Hangman

The Good
Is that picture a monkey?

The Bad
The words were not challenging to me or my 6-year old. Is that picture a monkey?

The Bottom Line
Atari brings to your television the excitement of hangman - that childhood game where you are provided with blanks and must guess correct letters in the word lest your opponent draw a hanging man.

Only the action here is considerably less than in real life. For starters, the words max out at 6 letters and you get 11 incorrect answers. Even the "high school" level words are pretty easy to get within those limitations. Second, the words are not especially difficult - the example provided in the manual "luxury" takes you pretty much to the top of the scale. (As a positive, unlike real life hangman, all the words appear to be real words and correctly spelled.) Finally, really? - a monkey holding a bar? What does that even have to do with the title? I think we can all repress the horrific images of a real-life hanging sufficiently to play a child's game we've all played since early grade school. We don't need a gruesome anatomically correct hanging, but a stickman paying with his life for poor letter guessing is the essence and the excitement of this game.