Blues
Clues: Blue Takes You To School
Atari, Inc.
This computer game brings the magic of Blue and his treasure hunting modus operandi to a school setting. Your toddler, especially if he or she is familiar with the Blue, will find the game play to be simple yet engaging. The educational fare is standard for the age including simple counting, letter & number recognition, shape & color matching, etc. Like all Blue titles it is the pure delight that Blue brings to everything that he does that makes this title worth a look for your little one.
Recommended Ages: 3 to 6 Retail Price: $19.99
Clifford
Phonics
Scholastic, Inc.
The continuing success story of the Clifford franchise is based on his infectiously upbeat attitude and boundless curiosity. Your child will love being able to interact with Clifford and his friends in this carnival setting that provides the backdrop for good solid tool teaching and reinforcement of reading and phonics. This title is produced with intuitive interfaces that are tuned just right for the age group. Parents appreciated the software's flexibility, which includes three automatically adjusting levels that shift according to your child's progress
Recommended Ages: 4 to 6 Retail Price: $19.95
Little
Bill Thinks Big
Scholastic, Inc.
For those of you not familiar with Bill Cosby's Little Bill character, let us be the first to tell you what you're missing. Bill is a delightful young boy with an infectious laugh, a positive demeanor, and a curiosity streak a mile wide. Parents and children found Little Bill to be perfectly age appropriate companion. The game play features a wide assortment of great projects introduced ingeniously with a seasonal theme. All the supporting characters here are warm, welcoming and full of encouragement. Your child will love Little Bill.
Recommended Ages: 4 to 6 Retail Price: $19.95
Click
& Create with Mia
Kutoka Interactive
Thanks to the creative folks at Kutoka, Mia is back with
her trademark animations that seem to jump off the page. This time Mia has a
variety of fun and easy to use projects. There are templates aplenty, that
allow children to color and design with elements found in throughout this
series. You can add characters to backgrounds and produce printable pages for
hanging or cutting out. Clearly the favorite feature was the music and dancing
characters which could be inserted into any drawing.
Recommended Ages: 5 and Up Retail Price: $19.95
Barbie
Horse Adventures Mystery Ride
Vivendi Universal Games
Do you have a budding horse lover in your home? Looking for a way to stop the pleas for a pony? This may buy you a respite. This adventure software, featuring a 3D modeled Barbie and a horse you can design to match her outfit or the other way around, is really quite fun and engaging. Your equestrian will steer Barbie and her steed through trails, deserts, forests, caves and waterfalls. There is a mystery that Barbie and your child must solve together by completing some logic puzzles that vary in difficulty. The graphics are quite beautiful and perfect for either quenching or whetting the appetite of your horse aficionado.
Recommended Ages: 5 and Up Retail Price: $29.99
Pajama
Sam: Life Is Rough When You Lose Your Stuff
Atari, Inc.
Nobody does it better than Pajama Sam when it comes to entertaining and stimulating children on the computer. Sam is a perfect blend of sleuth and adventurer, but most of all he's just a kid. As always Sam needs your child's help to solve puzzling situations. The challenges here are ingenious like finding lost socks in Agitator Lake and rounding up dust bunnies at the Dust Bunny Corral. Solutions often require creative thinking like when Sam needs light in a dark cave, but he doesn't have a flashlight. How about a jar of fire flies! You will love playing with Sam as much as your kids.
Recommended Ages: 5 to 8 Retail Price: $19.99
Barbie
of Swan Lake: The Enchanted Forest
Vivendi Universal Games
What Barbie has brought to the world of dolls for years, a fanciful, timeless beauty, is perfectly married here in an electronic adventure of Swan Lake where Barbie stars as Odette. Together with Lila the unicorn, your child is charged with the task of breaking an enchanted spell. Children, well, girls, loved being able search for the ingredients to make magic wands, which they use to paint the beauty back into the land, a lush and exotic environment. What impressed our testers was the broad age appeal Barbie demonstrated, capturing and holding the attention of girls as old as 12.
Recommended Ages: 5 and Up Retail Price: $29.99
Math
Missions: The Race to Spectacle City Arcade
Scholastic, Inc.
Great software for kids must be engaging, entertaining and in the best case scenario, educational. Math Missions has all that and then some. In fact, the play value never quits. There are loads of age appropriate math activities and word problems featuring varying levels of play. Parents loved that the game never abandons your child, instead it intuitively offers strategies and hints to help them solve problems. The only complaint you'll have is how hard it is to pull them away for dinner.
Recommended Ages: 5 to 8 Retail Price: $19.95
I
Spy Fantasy
Scholastic, Inc.
The I Spy franchise of software just keeps racking up Seal of Approval awards and with good reason. This latest incarnation in the hidden picture series features three really cool environments where children put their sleuthing skills to the test. They will seek out hidden goodies in dizzyingly elaborate scenarios. Whether under the sea, in a castle or up in space they will be scavengers extraordinaire when they are done. A nice twist here is that your child's name is often hidden in the puzzle, kids got a real kick out of that.
Recommended Ages: 6 to 10 Retail Price: $19.95
Backyard
Football 2004
Atari, Inc.
The backyard sports series, which is now being produced under the Atari banner, is one of the most ingenious and successful of all time. Your child will be introduced to the world of football in a joyously light-hearted manner. Featuring an assortment of neighborhood kids, as well as some of the NFL’s top players depicted here as children, they will be learning the rules and plays of the grown-up game. Our testers, familiar with previous versions, found 2004 to be superior, thanks to moves like juking and diving. Don't let those phrases intimidate first-timers though, the game is easy for anyone to pick up and start playing.
Recommended Ages: 7 and Up Retail Price: $19.99
Math
Missions: The Amazing Arcade Adventure
Scholastic, Inc.
Scholastic has succeeded in capturing the perfect blend of education and entertainment in one software title. If you are looking for one educational software title for your kids, make sure this is on your list. Challenged with the task of rebuilding a decaying downtown area, your child must navigate and tackle a variety of age appropriate math games. What really impressed our parents was that our kid testers refused to quit. In fact we found that they were single-mindedly determined to succeed. The brilliant payoff is that when successful they get to build and play in a great video game arcade. Genius!
Recommended Ages: 8 to 11 Retail Price: $19.95
Friday
Night Bowling
Global Star Software
Sometimes you just want to chill out, not do the dishes, walk the dog or even check your email. How does knocking down some pins sound? Global Star offers up this purely entertaining diversion without the rental shoes. Like many sports simulation software titles there is some hand/eye coordination to master, but soon enough you'll be putting up some good numbers. Whether you are playing against the computer or a friend, you'll love the escape. That still leaves the matter of the dishes in the sink.
Recommended Ages: 9 and Up Retail Price: $19.99
Friday
Night Darts
Global Star Software
If you think of darts as nothing more than a fun diversion relegated primarily to pubs found in the UK, you may be surprised to find how much fun awaits you in this software release. Stroll in, turn on the jukebox, pick your darts and fire away. Our testers told us again and again how much fun they had, and also mentioned that darts were surprisingly educational. Many versions of darts are based on numbers and especially math as you are counting down to zero while playing 501.
Recommended Ages: 9 and Up Retail Price: $19.99
Mall
Tycoon 2
Global Star Software
Tycoon software concept appeals to many who want to try their hand at managing a business. Past incarnations have included zoos, amusement parks and the like, but this release is one near and dear to our teens' daily lives, The Mall. Has your teen ever said, "If I ran this mall it would be so much better because..." Well now they can put their money where their mouth is by designing just about any mall imaginable. Hire staff, market, design expansion and even tour the grounds with a terrific first person perspective. Not every computer system can manage the graphic demands, so be sure to check the requirements before purchasing.
Recommended Ages: 12 and Up Retail Price: $29.99
For more information about The Seal of Approval or The National Parenting Center call: 1-800-753-6667
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Last Update: November 12, 2003