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Reader Rabbit: Kindergarten

Score: 90%
ESRB: Everyone
Publisher: Riverdeep/The Learning Company
Developer: Riverdeep/The Learning Company
Media: CD/2
Players: 1
Genre: Edutainment

Graphics & Sound:

If you are looking for a game that will teach your child the basic skills that he or she needs to get through kindergarten, then Reader Rabbit: Kindergarten is a must buy.

The game is done in a cartoon-like sprite based style. While the graphics aren't the best, they get the job done, and considering that Reader Rabbit isn't designed to be the next system-pushing game, this flaw is forgivable.

As far as the sound and music are concerned, the quality and sounds themselves are about average. There are a couple of songs in Kindergarten that might get a little unnerving to adult ears, but according to my 6 year-old little brother, 'this music rocks.' So I guess it works for the target audience.


Gameplay:

Reader Rabbit: Kindergarten starts off with Reader Rabbit, Sam the Lion and Page (a floating book with eyes) aboard the Dreamship, when a large sheet of bubble wrap captures the ship and pulls it into to Point Palace (a palace that holds all pointy objects). The group gets out of the ship and meets up with a lady turtle that is in charge of collecting all of the sharp objects.

Now you might be asking why a place would need to keep all sharp objects under lock and key. That is because the place where the Reader Rabbit gang has landed is Balloon Town, a place where the all of the buildings (except Point Palace), land and basically everything is made of balloons.

The turtle tells them that they can get their ship back if they could just get into Point Palace, unfortunately there is a 'bull-dozer' in front of the door (no, not the construction equipment - a sleeping bull), and the only thing that will wake him is if you collect five instruments and play them next to the bull.

Completing tasks and playing games gathers the instruments. After a few finished games, you receive a piece of one of the five instruments (a keyboard, flute, drum, tuba and clarinet). Eventually you gain access to the tower after matching shapes, colors and letters, or completing words and patterns.


Difficulty:

As you get deeper and deeper into each of the games, the tasks get more complicated (for instance, instead of just completing a word with one letter, you will have to add letter pairs, or the patterns that you need to complete grow a bit) but it shouldn't be too much for a child to learn and adapt to.

Game Mechanics:

Reader Rabbit: Kindergarten uses the typical point-and-click system to make the game easier for the children it is designed for. This way the child will focus on the puzzles, tasks and games at hand instead of worrying about hitting the correct buttons.

An example of this system is when you are trying to match letters, colors, shapes and numbers in a group of clams on the beach. To open the clam and see what it contains, you simply move the mouse over the clam of your choice and click it. It should open up for you to match with another clam.

The Reader Rabbit series is a great line to help your child learn and grow, and Kindergarten is no exception. It is a great buy for any parent or grandparent who is looking for a game that will help their kindergartner.


-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications
AKA Chris Meyer

Minimum System Requirements:



166 MHz Pentium or faster; Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP; 100 MB HD space; 32 MB RAM; 8X CD-ROM
 

Test System:



Windows XP Professional Ed., AMD Athlon 600 MHz, 384 MB RAM, 24X CD-ROM, Geforce3 Ti200, DirectX 9.0.

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Game Vortex :: PSIllustrated