First Inkheart was a book, three of them to be exact. Then, Inkheart was a movie. Now, Inkheart is a game based on the movie, based on the book; a game played on the DS which one holds like a book, and filled with so much reading that it has almost come back full circle to being a book. Almost, but not quite as there are still plenty of subpar gaming moments to remind you that you're playing a game, which is a shame as this game probably would have been a whole lot better had it just been a copy of Inkheart that you read on your DS.

The game follows the adventures of Mo and Meggie, father and daughter, respectively and avid book lovers. Over the course of the poorly told story, you learn that Mo has the amazing power to make what he reads come to life and at some point he read aloud from the titular Inkheart and loosed all sorts of villains onto an unsuspecting world. At least that's what I think happened. The game's story is told mostly through dialog between characters which means that you'll be doing a lot of reading to know what's going on, a shame given that the dialog isn't all that great. Anyway, now the villains are back, led by the frightful Capricorn, and they want Mo to use his super powers to unleash The Shadow. Ooooooooooh! Very scary! For all that the story does tell you, there's way too much that doesn't get explained like when Mo read all of these people into the world in the first place, why he has never tried to go after his wife who got read into Inkheart as a result of his loose lips, and why Meggie appears to be wearing a welder's apron all of the time.

At its heart, this is an adventure game, and based on the simplicity of the puzzles, is meant to be My First Adventure Game for the admittedly younger target audience. There's a fine line between simple and dull though and this game strides over that line with intense purpose and goes about becoming the Mayor of Dullsville. I mean, do we really need to see the "push the key out of the keyhole on to a newspaper" puzzle again? It certainly doesn't help that in most cases, you'll spend your time wandering around to find three items, all of which end up being combined to help you get out of whatever mess the story has put you in.

When you're not combining olive oil and sausage for a puzzle (not kidding here), there are plenty of other mini-games to make you wonder why you're not just reading the blasted book. There's a sledding game, a juggling game, a game where you direct a marten (think weasel) over some rafters to find some keys and a stealth game where you try and sneak past guards and light bonfires. Unfortunately as with the puzzles, when playing the mini-games, the terrible imbalance between the need for an easy game and the need for an interesting game come to the forefront. When navigating the rafters, you're timed, but the keys never change position, which makes sense for younger players, until you have to do the puzzle again, this time to get a book, and the book is in the exact same place as the keys from the earlier puzzle. Or in the stealth game, where you can simply run away from any guards that you've alerted and they'll just give up and go back to their rounds.

The strangest mini-game though has to be the game played when Mo attempts to read something into the world. Rather than use the DS's microphone and have the player actually read the passage, the game instead has you trace on a thread that spools across the game screen, quite haphazardly at that. What drawing on a thread has to do with reading is anyone's guess. In fact, and I apologize for spoiling the ending for you, but the climactic boss battle between Mo and Capricorn is a no holds barred reading session. That's right, you draw on a thread and that's it, game over.