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If you like your pirates cute, animated and scrappy have a look at Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure. Zack is a young boy that wants to be the best pirate ever. Everybody knows that pirates have treasure, so treasure is Zack's chosen road to success. Wiki is Zack's little, gold, flying sidekick. Wiki has a wicked sense of humor and some of the funniest dialogue I've read in a game.

Zack is currently a member of the Sea Pirates when the story begins with Zack & Wiki flying somewhere pilot Johnny Style, a member of the Sea Rabbits. Things are going well enough - I'm learning about using the Wii Remote - when the rival Rose Rock Pirates, lead by Captain Rose, attack the airship. Johnny Style has his own escape covered, and wishes us luck in getting clear before we crash. Wiki isn't terribly concerned for himself. He points out that after all, he can fly, but I can't. At a particularly touching moment, he tells me, "It's not the fall that worries me, but the sudden stop at the end…" Gee, thanks.

Throughout the crash, Wiki continues to give me tips on how to use the Wii Remote to explore my environment. Once we exit the disintegrating airship, we're in free fall, so it's fairly important that I pay attention to his suggestions. There is a certain giddy tension as we cast about for options, and then finally find and open the umbrella. Wheee ... Things are looking up. We're nearly down when Wiki teaches me one more trick - how to drop something I'm not using anymore. Yeeeoooooowwwwwwww! At least that tree was there to break my fall. A couple of tries later I figure out how to get out of the tree and across the chasm before the airship wreckage came crashing down on my poor head.

I was happy when I discovered that the game saves automatically as you move from one stage to another. Upon my fiery/squishy/impaled/flattened death, it's easy to start the level over and give it another try. You can buy little tokens in the hideout of the Sea Rabbits to allow you to try and revive yourself, but at this point I'd rather start the level over and make sure I get things right from the start.

So now that we're alive and on the ground, what exactly is Zack & Wiki? Well, it is a puzzle-solving game with great music, vivid animation and hilarious dialogue. Given the ways I have managed to get Zack killed (Wiki always survives), I'm somewhat reminded of the old arcade game Dragon's Lair, from way back in 1983. In his quest to rescue Princess Daphne, poor old Dirk must have found a thousand ways to die. I was never any good at Dragon's Lair (probably directly related to not having that high a budget of quarters at that point in my life) but I always enjoyed watching someone else play. Don't get me wrong - the puzzles Zack faces are much kinder than what happened to ole' Dirk. While bad results can still often mean instant death, at least Zack has a chance to figure out how to solve the puzzle before he dies. Zack also isn't dependent on twitch reflexes (in the same way at least) that Dirk was.

Movement in the right way at the right time is critical to Zack's success, but not in the mashing buttons kind of way. Use of the Wii Remote is required to solve the puzzles in Zack & Wiki. Yes, you use it to select things in your environment, but you will hold it and move it in different ways if you're going to succeed. The way you shake a tree is totally different from the way you'll turn a crank, and just wait until you turn the remote sideways to play notes on a virtual flute! While some games just use the Wii Remote as a cordless mouse, basically, this game could not exist in this form without the Wii technology. This title takes great advantage of the unique strengths of this platform.

Zack has one other advantage that Dirk was lacking. Zack can buy oracle dolls in the hideout of the Sea Rabbits. You'll automatically visit the hideout between missions and can also bail there at any time during a mission (from the pause menu). Oracle dolls can be redeemed for game hints if you and Zack are particularly desperate. Be warned in advance, these are hints only. They are not going to solve the puzzle for you (which I think is a good thing). The hint will only point you in the right direction.

After surviving the airship crash, and getting out of the way of the wreckage, Zack comes across his first magnificent treasure chest. In it he finds part of the body, and the ghostly spirit, of Captain Barbaros - one of the greatest pirates ever. All we have to do is recover all 16 pieces of Barbaros and he'll tell us where to find his legendary treasure … Let the puzzling begin!

Although the game is single player, it is well suited to friends or family playing together. These puzzles can be quirky, and it really helps to have more than one pair of eyes, and a few extra brains working on them. My daughter has a lot of suggestions (and warnings) when I'm playing. After dying horribly at one point, I had to ask her, "Did you play this part before, or were you just guessing?" "Just guessing," she tells me.

I probably should have asked that ahead of time, but it's easy enough to start over. In any case, if I always did it right on the first try, I'd be missing some really great animated death traps. No, there's nothing gory, but Zack is definitely a goner in these scenes. Just imagine what Indy would have looked like in Raiders of the Lost Ark if he hadn't avoided the huge rolling boulder at the beginning of the movie and you'll know what poor Zack looked like in one of our misadventures.

I really enjoy Zack & Wiki. It's fun to play and fun to watch. It takes great advantage of the unique abilities of the Wii. You can play it with friends and family or forge ahead on your own. The puzzles are fun without being too easy or too obtuse. I think it's a great value for my entertainment dollar.