Now, the idea of a problem with the story in a game based upon a film might seem rather unusual, but bear with me here. At first, all seems well – indeed, the opening section is an elaborated version of the first twenty minutes of the movie, extracting a lot more gameplay out of the search for the titular lost city. Unfortunately, somewhere in the production process, the central section of the film’s story appears to have hit the cutting room floor, rendering the rest of the game borderline incomprehensible. A villain is introduced in the course of a single cutscene, without any idea being given of how he relates to the main characters or what his motives are. A friend character – a love interest in the film, no less – appears in a couple of cutscenes without it ever being explained who she is, either. From the point at which Miguel and Tulio arrive in El Dorado, the game consists of two incidents that appear to be entirely isolated from each other, and which together amount to only a small fraction of the total game time. I played Gold and Glory in advance of watching the film, and I got to the end with very little idea of what was actually going on; it was only after I saw the movie that I actually understood who some of the characters were. For those who have already seen The Road to El Dorado, this may be considerably less of an issue, but it's a large barrier to those who haven't.

The puzzles, meanwhile, suffer from being solved for you. There are plenty of neat ideas in Gold and Glory's puzzles – I found the section where Tulio and Miguel have to escape from a ship's hold quite memorable (if a little too similar in places to the opening section of The Curse of Monkey Island), and there are some nice touches in the puzzles in El Dorado too. But the game has the frustrating habit of not just holding your hand through these mental exercises, but actively revealing the solution to you. There are remarkably few items and hotspots – it would be quite possible to solve this game quickly using trial and error, even when the solution isn't blindingly obvious – but I lost track of the number of times that the main characters, while speaking dialogue that portrays them as a couple of bumbling fools, told me exactly which item to use on a particular hotspot; this game doesn't so much drop hints as drop almost all semblance of a challenge.

That said, there are a couple of more taxing moments. One of them, which involves using a wanted poster to represent the main characters even though they have to be present in the same location at the same time anyway, was a rather odd design decision. Another involves winning a game of chance several times. While it's impossible to lose this part of the game, the amount of time I spent rolling dice seriously stretched my patience. A third section – a combination of lever pulling and sneaking past some spiders – would have been fine were it not for some dodgy collision detection and the irritating habit of the game removing control from the player while Miguel or Tulio is speaking, which led to a spider walking up to me mid-line on more than one occasion. Aside from these, though, the game really is a breeze, and a final play time of about three-and-a-half hours bears witness to the relative lack of challenge.

Gold and Glory, then, ends up being a disappointment. So much good work has been done here in terms of the presentation and some of the puzzle design that it makes it all the more surprising to see the gaps in the plot, and even more frustrating to have those well-designed puzzles solved for you. In truth, the game has clearly been pitched towards the 'family' market, and children may well appreciate the cartoon style and comic action, while parents can be satisfied with a lack of profanity, graphic violence or adult themes. Otherwise, only those who are after a particularly easy adventure game to while away a couple of hours will find much value here. Those who haven't seen the film on which the game is based, however, are likely to come away feeling more than a little confused. And the lack of challenge and short length strip it of lasting appeal for children and adults alike. So while the game adaptation of The Road to El Dorado is a noble attempt to make a decent movie tie-in, it proves once again that all that glistens is not gold.