Where there's a film, there's a spin-off! It may sound cynical, but any cinematic blockbuster worth its popcorn salt is going to have at least one videogame tie-in, if not more. Like The Incredibles (XBW: 61%), Madagascar has both an activity-centre for the PC and an actual game for the consoles. But it's a jungle out there in the gaming market, does Activision's tie-in have what it takes to swing with the king?

If you weren't lucky enough to catch Madagascar in cinemas, the animated film is the latest Dreamworks production, who you'll probably know from their other hits Shrek and Shark's Tale. It tells the story of the pampered inhabitants of New York's Central Park zoo, and one Zebra's quest to visit the wild- which is apparently just a few subway-stops away! The movie has that Pixar-esque quality of being equally appealing to both kids and adults, but as we know all too well, this doesn't always equate to a surefire hit in the videogame world.

In the Madagascar game, players get to assume the roles of the four main mammals from the film: Alex the lion, Marty the Zebra, Gloria the Hippo and Melman the Giraffe. Each character has their own unique skillset that will aid you in your quest. Alex, as you'd expect, possesses a feline grace and athleticism that allows him to move faster and jump higher. The others are less conventional: Melman can, er, spin really fast and hover like a giant giraffe gyrocopter, while Gloria consumes hot chili-peppers to run super fast and smash things. Ok, so they've taken some liberties with the core cast of the movie, yet strangely enough maintains the feel of the film.

This is in no small part thanks to the authentic and interesting level design present in Madagascar. There are around a dozen areas to explore, and you'll get to revisit key sequences from the flick- things like busting out of the zoo and the subsequent sojourn through the streets of the Big Apple, for example. Other levels actually build on what you see in the movie, providing an alternative perspective on how the fantastic foursome got thrown overboard en route to their new home. Regardless of the setting, you'll always have a big list of objectives to accomplish in each level, aside from the usual collect X amount of Y item fare.

In fact, it's these secondary objectives that yield the most enjoyment from Madagascar. For instance, in the earlier levels you can find old-school arcade machines that transition you to mini-game replicas of timeless classics, and getting a high score on these vintage videogames is one of your checklist objectives. Others will see you jumping through hoops- literally- or beating other brief distractions. While these can be just as fun, you'll be doing it mainly to collect the ever important in-game currency, which in this case are coins. Why talking animals value coins is anybodies guess'though I'd hazard a guess that it has something to do with feeding them into those arcade machine slots!

At any rate, coins can be used to purchase unlockable goodies at the Zoo-venier shop, which, oddly enough, is staffed by the faeces-flinging monkeys from the film. There are three main categories in which to spend your hard earned dosh: mini-games, apparel and extras. Apparel takes Madagascar into even more bizarre territory by allowing you to play dress up with the playable characters, adding hats, shoes, glasses and other trendy accessories to their fine fur getups. Extras, sadly enough, doesn't pertain to any cinefile goodies, and instead is used for more boring purposes: extra health, better powerups and a fairly useful coin-magnet.

The mini-games are where you'll want to spend most of your earnings however. There are three to unlock: Tiki Mini-golf, Shuffleboard and Lemur Rave, and each are entertaining multiplayer distractions in their own right. Although there's only one course, Tiki golf is the real highlight, and can support half a dozen players in a hot-seat mode, which makes it perfect for when someone brings their kids over and you need a distraction. Shuffleboard is what you'd expect really, while the Lemur Rave is a dancing mini-game that requires you to time button-presses with the corresponding icons on the screen. Each game has a heap of extra unlockables too- more players for golf, more songs for the Lemur Rave, and new shuffleboard, er, boards to shuffle on.

Thanks to these mini-games, Madagascar has a much longer lifespan than it should have, weighing in at only 5-7 hours playtime for the average gamer. It may seem short, but it's well designed and enjoyable, which is ultimately has got to be better than an artificially padded-out title. And for completists, earning every single coin (and thus every unlockable goodie the game has to offer) will pose quite a challenge too.

Visually, Madagascar is about what you'd expect from a cross-platform game based on a popular movie. It looks the part and feels authentic, but doesn't even come close to pushing the Xbox to its limits, and there's nothing that stands out either. Like so many platformers, Madagascar also suffers from a shoddy in-game camera, in this case on that just pans way too slow, and still manages to get stuck on objects and corners. Oddly enough, there's not that many movie clips in the game, unlike the Star Wars: Episode III (XBW: 70%) game which made extensive use of film footage. Stranger still because the game's narrative follows the film so closely, that there are sequences rendered using the in-game graphics that are almost frame-by-frame replicas of the movie.

It all becomes much more depressing when the audio kicks in however: not a single actor from the film reprises their role for the game. And although the faux-fatales sound passably like the real deal, the whole exercise feels a bit cheap really. The dialogue is pretty good though, and the fun flavour of the film is never lost. Like the voices, the music doesn't quite gel, providing an odd blend of techno jungle beats that is only vaguely reminiscent of the film. At the end of the day, it doesn't spoil the game, though it does detract a little from the experience. If only Ali G had put in an appearance singing 'I Like To Move It'!

Madagascar is a pretty decent platform/adventure game, one that is probably better suited to younger kids than anyone else. It probably won't provide enough of a challenge for the 8+ group, especially if they're young verterans of videogaming. Nevertheless, it's amusing and fun, and the mini-game distractions should keep them occupied even when they beat the game. The Tiki golf is especially fun, and is something you can play with them for 10-15 minutes if you're so inclined. Still, you'd probably be better off hiring it for the weekend than shelling out the big bucks for it, just in case they find it as easy as us old hands will.