"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to play the video game."

You never know what you'll get on this blog. Case in point: today's video game review from the husband.


Angela has previously alluded to one of my favorite guilty pleasures: the LEGO series of video games, namely LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Star Wars II, LEGO Indiana Jones and LEGO Batman. They're what you call "casual games," which essentially means they're simple enough that I can enjoy them even if I have only a few hours a week to play. (For comparison's sake, as a teenager I would spend several hours a day trying to complete Mega-Bug or Dungeons of Daggorath on the family's TRS-80 Color Computer--which I was never able to do--but that's a subject for another, even geekier post. Suffice it to say, you don't get to waste time like that when you're an adult. Or at least, you shouldn't.) Being a fan of casual games, then, my curiosity was understandably piqued when Angela was able to score a review copy of The Princess Bride Game.

I figured that the boy, who digs video games even more than I do, would probably want to give the new game a try too. However, the kiddo had never seen The Princess Bride, upon which the game is based, so we picked up a copy of the DVD at Half-Price Books. He enjoyed the movie (especially the sword fighting parts; no surprise there), and we popped the game into my new computer immediately afterward. We've since played the game a number of times.

As noted on the back of package, The Princess Bride Game is comprised of "5 complete episodes--each featuring a unique gaming experience." We started with the first episode, "As You Wish," in which you control Westley, who has to complete his daily chores while simultaneously responding to Buttercup's various demands. You read that right: It's a video game about DOING CHORES. It's a peculiar premise, but the tasks are suitably varied, with enough interesting complications (we particularly enjoyed picking up the bunnies that show up to eat the carrots in the garden), that it's actually quite fun. Unfortunately, one particularly challenging aspect of this episode is that it has a timer--Westley has to complete all of his chores before time runs out during his day--which made it somewhat difficult for junior to complete the levels on his own.

Episode two, "Battle of the Wits," is a trivia game that the five-year-old also needed help with (though he did seem to do well with the anagrams), so we skipped ahead to "The Fire Swamp." Based on a part of the movie the boy especially liked, this episode is a typical platformer, and he took to it like a duck to water. There's no timer for this episode, and the gameplay is somewhat reminiscent of the LEGO games, in that you can switch back and forth between two characters (Westley and Buttercup), each of whom has unique skills. Plus you get to whack Rodents of Unusual Size with a sword--now that's entertainment!

The kiddo also enjoyed episode four, "Miracle Max," in which you prepare magic potions. This episode is based around the activities of finding hidden objects and mixing colors, which were very age-appropriate for our kindergartner.

"Storming the Castle" is the final episode, where you use items you've collected from the animated segments at the beginning and end of each episode to build a Rube Goldberg device for getting into the castle. While the boy was hoping for a level in which Inigo Montoya fights Count Rugen, he appeared to enjoy this episode anyway.

Although we completed the game in relatively quick order, each episode has extra levels, so the kiddo was able to go back to "The Fire Swamp" and keep playing after we'd finished. I don't think The Princess Bride Game will provide the endless hours of entertainment for the kid that the LEGO games do, but it's really nice to have a different (and less violent) game on the shelf for him to play.

On the "My Favorite Video Games Are From 1982" scale of one to four Mega-Bugs, The Princess Bride Game gets...

Three and a half Mega-Bugs!