Deceased Person You Don't Remember Endorses Downloadable Crossword Puzzles

Merv Griffin passed away in 2007, leaving behind a rich legacy in television. He hosted a very popular daytime talk show that started in the 1960s. He created both Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. Aaaand I'm going to guess that very few you within eyeshot of these words have ever seen him or even heard of him. But one of the final things to launch from his huge television empire was Merv Griffin's Crosswords, another syndicated show that is currently in hiatus and there are rumors that it may not return.

I smell downloadable game magic here, friends. It's a game based on a probably-dead TV game show with the name of a definitely-dead guy on it. And it's based on doing crossword puzzles. How is that not a huge hit?

Anyway, the game has already hit the Wii, and now it's available as this week's surprise Xbox Live Arcade download. The crazy part is that even with all that going against it, I'm sort of intrigued. I do like crossword puzzles, especially when they're dumbed down for the purposes of, say, a game show. And I already made the stupid mistake of downloading last week's XBLA snoozer, Puzzle Arcade. How many more kitchen table activities can we turn into questionable XBLA games?