Charlie's direction! He runs after it, climbing over trucks and boxes to chase after it. Finally he grabs the bill and cashes it in for candy. Just as unlikely as it was for the ten dollar bill to appear, when he opens the chocolate bar he's in total disbelief: it's the last Golden Ticket!

From here Charlie enters the factory, which is where the first level begins. You do get a chance to control Charlie during his chase for the runaway bill, but it's more of a mini-game than an actual level.

The rest of Charlie's journey is not unlike the one Willy Wonka fans are used to, except this time it's set in an interactive world. Gameplay objectives had to be based on the movie and fit into the story, leaving the developers with few options to express their creativity. I'm sure you already know what I'm going to say next: a game that lacks creativity is barely a game.

That's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's biggest problem. In case you couldn't tell from the goofy box art, this game's appeal is not as broad as the novel or the movie. The target market is kids. Young kids (five or six) who have never played through a Sonic or Mario game before. I say this because Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is an action/adventure, minus the action or the adventuring. There's jumping, platform hopping, item collecting, and candy throwing. But there aren't any moments where you get to take on a task and complete it.

Almost every level is a repeat of the previous one. Environments are small and linear. The entire quest consists of finding Oompa-Loompas, who will follow you around until you tell them to go work on something. Their primary purpose is to fix machines, which they do automatically every time you press up on the directional pad. Charlie himself can throw candy at trees and other objects to release additional candy pieces. These pieces may be as common as a health replenish item, yet in some cases they are all you need to collect to pass a level. Additional items may be snatched, and even though many of them are easy to get to, your time would be better served elsewhere than being wasted on a virtual candy collection.

Candy power-ups let Charlie float, or turn robots into green clog balls, among other things. The balls can be thrown into pipes that are leaking what appears to be a toxic material. This is nothing new in the puzzle world, but the awkward, unreliable controls feel very foreign. Charlie and his ball must be completely still before it can be picked up. That's pretty crazy, considering this is a game for kids, and what do kids love to do? Run around. Wouldn't it have been great if they could have ran as much as they pleased, grabbed all the balls they could carry, and throw them without having to stop? If it could be done on the PSone it can certainly be done here.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's one redeeming feature comes from an unexpected place: its soundtrack. I spoke with the game's composer, Winifred Phillips, shortly before playing the game, and everything she said sounded incredible. It almost sounded too good to be true – can you think of any movie-based games that have a soundtrack that can compare to the film? A soundtrack that can stand on its own?

It may be the first time in the history of games, but Winifred has done it. Her dreamy, hypnotic themes will fill your ears with visions of sugar plums dancing in your head. There's a certain amount of peacefulness in the music. It's got a classic sound that's only found in old movies and musicals; a relaxing style that's comparable to bigger and better games, and should have been featured in something equally as entertaining as the magic that pours out of the speakers.

Like a colorful, sweet-smelling treat that tastes ultra-sour, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory leaves a lot to be desired. It's a kids' game, but who's to say that kids will enjoy a repetitious journey where nothing ever seems to happen? There's more eventfulness in the story – that's not something you can say about most games.

Gameplay: 4.0
Nothing to it. You don't get to fight larges bosses, solve mind-boggling puzzles, or search for hard-to-find items that have a purpose. You don't get to do any of the things that make an action/adventure game an action/adventure game. Your sole purpose for playing is to more or less relive the experience of the movie, only this time you're forced to complete boring objectives that were not a part of the original story.

Graphics: 6.0
Willy Wonka's world is appetizing, though not as delish as the eye candy presented in the film. The environments are bright, colorful and mimic film's worlds well. They don't, however, have the best animation, the most realistic character designs, or an accurate polygon depiction of Willy Wonka.

Sound: 9.0
Spellbinding music from God of War composer Winifred Phillips. Her choral creations are as complex as they are entertaining. Players of all ages will be delighted by its deep yet whimsical presentation, filling ears with soothing sounds not commonly heard in movie-based games. Expertly written, brilliantly composed.

Difficulty: Easy
Did I say easy? I meant SUPER easy.

Concept: 3.0
What a waste of a good license. Zero original ideas demonstrated. Zero original content. Zero anything! It's barely a game. Only the youngest, most devoted Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fans will get something out of it. But at some point in their life even they will get bored.

Overall: 5.0
Charlie and the Boring Factory. It's hard to make a fun game based around these kinds of properties, but that doesn't justify bad gameplay, or a lack thereof.