A good platform game is hard to find. You've got a tiny handful on PlayStation 2, a bunch of cuddly classics on the N64 and that's about it.

There's a sea of pale imitators - into which Shrek falls, with his bulbous ass and mundane platforming action.

There's a loose connection to the film, in terms of the locations and settings of the levels; the fractured fairy tale theme runs throughout. Game tasks revolve around Shrek's irritating need to be a conscientious, do-good hero.

Each of the clichéd lands (Sweetsville, Creepy Crypt, Prince Charming's Castle etc.) features a batch of clichéd tasks for Shrek to busy himself with. His skills are very limited, especially compared to the agile, master-of-all-trades, cliff-hanging repertoire of the modern platforming hero.

He can do the basics - jump around, sprint and duck, kick and grab - plus he's got one hell of a gut on him, allowing to burp and fart with the right kind of power-up inside him.

The meat of the tasks, however, severely lacks imagination. Most challenges are based around playing fetch, having to herd certain fairy tale stereotypes (spiders, Bo Peep's sheep, skellytons) from one place to another and object collection. The objectives don't just lack sparkle, they have no effect on the level whatsoever.

Most annoyingly, every time you complete a chore, the stage resets itself and you're spawned right back at the entrance. Any attempts to multitask are pointless.

A good platformer needs to get across a sense of exploration, giving the player the sense that they're uncovering the enchanted nooks and crannies of a fantasy world.

Shrek feels like a set of scripted objectives tossed together onto a dull canvas. Raiding the Brothers Grimm universe should have made for a far more interesting game. As it stands, this is soulless and quite dull.

1. Good visuals, preserving the big-screen Shrek style
2. Thumping the bad guys is a laugh

1. Dreary, basic tasks to complete
2. Criminal waste of top-notch licence

Power
Graphics are impressive, and you can get some vast, detailed views. Decent animation, too.

Style
Looks and sounds faithful to the movie: there's some excellent voice acting, but it's repetitive.

Immersion
There are so few actions available to your character that it just won't hijack your imagination.

Lifespan
Not enough here to keep you busy for very long at all - pales in comparison with other platformers.

Summary
A plain and unrewarding platform game. With all that fairy tale folklore, it should have been so much more.