Rise of the Guardians Review

The rise of app marketplaces has thankfully seen a decline in the number of mediocre games based off of movie licenses, and in its place, the tie-in app has arrived. Rise of the Guardians has an interesting app for those looking to discover more about this upcoming animated movie.

Now, the first thing to realize is that Rise of the Guardians has nothing to do with Legend of the Guardians, that movie about CGI owls that was directed by Zack Snider. Yes, the Zack Snider that directed 300. The same one. He is not involved, and there are no owls as far as I can tell. No, this is about childhood legends: the Easter Bunny, the Sandman (not Neil Gaiman's Sandman), and more. The first two are the first two characters available to check out in this app. Others will be unlocked in the coming weeks as the movie releases in November, there's a timer available to see when the movie comes out.

The Easter Bunny character, named Bunnymund, has a gyroscope-enabled area to explore; there are ten eggs to find that unlock various myths detailing the movie backstory of Bunnymund; once all myths are unlocked, then a behind-the-scenes video of the character is made available. The Sandman is also available with a similar video unlocked after discovering his myths. There are six characters available in all, though the other four are still locked; push notifications are available for when they will be unlocked to check out.

Really, this is a curious distraction if anything: it took me maybe ten minutes to discover all of its secrets, especially as the Sandman part is basically tapping on the screen of a badly-out-of-place video to see new animations and unlock new myths without effort. However, for kids curious about the movie, it's certainly more interesting than some quickly-developed game would likely be. Getting to see the characters in action and getting some behind-the-scenes footage is certainly rewarding. There's not much reason to come back to the app once a character's myths are discovered; there may be a reward for unlocking all six once available though.

While it's nothing too special, Rise of the Guardians at least tries to do something to interest potential fans.