First off, if you haven't read the book, obviously I would suggest doing so. If you can bypass the terrible amount of media attention surrounding it. It's one of the better novels to come out in the past few decades.
Unfortunately, I can't say the same thing about the game. I saw this game at Blockbuster today and thought, what the hell, I might as well play it, even though I knew it wasn't going to be very good.
Thankfully, it was a little better than I thought.
To get the bad things out of the way first, the gameplay is horrible. You move entirely too slow and if you run for more than 10 seconds you get extremely fatigued. The combat is completely mindless and stupid which is a horrible contrast to the rest of the game. You can attack, push an enemy into a wall, or throw them, all by inputting button commands displayed on screen. If you are attacked you defend yourself in the same manner. You can also pick up weapons, like a broken--well I dont know what it is--and attack with it. If you sneak up behind an enemy you can stealth attack them, which is the ideal strategy for the game. It is intended to be a stealth game but you can get by just as easily by running up and throwing an attacker into the wall a few times. The rest of the game consists of examining your surroundings in search of various clues that will progress the story along. Every once in a while you will have to solve a puzzle, for example, the first puzzle is an anagram you have to decode, other puzzles include substitution ciphers and tile-moving sequences. These can be really hard if you don't really understand them. The game gives you hints but I didn't actually see what they were.
On the upside, the game offers a uniquely intelligent experience, it gives you a whole menu full of historical facts that you unlock as you progress, which reminds me a little of the Civilopedia from Sid Meier's games, and the word puzzles really make you think. If you like that sort of thing, then combine that with an excellent story and the battle system won't bother you at all. The story is of course The DaVinci Code so it goes without saying that it is good and the voice-acting is also done very well. The graphics are pretty good and the level design follows that of the movie as far as I can tell.
The only thing I could find wrong with the production of the game is that it failed to give a feeling of suspense that you really should be feeling while you play. There isn't any consequence for being caught and you have all the time in the world to do everything so it goes against the whole feel.
Overall, I say if you really think you're going to like it, buy it. If you aren't sure, rent it. I can pretty much guarantee that you'll be disappointed though. This is just another entry into the pantheon of bad movie games.
