Game Review: Labyrinth

Billy O'Keefe - Mclatchy -Tribune News Service

For: Nintendo DS

From: Mentor Interactive/dtp young entertainment ESRB

Rating: Everyone (mild violence)

Price: $20

Mentor Interactive has talked a good game with its thinkSMART video game imprint, which purportedly bestows its blessing on games only when they achieve a satisfactory standard with regard to educational as well as entertainment value.

"Labyrinth" is among the latest crop of games (the others being "Scotland Yard," also for the Nintendo DS, and "Crazy Machines" for the Wii) to bear the tag. And while it isn't much at all to look at or listen to, it definitely passes muster as a puzzle game that doesn't take its audience's intelligence lightly.

Even describing "Labyrinth" without making it sound impossibly complicated is a bit tricky. Essentially, you and up to three others are pawns in a disconnected, maze-like labyrinth that's littered with treasure. Each player is after a specific piece of treasure, and with each turn, you can add a maze piece to any edge of the labyrinth that "pushes" the opposite edge away and transforms the corridor arrangement of the entire labyrinth. The object is to clear a pathway to your treasure while preventing others from doing the same first. Each player has a handful of treasures to collect in order, and the first to nab them all wins the match.

(If that sounds like a complete mess, rest assured that it makes sense after you see it in action. The video game also is based on the board game of the same name, so if you're familiar with the board game, you can just ignore the preceding attempted explanation.)

Were "Labyrinth" a solitary endeavor, it'd still be challenging. Having to create a path two feet in front of you while also modifying the labyrinth in a way that won't stifle you three turns later isn't easy, and sometimes it's just impossible. There's a balance between thinking three steps ahead and making a compromise for the immediate greater good, and you'll occasionally curse yourself when you make a move that simply reveals a much better move after the labyrinth shifts.

But the challenge takes on another tenor entirely with an adversary sharing the maze with you. ("Labyrinth" supports up to four players via local single-card wireless play or by passing a single DS around, and it supplies up to three A.I. opponents when human competition isn't available.)

As you might expect, the internal battle between planning and reacting grows that much more complicated when opponents interrupt your process with their own turns. Occasionally, you need to just abandon your own hunt and spend a turn shifting the board to block opponents or box them in. You don't know which treasure they're specifically hunting for, nor do they know what you're after, so it helps also to pay attention to their moves, discern what they're after, and keep them off the path. If you can do that while simultaneously paving your own way, more power to you.

The immense amount of moving intellectual parts gives "Labyrinth" a formidable level of depth that defies the budget price and appearance. The game's music is hard on the ears, the graphics are extremely rudimentary, and the quest mode's storyline isn't exactly a hotbed of compelling characters or high production values.

But all of that stuff - even the quest mode as a whole - feels like secondary dressing.

In a pleasantly surprising role reversal, it's actually the Quick Play mode that gives "Labyrinth" its longest legs. Each new game introduces a randomly-generated maze - essentially running the level count into the gazillions - and you can customize the intelligence and number of opponents to tailor to your ability and/or appetite for punishment. Outside of opponent intelligence, which lies at the mercy of your friends, all that holds true for multiplayer as well.

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