Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Worth playing"

Playing this game, I faintly but most fondly remembered some of the classics Ron Gilbert, creator of "The Cave", is rightfully famous for: The humor is witty and maintains a certain dubious generosity (despite or rather because of some, well, horrible events) and never gets tacky or crude. The puzzles, too, hit the spot - not to hard and not to easy, at least by today's standards, they require just the right amount of creativity and wit and, quite often, give you the pleasure of personal achievement. The graphics are also charming, with an eye for cute details and nuances in the animations. - I played "The Cave" with my girlfriend, who is not that easily glued to the screen (the last time was the lovable "Machinarium") and she was, for the most part, having fun, too.

Which leads me to the downsides. First, playing with three characters may remind you of the intricacies of (at least in my memory) marvelous games like "Goblins", "The Lost Vikings" or "Day of the Tentacle". But other than these, "The Cave" rarely uses the potential of its cast. For example, many (parts of the) puzzles can be solved using only one character. Then again, IF you have to coordinate the actions and personal traits of two or three heroes and you are playing side by side with a friend, the controls are less than satisfying: while the elements of most puzzles are scattered around the cave, the action is limited to a small screen which never zooms out or splits. Thus, in many cases switching characters means switching screens, too, which makes playing in co-op mode rather unnecessary and in some cases a little cumbersome. Secondly, in case you want to see the stories and special areas of all of the seven adventurers, you have to replay some stages of the cave, leading to a good deal of redundancy. - I'd really like to know how someone like Ron Gilbert could let this strange design decision pass.

BOTTOM LINE: For me, these downsides felt minor compared to the disarming humor and the satisfying puzzle-solving. And finally, there were ah! those moments when I was, sometimes inexplicably, sometimes obviously but always touchingly reminded of the early "Monkey Islands" or "Maniac Mansion" and, hey, that alone was definitely worth my money.