2 stars (Better for the younger set) - This game markets itself as appropriate for 4-6 year olds. I bought this for my 5 year old and she beat it in less than 30 minutes. The game itself is extremely short - only 6 activities. This may be better for 3 and 4 year olds just learning to count and learn shapes. But for those already competent or even familiar with them, its a waste of money.
5 stars (Fun and Educational) - My four year old enjoys this. The look and sound of the software is the same as the PBS show. Some of the activities my four year old can do by himself while others require some help from mom or dad. The software gives directions for your child to follow. There are activites such as counting and shape sorting and other activities that require an understanding of bigger/smaller, up/down, etc. We have about four computer games. In order of preference our son likes Dragon Tales followed by Little People Farm/Airport, then Clifford Thinking Adventure and then Finding Nemo. Overall, Dragon Tales Learn to Fly is a good value that runs well on my older Windows 98 system.
1 stars (doesn't work, and poorly supported) - This game does not work on a Powerbook that can't change its resolution to 640x480. That includes most of the older Powerbooks on which you'd be likely to be running children's software. In addition, the error message you get is just plain wrong: it complains that the color depth is wrong, even when it is not. So I looked in the manual, which was incorrectly formatted for the Mac (contained gremlin characters at the start of every line), and this issue was not even mentioned in the trouble-shooting section, nor was the requirement of a 640x480 monitor mentioned anywhere. So I called Scholastic, and went around twice with their automated product-selection menu, which insisted that it has no products for the Mac starting with "DRA" or "LEA". Finally I got a human, who put me on hold for a while and then explained that the software doesn't work unless it can change the resolution. (And this, by the way, is a silly requirement - all my other educational titles work just fine drawing their 640x480 graphics in the middle of a larger screen.)
On the whole it was a thoroughly disappointing waste of time. Clearly the folks at Scholastic did not test their software on a variety of machines, and despite the simultaneous Mac/Win release, are not serious about supporting their Mac customers. |
