Did you ever see National Lampoon's Vacation with Chevy Chase? The Griswold family goes through a number of hilarious misadventures driving from Chicago to "Wally World." Well, The Tuttles Madcap Misadventures will remind you of that movie as the Tuttle family makes its cross-country drive to the Alamo in this animated, comic-book style graphic vacation.

The game is a standard side-scrolling platformer, and although it is not innovative, it is well-written, fun and appealing. It also is very forgiving and thus suitable for the age group it is written for — ages 6 and up. I played it with my nephew, 4, and my niece, 6, who is just starting to read. I get ahead of myself, though. Let me introduce the Tuttle family.

The Tuttle family is purposely stereotypical, and children can easily identify with them. Father Barry Tuttle, voiced by Bob Saget, is a middle manager working with breakfast cereals and a part-time tinkerer seeking the ultimate add-on to the family minivan. Mother Barbara, voiced by Jamie Lee Curtis, tells us she is addicted to reality TV but carries a bottomless purse containing items that MacGyver would be proud of. Daughter Jess Tuttle, voiced by Ashley Tisdale, is 15-years old and extremely intelligent, although she appears to be an empty-headed bimbette more interested in texting her friends about cute boys. And finally, we have the son of the family, 11-year-old Zach Tuttle, who may lose himself in games but has a wide-eyed approach to life, finding something cool in everything they do and everywhere they go. Last but not least, William Shatner voices the family minivan's intelligent computer control system as the washed-up, second rate TV star, Vance Shepard. Why the celebrities? This game was made by Legacy Interactive for the Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation, and 75 percent of the net proceeds of every game purchased from the Legacy site will be contributed to Starlight.

Onto the gameplay; the tutorial is written well enough that the 4-year-old was able to play it through by himself. He's quite a little a gamer, and his favorite game is Lego Star Wars on the Xbox, so he knew that he had to collect the floating diamonds and items that spun and glittered. After I showed him the simple controls, which are the arrow keys for moving left, right, jumping up, ducking down and the hit/kick Control key, and that the blinking red arrow showed him where he was supposed to go, he was off by himself with his sister telling him to press any key at the appropriate times.

"Auntie Carol? Which one is the any key?"

"The big long one, honey."

"Oh, OK!"

Some day, we'll have a key on the keyboard labeled "any." I think we really need that! Once the "any key" was established in their minds, the game was on!

The game did get harder as the levels proceeded, and I had to explain to both right off that the flying minivan — yes, you read right, flying minivan — was supposed to crash and that neither child was at fault. The children enjoyed some cooperative play with one whacking the Control key when the characters were approached by "bad people" and both exhorting me to greater heights jumping from level to level, screaming when I fell down, down, down into deep, dark chasms.

You can start as any character, but both decided in every game we started that Dad just had to drive the minivan. Along the way and due to misadventures, every member of the family assists in getting them out of trouble, and they pull together as a family — a great touch in the game design.

While not exactly educational, I took the opportunity to reinforce the idea of family and teamwork to the children, and I actually managed to get the 4-year-old to understand the concept of nonlinear thinking, which his sister grasped very quickly.

"You have to go that way! The arrow is pointing to the right!"

"No, you can't go that way, so you have to go back and find another way to go to the right."

"Oh."

It was not long before he was suggesting different directions to move to reach the required goal when we got to a dead end.

The stages are varied and colorful, the graphics and animation crisp, and the scenarios and dialogue get funnier the further you get along. The detours and misadventures take the Tuttle family through deserts with zombies and snakes, lush jungles that you swing through using vines, and shark-infested waters. Timing and hand-eye dexterity required ramped up rather quickly, and two little kids whacking the Control key the moment "evil monsters" appeared did not help preserve my character's lives, but a good time was had by all — even if the kids only managed to get through the first chapter by themselves.

The cutscenes are comic-book style static graphic panels with minimum animation, but the dialogue is clever, and the celebrity voice-overs are a great extra touch that lifts it up from the ordinary. All in all, The Tuttles Madcap Misadventures is a definite "buy." There is nothing super exciting and innovative about it, but it is a solid, well-written platformer with fun gameplay, great graphics and excellent voice-overs. Apart from that, don't forget that the purchase of the game will help the Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation to assist seriously ill children and their families.