Parents' Guide to Gauntlet: Slayer Edition

Though not as good as the original arcade game that inspired it, this action-oriented adventure game can be fun if you're looking for something simple but challenging. Rooted in numerous fantasy tropes, the game gives you the option to play as a Conan the Barbarian-ish hero, a warrior woman who understands the importance of playing defense as well as offense, a magically powered wizard, a bow-and-arrow-loving elf, or a skeleton who's more powerful than his lack of muscles would suggest.

Regardless of whom you chose, though, the fast-paced action is fairly straightforward, as you run from one room of a dungeon to the next, battling enemies, grabbing gold, and occasionally having to solve a puzzle or find a key that will open up the next room full of gold and ghouls. This even has many of the tenets of games that were inspired by the original Gauntlet arcade game: secret rooms, rechargeable special attacks, and numerous piles of gold that someone left lying around for some reason. This isn't to say the action is flawless -- quite the contrary. Not only does the game get a bit redundant after a while, but if you sit at a reasonable distance from your television, some of the text is hard to read, while the aerial perspective is set so high that it's sometimes hard to see what's going on. These issues aside, Gauntlet: Slayer Edition is still a fun and at times challenging game, so long as you're willing to accept that, similar to some older arcade titles, the game can be somewhat shallow and repetitive.