Joe Gamer

When Redbox game rentals made their way into our area, I was excited to rent Tangled – the video game. There was something about this that reminded me of Shrek the video game. Maybe it’s just because they are both movies and multi-player. I wanted to play it. After months of not finding it for rent, the price dropped to $20. Figuring that was cheap enough, I bought the game about a month ago. Last night Tangled actually made it into the Wii. So months of anticipation finally came together for an impromptu gaming session with the Little Gamer.

I knew she would like Tangled since she loves the movie. Also, I knew that she would want to play Rapunzel. Game play is basically for two players – Rapunzel and Flynn. Two more people can play – if you can count pointing the Wiimote at the screen and picking up loot as ‘playing.’ So with the Little Game as Rapunzel, I was by default Flynn. We finally found our way out of Rapunzel’s tower – the home base of the game – by clicking on the map and going forth on an adventure.

The game is pretty much laid out like the movie. You set out to the forest on your first quest and learn the ropes. Rapunzel can do all sorts of cool tricks – like twirling around flowers to make them grow with her magical hair. She can also swing from trees. Her weapon is a frying pan – that doesn’t seem to do much of anything with Flynn around. Flynn has a knife and can easily clear bushes and fight bad guys. He is there to protect Rapunzel after all. He can climb cliffs. All of these skills are learned through your first journey. You can also hold hands and run together. It’s just so darn cute but not really practical. We kept trying to hold hands while Rapunzel swung with her hair. Anytime you do another action, the hand holding stops.

One really neat part about the game is that you do not have to stay together on screen. If one player wanders ahead or back tracks, the screen splits so that you can explore at your own pace. This was nice because the Little Gamer was enamored with twirling on flowers while I was interested in what lies ahead of us. So this way Flynn could scout ahead while Rapunzel enjoyed just being out of that castle.

Our game ended as many video games session end – with the Little Gamer in tears. She usually gets frustrated about something and will not let it go. With Tangled, the vague game book said that butterflies are always around where Rapunzel could play with her hair. The only butterflies we saw were at places where she could swing by her hair. So their definition of ‘playing with her hair’ is definitely different from a six-year-olds.

Tangled was fun but not worth the wait I put myself through. But glad I waited until it was $20 – instead it would have been a better $2 game rental. We’ll give it another try soon. The Little Gamer is ready to give it another go – so if she can be forgiving of poor game mechanics, then so can I.

© 2011, Lynn Little. All rights reserved.