Preschool EDGE
Score: 95% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: Brighter Child Canada Developer: Brighter Child Canada Media: CD/10 Players: 1 Genre: Family/ Edutainment
Graphics & Sound: Preschool EDGE is a repackaging of some of Brighter Child's biggest hits geared towards the youngest gamers. This collection of games has everything your little one may need to help prepare them for the preschool days. Each of the games is based off of characters from many of the shows that kids watch on TV. Each of these characters, from Littlefoot (Land Before Time), to Caillou, to Zoboomafoo and Jay-Jay look, sound and act just like their TV counterparts. Each game depicts their character in the same style as the show (whether it is simplistic cartoon animation or stuffed animals) and really helps the kids identify with the characters they are familiar with. Not only do the characters look like those from the show but in many (if not all) cases, the games use the same voice actors, sound effects and music.
Gameplay: Preschool EDGE's 10 discs use characters like Jay Jay the jet plane, Caillou, the Muppet Babies and the casts of Boohbah and Land Before Time to help your child or grandchild with his/her spelling, letter recognition, spatial relationships, sequencing, vocabulary, science, math, colors and much more. These discs contain over 140 different activities that will help the little tykes grow and become more confident in what they know. These activities include things like having Caillou catch certain shapes in a pot, or painting or flying Jay Jay through clouds with letters on them. Most of the games have a progress report system built in so you can see what the children need to work on or what topics they are excelling in. Preschool EDGE also comes with a small dry-erase practice board for working on letters and numbers, three decks of cards (two games and one set of flash cards), and three activity books that do everything from connect the dots to letters and basic logic. These extra items help you continue your child's education and practice away from the computer and even helps you teach them since the games themselves are meant for learning-reinforcement and not first time education.
Difficulty: The difficulty found in Preschool EDGE's activities are all pretty much at the same level and should be good for most preschool gamers. The only real exceptions to this are the activities that you have to go through several times each with a slightly more complex puzzle or scenario. But even in these cases, it shouldn't be too much trouble for a kid to get past and continue the game's story. All in all, Preschool EDGE does a good job of providing activities that are challenging, but not so much that they aggravate the child.
Game Mechanics: Pretty much all of the activities and games found in Preschool EDGE follow a simple point and click system for allowing the kids to interact with the computer. This makes it especially easy for them to focus on the learning tasks instead of making sure they hit the correct key combinations. The real feature that makes this product stand out is how each of the games and activities complement each other. Some discs help to reinforce concepts practiced on others while another disc might focus completely on one topic. This balancing act combined with the flashcards and activity books are what makes the EDGE series worthwhile. Preschool EDGE is a flat-out must buy for any parent or grandparent that wants to help the youngest member of their family get ready for the first years of school. This box set contains everything the child needs to learn their numbers, letters, reading, shapes and colors.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
Minimum System Requirements: Pentium II 300 MHz or equivalent, Windows 98/2000/Me/XP, 75 MB free hard drive space, 64 MB RAM, 16-bit DirectX compatible video card, 4MB memory, Windows compatible sound card, 800x600 16-bit display, 8x CD-ROM   Test System: Windows XP Professional Ed., AMD Athlon XP 2400+ 2GHz, 2 GB RAM, DVD-RW, Radeon 9800 Pro, DirectX 9.0c
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