Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Snow Princess

Looking for a well-designed first game experience for a preschooler? This is an excellent choice.

In Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Snow Princess, players join Dora, Boots and Pirate Piggy as they help the Snow Fairy save the Snow Princess and the Magical Snowy Forest while defeating the Mean Witch. The game features 12 minigames that can be unlocked; all are easy to play and master. In the console edition, adults can pick up the second controller to help, or just play along, creating an excellent social opportunity. In the Wii version, players hold the Wii Remote like a pair of handlebars, leaning left or right to move through the side-scrolling levels. Along the way, they climb, dig, build snowmen, paddle a canoe, steer a dogsled and ride a Pegasus using various motions. You can also ice skate, snowboard and ski while trying to find the magic crystal. In the DS version, you can shout into the microphone to make the sea snake go away, blow into it to help the Snow Fairy fly across the moat, tap with the stylus to steer Paj's dogsled, and use the stylus to drag ice blocks to light up the ice cave.

Both the Wii version and the PS2 version are well-designed, although the game play is very different. Testers found the DS version to be more limited in content, resulting in a slightly lower rating (4.5 stars), compared to the Wii and PS2 versions (4.6 stars).

Link to download Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Snow Princess
Link to buy Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Snow Princess

Diner Dash: Flo on the Go

Warning, this game is addicting, so consider yourself warned. Anyone who's ever waited tables knows that it requires juggling a variety of tasks at once. In this game, you assume the role of a fast-footed waitress named Flo. As customers line up at the front door, you must seat them, take their orders, turn them into the kitchen, deliver the food, take the bills, bus the tables and seat the next customers. The better you do, the bigger your tips. Customer satisfaction is measured by a set of hearts; if a customer waits too long, they will leave and your score goes down.

There's been a variety of Diner Dash games in the past (the original idea comes from GameLab). This edition combines casual gaming with a story where Flo is going on a vacation, but loses her suitcase. She has to use her waitress skills to get her vacation and wardrobe back on track. The game features 50 levels and includes blackout and turbulence modes that make waiting tables more difficult, as well as nine types of customers -- including tacky tourists and lovebirds. For $20, you can't go wrong with this fun game, and it definitely stretches your short-term memory. Created by PlayFirst for Bright Minds Media.

Link to download Diner Dash: Flo on the Go

Eco-Creatures Game

Confusing and hard to learn, this one-player DS game attempts to teach players about the effects that over-industrialization, deforestation, pollution, extinction and global warming have on the environment. While these are big topics, it is hard to figure out what they have to do with this game. Players use the Touch Screen to move a tribe of woodland creatures around an island. Each creature-type has different abilities (Ecolis grow trees, Ecoby build bridges and swim, and Ecomon move objects and fly, and so on). There are 40 missions, but we couldn't get through the first, and our testers all gave up as well. So this really could be a good game, but we'd never know. Other features include a two-tofour player game-sharing mode, and a make your own island feature. Developed by Lightweight Co. Ltd., and Headlock Corporation for Majesco.

Link to buy Eco-Creatures

SpongeBob's Atlantis SquarePantis Game Review

Full of slapstick Spongebob humor, this scavenger hunt adventure game lets you explore the lost city of Atlantis in search of new outfits and accessories. As you explore, you switch between SpongeBob, Patrick, Sandy, Squidward, Mr. Krabs, and Plankton to take advantage of each character's unique abilities. Each level features unlockable objectives including: Invading Atlantis in the mighty Super-Scooper Tank; getting cultured by creating high art with Squidward; and singing on the magic bus to Atlantis. Additional content includes unlockable bonus features including multiplayer mini-games in the Amoeba Arcade, and customization of SpongeBob with outfits and accessories. Features and prices vary by platform, from $20 for the GBA to $50 for the Wii.

Link to buy SpongeBob's Atlantis SquarePantis

XO Laptop

"Strange, hard to open, but full of surprises" -- was my [WB's] initial reaction to the famous XO $100 Laptop from MIT that actually costs about $430 for two. So I guess it is really a $215 laptop. I had a chance to test a beta version briefly during last month's (Nov 07) Dust or Magic Institute. Important to note up front: the XO computer will not be available in the US or Canada; the only way to get one is through the buy-one, send-one to a poor child initiative.

The small, green clamshell case houses a 433 MHz processor, 256 MB of RAM and wireless Internet, that we could not get to work. There's also a 7.5 inch color screen, a non-standard rubbery membrane keyboard that is almost toy-like, but can be easily imprinted with different languages (currently available in Thai, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, English, West African, Urdu, Mongolian, Cyrillic, Amharic; with others planned). The screen flips around, in Tablet PC fashion, making it into a book reader, minus the touch abilities. There is no hard drive or fan, and there are three USB ports as well as an SD card slot.

After struggling for about five minutes to get the case open, I tried the drawing program, that you access by moving the cursor down to the corner of screen, which causes a listing of the available applications to appear from the sides, somewhat comparable to Mac OSX. There's a strangely large touch pad with multiple parts, one for touch and the other for writing. We found the drawing experience to be refreshingly non-gimmicky although obviously difficult using the touch pad. There's just clean, pixel-by-pixel drawing, with the ability to easily import digital photos from the onboard camera. It is easy to see that this device is powerful and holds a lot of potential for expanding Internet access to remote areas of the world, which might include parts of your own hometown. In addition, the open-source aspect of the operating language is extremely promising, and based on the traffic show at the development wiki (http://dev.laptop.org/) it is clear that programmers around the world are working on the operating system, called "Sugar."

Unfortunately, we weren't able to explore, and that's about all we could get out of this computer before the batteries died. On paper, the specs are interesting -- because each computer has a wireless router, this makes it possible for each computer to create its own mesh network, right out of the box. So a child can send notes or sketches to another child in the same room; and if one of the computers is online, everyone can get online. Clearly there's some powerful thinking behind this computer, although we were not able to get any of these features working to personally test. Keep in mind that there's no disk drive, and you won't be able to install Windows or Mac-based software on this computer. Instead, this computer uses the Internet as it's hard drive; not a bad idea.

Entry date: 11/29/2007

The Children's Circuit

In the last five years, I've attended my share of children's performances. Daddio has attended his share, too, but still fewer than me. We've braved Blues Clues, Sesame Street Live, Dragon Tales, the Big Apple Circus, the Wiggles and Disney On Ice. I imagine that subconsciously I've forgotten various other performances, but that shows how meaningful those experiences actually were.

I don't recall attending or even the availability of so many children's productions when I was a youngster. Perhaps I was sheltered in this respect, but more likely, kids created their own performances outside on the neighbor's lawn, in my day. Kids programming was limited, at best.

Yesterday evening, we attended The Wiggles Concert.



To say the least, The Wiggles Concert, live and in-person, is an experience. It would be virtually impossible to find yourself nodding off as Jeff, Anthony and Murray scurry through the audience and Greg jokingly plucks out a few notes of Led Zeppelin's Stairway To Heaven for the adults' benefit.

When I originally heard about these four Australian guys, prancing around onstage belting out children's tunes, I assumed they were gay. Who in their right mind would do this for a living? I assumed, they either must be out of their minds, or consumed large amounts of uppers, namely Prozac.

Then, two years ago, I heard a "cool" dad, dropping off his children at school, remark to the preschool teacher, "Hey, sorry the kids are late, today. We went to the Wiggles concert last night. Boy, they were amazing! They're like the Rolling Stones for kids."

Like the Rolling Stones, eh? I figured I better check it out. So, I set up our Tivo to record the show. My kids were immediately hooked. Within a few weeks, the kids demanded to dress in their ballet attire and dance to the Wiggles on television a few times a week. They could watch the same episode three times in a row, possibly more, if I'd allow it.

Last year, we attended our first Wiggles concert. I recall being stunned by the energy. The parents (particularly the mothers) seemed just as mesmerized by these four Aussie fellows as the kids. The mommies belted out every word of every tune as their children swayed their hips and clapped their hands. Not that I've been to a Rolling Stones concert, but it was like stuff I'd seen on MTV.

Now, over a year later, of Tivo-ing the show and listening to the Wiggles tunes, I, too, can belt out the words to nearly all the Wiggles tunes. I've become one of those mothers who is just as mesmerized by these Aussie fellows as are her children. Even Daddio, sang along to the songs he recognized.

However one feels about the four Aussie men, collectively known as the Wiggles, depriving a child of a Wiggles Concert is like depriving them of their childhood these days. If there is one thing that a parent could choose to do with a child, I strongly recommend attending a live Wiggles show. The energy present at both shows I've attended is as exuberant as Times Square in New York City.

I hope we attend the Wiggles concert again next year! At one point, Daddio asked if all the adults actually brought children to the concert. I wonder myself... maybe we will become the sort of parents that will continue to attend the annual concerts when our children are in high school and college.

Doubtful, but not beyond the realm of possibilities.... Why knows, by then, we may find the Cheetah Girls tolerable.

Turnaround

Today, being the last day of this set of swim lessons, Scooter had a 180 degree turnaround.

Here's the proof:



And some actions shots of Teacup: