This is a suite of four children’s games based on the popular Universal
movie series, The Land Before Time. The titles are as follows:

The Land Before Time Movie Book
The
Land Before Time Math Adventure
The Land Before
Time Activity Center
The Land Before Time Animated
Kindergarten Adventure

All Four Games

Although
these games are mostly recommended for younger children, I had my almost-eight-year-old
son Nick play the games, and I talk about them from both his and my point of view.

A
note to parents who may not be as computer-savvy as we here at JA+: installation
went off without a hitch on all of these games, on both an HP Pentium II (no MMX)
166 MHz with generic sound card and a Sony Pentium II MMX 266 MHz with Soundblaster
AWE and built-in ATI Rage Pro chip. The games were also very stable–we had maybe
one system hangup the whole time Nick was playing the games.

Usually, this
would be the part where I talk about plot. However, these are not adventure games,
even though a couple of them have “adventure” in their titles. Thus,
there is no plot to discuss, unless you count the movie plot. I’ll just skip this
part, then. All four games feature the dinosaur children from the movies (I think)
(I only saw the first movie myself, way back when it was released in the theaters,
and it was so long ago that I don’t remember a bit of it; Nick has never seen
one). The dinosaurs guide the player in completing various activities such as
mazes, races, dot-to-dot, virtual coloring books, etc.

The graphics are,
as you might expect, very high-quality, and the sound effects are all well-placed
and appropriate. The voice-overs and character voices are very dumbed-down and
obnoxious (sickly sweet and slow-talking like Mr. Rogers) from the parent point
of view, but they didn’t seem to bother Nick at all. All of the games use the
same music, from the movies, and it gets tiresome to the parent before too long.
I recommend the use of headphones. My final grade for the entire group is a
C+, but as you’ll see, they’re a pretty mixed bag.

Below I discuss some
specifics of each game and give them overall ratings. In a nutshell, though, our
conclusion was that most of these games all have better counterparts in other
software products. These games also assume that the player knows and loves at
least some of the LBT movies.

The
Land Before Time Movie Book

Developer: Ovation
Publisher:
Sound Source Interactive
Release Date: 1998
Ages 3-6

The main portion of this game
outlines the story of the first Land Before Time movie. At the opening,
you are presented with a map, with hotspots numbered 1 through 10. Clicking on
one takes you to a part of the story; if you start on 1 and follow through, you
automatically advance to the next parts. When you are on the story screen, you
can click the “read” button to have the story read to you (it also is
printed along the top of the screen so the child can follow along), the “save”
button to return to the main map, or the “puzzle” button to do a jigsaw
puzzle of the screen. Also, there are various active hotspots on each screen that
lead to a little animation, a clip from the actual movie, or a short puzzle, like
choosing left or right, matching, etc. There are four fossils to find throughout
the movie story that lead to bigger, full-screen puzzles.

Movie Book
is rated by the publisher for ages 3 through 6. My opinion is that it would
be more suitable for the younger end of the range. It is comparable to the Living
Books series, with a lot of reading along and hotspots, but it is not as charming.
If your child likes those types of games, he or she will probably like Movie
Book as well. Nick liked it for about a half-hour and then never went back
to it, so I’d say give it a pass if you have older children that require a little
bit more mental stimulation to maintain their interest. We rate this one “just
okay.”

System Requirements:
486/33 running Windows 3.1X or Win95
8 MB RAM
2X CD-ROM drive
Super
VGA (640 x 480, 256 color)
Sound card

The
Land Before Time Activity Center

Release Date: 1998
Developer:
Digital Meteor
Publisher: Sound Source Interactive
Ages 4-8

In this game, you are presented
with a choice of several activities. For example, there is a coloring book, a
maze, and a place to make a story by arranging sentences and choosing pictures.
The quality is spotty: some of the activities are fun; others not so. One of the
un-fun things is a dinosaur trivia game. Many of the questions require the player
to have knowledge of the movies, although there are questions about real dinosaurs
interspersed. As a reward for completing activities, the player gets tree stars,
which can be spent on LBT movie clips. Big whoop (oh, sorry, that’s a different
game).

In my mommy opinion, there are too many things to print out–those
dang inkjet refills go fast and are expensive. Nick liked some of the activities
quite a bit, particularly the maze and the concentration game, and others not
so much, like the aforementioned trivia game. He did, however, go back to this
game a few times after the original tryout. A better choice would be any of the
Magic School Bus games–they have similar types of activities but treat
the player as if he or she had a bit more intelligence and require no background
knowledge of movies (or TV shows) on the part of the player. We rate Activity
Center “some good parts and some bad.”

System
Requirements:

Mac:
Macintosh
68040-33 or Power PC
2X CD-ROM drive
8 MB RAM (5 MB free)

PC:

486/33 DX or better
Windows 3.1X or Win95
8 MB RAM (recommended minimum)

2X CD-ROM drive
Super VGA color
Sound card

The Land
Before Time Math Adventure

Developer: Digital Meteor
Publisher:
Sound Source Interactive
Release Date: 1998
Ages 4-8

Ah, now, this is more like it.
Nick loves math, and he fits (barely) into the age range for Math Adventure.
When faced with the choice of which of the four LBT games to start
with, he immediately went for this one. However, Nick is well above his grade
level in math, and this game proved to be a little too easy. (Of course, he didn’t
mind–it made him feel super smart.)

At the start, the player is presented
with a choice of several games to play, like a race where he/she makes the character
run faster by solving problems correctly. Another one involved advancing a dinosaur
across various hazards by solving problems correctly. If the player is incorrect,
nothing bad happens; he or she just gets another try. The math problems mostly
involve addition/subtraction and greater than/less than, with one- or two-digit
numbers, and this was on Level 3, the hardest. (We didn’t try Levels 1 and 2.)
Also, throughout the game, you earn math money; again, you can pay to watch clips
from an LBT movie. Nick wanted to play Math Adventure more than
once, but the mommy in me says there should have been some more advanced multiplication/division-type
problems on the harder level in order that Nick might actually have learned something.
Also, I think the player should have been rewarded with puzzles or other activities
instead of movie clips; Nick never wanted to spend his reward money. We rate this
one “pretty good” but would recommend Math Blasters instead for
older children in the age range.

System Requirements:

Mac:
Power PC
System 7.X or better
2X CD-ROM
drive
16 MB RAM
3 MB free hard disk space

PC:

486/66 or better
Windows 3.1x or Win95
16 MB RAM
2X CD-ROM drive

8-bit sound card
Super VGA (640 x 480 color)
3 MB free hard disk space

Developer: Digital Meteor

Publisher: Sound Source Interactive
Release Date: 1998
Ages 4-6

This game is probably the best
of the four. It’s nothing but a group of activities for young children–there
are no educational aspects (although the package tries to tell you otherwise),
and no background knowledge is required of the player. Although Nick is above
the suggested ages for Animated Kindergarten Adventure, this is probably
the one of the four that got the most replay.

At the opening, you are presented
with a choice of several activities such as pinball, making greeting cards (including
one for the Fourth of July!?), a musical shape matching game, and a game where
the player can place any of several animated characters to create a scene. Nick
went back to the pinball game more than any of the others. We rate Kindergarten
Adventure “totally fun.”

System Requirements:

Mac:
Power PC
System 7.x or better
2X CD-ROM
Drive (4X recommended)
16 MB RAM (24 MB recommended)
12 MB free hard disk
space

PC:
Windows 95
486/66 DX or
better
2X CD-ROM drive (4X recommended)
8-bit sound card
SVGA (640
x 480, 256 color)
16 MB RAM (24 MB recommended)
12 MB free hard disk space