Review: The Land Before Time
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The Land Before Time |
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 spacePC:
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
The Land Before Time Animated Kindergarten Adventure
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 spacePC:
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
