Regrettably, not very well. I can admit these games were not designed for me, or even someone in my age group (after all these games are for children 8 and up), but I was hoping the games would be capable of transcending age restrictions in much the same way the radio show has been doing for so many years. But for the sake of argument, let's ignore my age for the moment and run with that.

Both games start off in very similar ways. In The Treasure of the Incas, Eugene wakes up to the sound of his window shattering as a message tied to a rock comes flying in. He unravels the message to discover that someone, somewhere, is asking Eugene to hand over a map he received from his parents or they will take it from him by force. Unfortunately, Eugene has no idea what map they're talking about! In the other game, The Sword of the Spirit, Whit receives a package containing a painting from Martin McCalister. Underneath the coats of paint, there appears to be an image of a sword pointing towards the Twin Hills Mine. There, a man by the name of Gustav Schmidt has kidnapped Marty and the only way to rescue him is for Eugene, Connie, and Whit to successfully complete the many trials found within.

Ok, the premises aren't "blow me away" material, but they're certainly serviceable and made me interested in what might happen next. From there, the gamer is required to complete a number of different mini-puzzles on the way to victory. These puzzles can be anything from decoding a secret message, navigating through a jungle maze, guiding a marble through a series of obstacles, or clicking on predefined internet pages and doing some research. While Whit, Connie, and Eugene regroup to discuss what they've learned in The Treasure of the Incas, they are separated for much of The Sword of the Spirit as you navigate them around a series of ridiculous puzzles.
For the latter, I can only imagine the discussions the developers had about this game:

Developer A: "So how do you think the game's shaping up?"
Developer B: "Well, I've nearly finished navigating the 15th rail car maze. And... I'm thinking about killing myself."
Developer A: "Nonsense! You're learning the virtue of self control!"
Developer B: "Oh so like when I kept falling off cliffs with Eugene I was actually learning to persevere through redundant and seemingly pointless cliff jumping exercises?"
Developer A: "Ah no, in that case you were learning to be gentle."
Developer B: "I see... so any time the players wants to ram his head into the monitor, we just claim it's our way of teaching some obscure lesson?"
Developer A: "Exactly. Life isn't mean to be fun... and this game will prove that!"

A satirical view of the planning stages, but I seriously did question the reasoning behind the seemingly endless barrage of mini-games that were neither fun nor entertaining. Truthfully, had I not been intent on reviewing these games, I most certainly would have uninstalled them from my system and given up. The tasks weren't exactly difficult (though some of them seemed a little too complicated for kids to figure out without some help), but they were incredibly repetitive. I can handle solving a puzzle here or there, but when I need to solve the same puzzle in 20 different ways, I begin to wonder if the developers were intent on making these games as long as possible. There was one puzzle in The Treasure of the Incas called the Khipu Knot Decoder which illustrates my point perfectly. The puzzle requires you to decode 10 pages of a hidden message using colors and different shapes of knots. The puzzle is kinda fun, but when you've reached the 7th page and realize that the only thing you decoded so far was a long winded text introducing the puzzle... you feel like you've wasted precious moments of your life. In a way it's a good thing these games are so short. Afterall, despite claiming on the official website that each game will provide "over 20 hours of interactive game play", it took me roughly 9 hours to get through both of them combined. Granted I have experience playing games, but I can't imagine a child would need any more than 10 hours per game to solve the many mini-puzzles involved.

Ok, so I've complained a lot about the mini-puzzles, how's the rest of the game? To be honest, the mini-puzzles basically are the game. When you're not taking part in one of the games many exercises in tedium, you're watching a cutscene with the characters. These scenes aren't that bad and I might go so far as to say I prefer this animation over the video series (at least the character animation, the background art was pretty bad), but I did notice some glaring errors. In The Sword of the Spirit, when Whit, Eugene, and Connie enter the mines they look down at the ground. There they see 3 sets of footprints which clearly read from left to right: Emily, Nathan, Evan. But the moment the camera angle changes, the order is shuffled around and becomes: Evan, Emily, Nathan. Not to mention Connie reads the names in yet another different order. Minor gripes? Yes. But there seemed to be an overall lack of polish throughout most of the two games.

These unpolished aspects ranged from anything like overlapping audio to clumsy controls. I was also bothered by the lack of uniformity amongst the mini-games. In The Sword of the Spirit, there's a legend in the bottom left that shows Connie how many mini-games she needs to complete before she collects her "greek letter" (exciting I know). This is nice because it provides a fair warning of the punishment you're in for. In contrast, Eugene's mini-games reveal only 5 or 6 at a time... leaving the gamer little idea of how many frustrating mazes he'll need to finish. To round things off, Whit's puzzles are wildly different all together, as you help him do word problems or guide a marble. Then there's the problem with the character selection between the two games. You either "Play as Eugene", or "Play as Connie" in The Treasure of the Incas but you "Follow Eugene" and "Follow Connie" in The Sword of the Spirit. Am I a nag? Yeah, these are nitpicks and maybe I should overlook them. However, I'm just providing some examples to demonstrate why I got an overwhelming feeling that the games were assembled late in the development cycle, with little regard toward minor details.

Then of course there's the plot. Neither game has a satisfying conclusion and there wasn't much I was able to take away from the game. A word to the wise, if you're wondering what happened to Eugene's parents and think The Treasure of the Incas will answer that question... think again. Despite hinting the story's going in that direction, it's never addressed and results in a completely unsatisfying ending. It's also a shame that they were able to bring Paul Herlinger, Katie Leigh and Will Ryan on board and aside from the cutscenes, their talent was reduced to repetitive (I've been using that word quite a bit) commentary during the puzzles and little else. There was just no emotional attachment to the characters, as you basically maneuvered them around the mini-games and never felt like you were actively part of the story... only as an observer who's been reduced to doing the dirty work.

So that's my take... which has obviously been very critical though I only have myself to blame. I envisioned branching dialogue, character developments, visits to strange locations, and solutions to an epic mystery. Yes, I saw classic adventure games revitalized with Adventures in Odyssey as a backdrop. A game were you were required to use your inventory (incidentally you have an inventory that you never use in these games) and meet with funny and memorable characters. What you do get are collections of mini-games that resemble rejects circa 1990 with Odyssey characters to bring them "up to date". Will someone, somewhere enjoy these games? Probably. Which is why I encourage you to submit your own reviews from the games product pages. But I have to admit, from my perspective, these games fall far short of the expectations one might have going in... regardless if you're 10 or 20.