YOUR GUIDE TO THE TWIN CITIES
Wednesday May 23, 2012
Randy A. Salas, assistant features editor, has been with the Star Tribune for nearly 20 years but has been a geek all his life. He plays video games on every system, endlessly surfs the Web and occasionally leaves the dark confines of his home theater to come to the office. He’s always plugged in.
Email Randy and find him on Twitter
resize text 
follow on Twitter
subscribe via RSS
Read the latest video game
Posted by: Randy Salas under Video games Updated: November 2, 2009 - 11:50 AM
I was surprised to get the new DS game for Disney's A Christmas Carol and see that it "includes [the] original Charles 
Dickens book!" Sure enough, there's the literary classic in all of its public-domain glory, turning the Nintendo DS into a little e-reader. Disney is targeting 6- to 11-year-old kids with the game. Now, I love Dickens as much as the next game reviewer, but I wonder how many kids are going to get into that feature? Forget that the 28,000-word, 19th-century book grades out at around a 11- to 12-year-old reading level, largely thanks to one-syllable words; the original text is simply too old-fashioned. I can't imagine my 7-year-old nephew, who's a great reader, stopping the game to read a passage like the one Disney includes in its press photos (pictured):
He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger despatched to him through Jacob Marley’s intervention. But finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put them every one aside with his own hands; and lying down again, established a sharp look-out all round the bed.
Eh. Maybe I'm just being a Scrooge. Besides, surely young gamers would much rather "cook recipes from the Victorian era" -- another of the game's features.
ADVERTISEMENT
recent posts
- A long-delayed goodbye from Technobabble
- 'Star Wars: In Concert' coming to town
- Avatar DVD/Blu-ray: No 3-D, no extras
- Make way for God of War III
- Green Day set to rock Rock Band
- PlayStation 3 goes wild with high-def movies
- Garland's 'A Star Is Born' coming to Blu-ray
- A bigger Nintendo DS for the hard-of-gaming, $190
- What's your favorite freeware?
- Get a Star Trek light-up shirt, cheap
- His name is Nobody — just ask the goat
- Bloomington mom's app shows some heart for Valentine's Day
- What you didn't read in January's game-sales report
- BioShock 2 simply can't live up to original
- Here are links to those Minnesota-made apps
- Visit the zoo -- see rare floating arm
- Shhh! We can't tell you about all Minnesota-made apps
- Dante's Inferno, BioShock 2 hit at midnight
Post By Category
- Severe Wednesday, Thursday Soaker (2"+ rain...holiday weekend preview)
- New restaurant to open in downtown Hyatt
- Belmont Stakes: Shooting the messenger?
- Tree planting honors Minneapolis man who died helping neighbor
- Mikael Granlund signs with the Wild
- Home sales and prices up in Minnesota and across the country during April
ADVERTISEMENT
inside the StarTribune
-
425 Portland Av. S.
Minneapolis, MN 55488
(612) 673-4000
- Company
- Subscriber Services
- Website
- Buy Ads
- Store
- Connect with Us
© 2012 StarTribune. All rights reserved.
StarTribune.com is powered by Limelight Networks
Newspaper Subscriptions
eEdition
RSS
Newsletters