Tim Burton's the Nightmare Before Christmas (PS2)

"Oogie's Revenge" is a rank-based action/role-play game, in which you battle and sing your way through around twenty levels. At the end of each level, you are given a mark for time, combos, damage, and !-mark count, which gives you your overall "Nightmare Rank". You get rewards for completing a level with all "A+"s which help you unlock bonuses and the like at the end of the game.

If you are thinking of purchasing this game, but have not seen the film, watch it first. The game acts as a sequel to the movie, so you will not know who the characters are, or fully appreciate the songs, most of which are remixes from the original soundtrack. Not to mention that one way of collecting souls (souls are like the Halloweentown currency) is to complete the quizzes that the corpse kid gives you, in which almost every question is about the movie.

You play as Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloweentown, a year after the end of the movie. A cut-scene shows the mayor awarding the prizes for that year's halloween scaring.
"And now, the award for most spines tingled, by a non-corporeal being... Another magnificent Halloween, Jack!"
The moment Jack leaves the limelight, his head hangs.
"This can't go on. You've got to do better, Jack!"
After talking to Jack, Doctor Finklestein gives him a new toy - The Soul Robber. A green, stretchy entity that can latch on to objects, enemies, and in one case, tombstones. Overjoyed with his present, Jack leaves Halloweentown to find new scares for next Halloween. But when he returns, disaster has struck - Trick-or-treating tricksters Lock, Shock and Barrel have ressurected Oogie Boogie - the villain who attempted to eat "Sandy Claws" and Jack's love, Sally, at the end of the film. It's all up to Jack to stop him, for Oogie has pronounced himself the new king of Halloweentown, now re-named "Oogie-town", and bullied all the residents into helping him make a more dangerous Halloween.

There are three modes of play: East, Normal, and Nightmare.
The harder the mode you are playing with, the more challenging the game is, but the bigger the reward you reap. In nightmare mode, you can get combo counts of 1000+, which are pretty much impossible in easy mode, and still damn hard in normal mode.
With regards to the difficulty of the game, it is not the most challenging in the world. I bought the game a week-and-two-days ago, on September 30th (its release date), and am very near completion (I'm on chapter 19, which is the most difficult yet), so if you are one of those people who get really stressed when you can't complete something and lob your controller at the TV screen (I did that during the bonus level of "The Cat in the Hat" - Hey, I had less gaming experience then!)then this is the game for you. Despite not being able to complete part of chapter 19, I have stayed remarkably calm.

If you want to get this game simply because you loved the film, and not because you wnat to experience remarkable gameplay - like me - then you will not be disappointed. I bought the game so that I could charge around Halloweentown, Christmastown (though I haven't been there yet), and change from Jack Skellington's normal costume to his Pumpkin King (Which enables you to breath fire and explode) and Santa Jack (Which lets you chuck presents that stun, freeze and transform your enemies),
take part in musical dance battles (the more accurately you press the correct buttons in time to the music, the hotter Jack steps, making a Super-attack that can finish off most enemies)and battle Oogie Boogie!

If you are still undecided, I'll let you know that any price is worth it to hear Jack shout "That's it! NO MORE MR NICE BONES!" upon hearing that Sally has been kidnapped.

From a gigantic Roald Dahl & Wallace & Gromit fan:
Max William James Keogh
12 years old