Ah Living books you were the first thing most kids ever played on a computer in the 90s if it wasn't Reader Rabbit, and Arthur you were the first books I ever read aloud (after Spot the Dog's Lift the flap funnery).

Gameplay and Story: The game is based off the book Arthur's Birthday where Arthur is excited about his 8th Birthday coming up and he plans on inviting all of his friends (plus several female friends we see throughout the books and the tv series, one of them getting more storylines as the series goes on, yeah I think I'll talk more about the series when I get to Arthur's Teacher Trouble) there's just one problem, Muffy who Arthur also planned to invite (and vice versa) is having her party on the same saturday as Arthur's and no one can change their party plans and it really splits to boys and the girls apart (the girls attend Muffy's and the Boys attend Arthur's) but Arthur really does want Francine to come, but then they get a conflict resolution idea that satisfies everyone in the end (gee I hope The Rock Band and Pickles the Clown didn't sue the Crosswires after this...perhaps she rebooked that band in Arthur's Perfect Christmas, oh great now I have Boogie Woogie Christmas stuck in my head) I actually believe the series should have ended with everyone gathering at Muffy's place for Arthur and Muffy's 9th Birthday and as they blow out the candles we flash forward 20 years later, instead of getting that brief epilogue at the end of All Grown Up (mostly because we only got to see what a handful of the characters were doing)

Graphics: So, I'm pretty sure this game was made hot off the success of the PBS series (which I will probably talk about in a different review, like maybe Arthur's Teacher Trouble) so everyone looks a little bit more like the tv series now, I'll post a playthrough one day for this site. Also at this point in arthur's saga, we have the look he still have today, he doesn't look so much like an aardvaark anymore

Soundtrack: So there's no background music in the game though they have some fun sounds in it, except when waiting to make a decision

Addictive: Well I haven't played the game enough times to consider it addictive

Depth: Well it would depend on what mode you play in you can either let the book read itself or you can click play inside the story mode where everything comes alive when you click on it

Difficulty: This game is not a game of skill it's a reading game a virtual book, unless you play the pin the tail on the donkey game or the game where DW takes all the cards off the presents because she's DW, it shouldn't be difficult to play because it's a game where the game reads to you, so it isn't difficult at all.

Post-review follow up: this will not be the last Living Books review I will do, there are four more Arthur titles in the Living Books series (but it seems that Arthur's Reading Race isn't in here oh wait yes it is which is a shame because I thought it was good I'm actually sorry that it didn't get it's own tv episode) Other than that this is a nice addition to the living books lineup

This concludes my review, tomorrow will be sunday so I guess it's time to do another coin-op game....which I now will have to pre-write because Sunday will be busy enough as it is, I guess I'm doing Altered Beast for Coin-op tomorrow