When it comes to movie tie-in games, it seems like the categories ignore good and jump straight into bad or ugly. Admittedly they sometimes get it right - standouts like The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay or King Kong spring to mind - but sadly these titles are the exception to the general rule that all gamers know to be true: games based on your favourite flicks invariably suck. Hard.

So when it was announced that Ubisoft were handling the movie-to-game translation of Open Season, an animated animal revenge film about furry forest friends fighting back against human hunters, nobody did much aside from sigh dramatically. Our early hands on with the game was surprisingly positive, with the game showing a lot of polish and promise, even if it was a little too simplistic for most grown-up gamers to enjoy. So now that the forest is open to hunters and punters alike, how does the finished version of Open Season stack up?

Quite well it would seem. Open Season is hardly a next-gen posterboy or the new must-have for hardcore gamers, but as a kid's title based on a movie, it hits pretty much every mark it needs to. It sticks close to the source material, allowing the player to relive key moments of the film, while also adding a few new areas and unseen aspects to keep you interested. The story, as it is, revolves around a domesticated grizzly bear named Boog who lives with the town ranger, getting hand-fed treats, sleeping in a nice warm bed, and occasionally busting out some moves for the local kids in the town of Timberline's nature show.

It's a comfortable existence, and one is Boog is quite happy with, that is until he finds a one-antlered deer strapped to the hood of the town's resident bad-ass hunter. The poor critter isn't dead, and against his better judgement (or just to get him to shut up), Boog sets him free. Later that night, Eliot the one-antlered deer pops around with the midnight munchies, and the pair raid a convenience store. The rest, as they say, is history, and Boog winds up in the wild without a clue what to do, with only a fast-talking buck to help. It's your quintessential opposites-attract buddy story that works quite well on the big screen, and it translates reasonably well into the game as well.

Open Season is essentially an adventure game with lite stealth elements and a bunch of mini-games thrown into the mix. You'll play as Boog for most of the game, and to advance through levels you'll be called upon to scare the pants off hunters. There's a few ways to do this, which include sneaking up on them (disguising yourself as a tree if they look your way!) and letting rip with a bear-sized roar, or by simply terrorising them with your fellow furry friends until they can take it no more and run away screaming. You can have a lot more fun doing it this way: throw a skunk-bomb at them to unleash a malodorous miasma, set up squirrel sentries in trees to pelt poachers with nuts, or just throw Eliot at them as a distraction in a pinch.

In addition to these levels, Ubisoft have aimed to create a bit of variety with a few one-off unique missions throughout the course of the game. Things like riding a mine-cart or navigating rapids on the roof of an outhouse dunny add a bit of flavour to the proceedings, as do the few shooting missions, which include using a bra as a slingshot to lob hedgehogs, or spearing cans of fizzy-drink to turn them into rockets. You also get to play as Eliot in a few missions as well, and these are the closest the game comes to being a platformer in the truest sense. His missions are a lot of fun, and make for a nice change of pace from Boog's scare-centric adventures.

Yet despite all this, it must be said that there really isn't a whole lot of variety to the mechanics of the game, and while scaring the hunters is novel at first, it eventually becomes totally routine and almost boring. Scaring them all is essential if you want to unlock the Achievements for the game however, and you'll need to scare the bulk of them anyway if you want to accrue the Wild Points that allow Boog to learn new and useful abilities. These include more health and a scarier roar, as well as allowing you to use Eliot as a scare projectile among other things.

These only serve to make the game even easier, and for your average gamer, beating Open Season will take 4-6 hours tops. There's no option to change the default difficulty setting either, so it will always be an incredibly easy game to complete. This probably works in its favour for targeting the younger audience, but there's little here for veteran gamers aside from an easy 1000 Gamerscore points. The collectibles are almost insultingly easy to find, and even the inclusion of half a dozen party-style multiplayer minigames don't do a lot to extend the longevity of the title.

The saving grace is that Open Season does what it sets out to do in a professional and well-polished manner. It's not a cheap cash-in title, but rather a genuine attempt at making a great game for young Xbox'ers. The graphics look fantastic on the Xbox 360, not quite as good as the big-screen CGI but an impressive doppelganger nevertheless. The framerate is rock-solid throughout the game and there's no ugly bugs, clipping or glitches to speak of. The audio is of a similar pedigree; rather than give Martin Lawrence more money he doesn't deserve, Ubisoft earn kudos for employing imitation voice-talent who do a decent but not stellar job or verbalising all the characters from the film. The soundtrack is authentic and although it lacks variety, serves its purpose well.

Parental Perspective: Open Season is one of the few games on the Xbox 360 at this time that can claim to really be made with younger children in mind. Kids from 5-10 should probably get a real kick out of this game, especially if they enjoyed the film. It's not too hard and the game provides on-screen hints if you get stuck, so it shouldn't cause too much frustration. By collecting Ranger Badges in the game, Open Season unlocks some fun facts about the forest, its inhabitants, and other eco-minded trivia about recycling and such, which also makes it one of the only games on Xbox 360 that has any kind of educational angle too. All this combined with the lower-than-usual price-tag means Open Season should be at the top of your list when hunting for titles for your cubs.