You know the story. It’s familiar enough to all of us: Beautiful princess, evil genius, kidnapping, and time travel. The rest is just detail. The game uses live actors in its Dragon’s Lair-type play. There is no real testing of skill. It’s more a test of timing. There is no room for creative decision making. There is one way to work through the levels and any deviation from that is certain death. The game attempts to inject some variety by rearranging the order in which the various scenarios appear. But within a few plays you will have the necessary moves memorized, or you will have given into the sense of apathy that comes with any overly repetitive task. Hologram Time Traveler is the video game equivalent of assembly line work.

Hologram Time Traveler attempts to recreate the holographic effect with the use of 3D glasses. The use of blue and red 3D glasses is at best underwhelming. The game only comes with one pair, so other people will get a headache if you’re comitted to playing in this mode. You do have the option of playing with the 3D effects turned off which makes the game even less kitschy, but more accessible to larger groups.

Gameplay on your standard DVD player works just fine. There is a noticeable lag between hitting the buttons and seeing the reaction on screen which can be a little distracting. It can also be a little frustrating if your directional controls and your ‘enter’ button overlap on your remote. Trying to execute some of the necessary combinations was virtually impossible because I needed the use of both hands and I couldn’t fit them on the remote at the same time. The PS2 controller will solve some of these problems nicely.

I was a little shocked to see just how violent this game was. There are stabbings, burnings, decapitations and all kinds of bodily mutilation. As five-inch holograms they were just less real, but as 2D characters on my TV screen it was a little more than I was expecting. Particularly disturbing is when you show up in the middle of a baseball game and have to duck under a pitch. Then, for no apparent reason, you have to shoot the pitcher and catcher. In an age where we have to justify our video game violence this seems indefensible.

Also included with the game are a few promotional video clips that outline the history of the game development which are interesting, but the best part of the video clips are the glimpses into 80s video arcade fashions. It was almost as fun as watching The Wedding Singer except there was no irony.