Friday, December 19, 2008

Hurry! Save the Princess!


Last year marked the 20th anniversary of one of my favorite movies of all time, The Princess Bride. Well...I don't know about favorite of all time--in fact, I'm quite nervous to even mention how much I adored this movie (my inner machismo). Nonetheless, this is a classic tale of young romance, in which after being missing for many years, a young woman's childhood sweetheart and real knight-and-shining-armor rescues her from the arms of her future husband, the evil prince. With a side of humor and well-constructed story line, this tale won over the hearts of women (and men too) everywhere.


What's the natural progression of a great story? First, there's the written text; then the screen adaptation; and finally...a video game? Yes--that's right. Our lovable movie, The Princess Bride, is now a video game. Although I do not have children yet--I still have nieces, nephews and students that are very much into video games. Oh--and did I mention a husband who is still a child at heart? Thus, I decided to take a few hours to test the game out myself. Before making the purchase, find out the pros and cons of this video game adventure:


Pros


1. This is a great educational tool for children ages 6-10. Implicitly, children learn and extend upon knowledge skills such as counting, following directions and mixing colors.


2. Practice the art of multi-tasking. In this busy world that we live in , we are always doing more than one thing at a time. This game helps players to multi-task with various challenges.


3. Excellent backdrop of the original movie. The video game did a fairly decent job of capturing the original movie's key moments. I definitely see the logic behind creating an adventure game based on a man's mission to win back the love of his life.


4. Snazzy animation. The video game even has an intro/outro that displays clips of the movie--that way, if you didn't catch it, you'll know enough about it before you begin playing.


Cons


1. Graphics are mediocre. I guess they are okay for a PC game. The game would reach more people if they added more graphics and created this for one of the PC-Generation systems. I guess that's what beta testing is for, eh?


2. For all ages? Yeah right. I know that I am a 27 year old, Master's Degree educated individual--but it took me every bit of an hour to beat the entire game! The questions were way too easy. The creators should consider designating this game for ages 6-10 only.



There you have it. The Princess Bride video game synopsis. Would I buy this for myself? No. But, I would consider giving this game to my 7 year old niece.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where can we get a copy of this game? Is it on shelves yet?

Anonymous said...

This is one of my favorite movies too! ...Noelle's Mom