DISNEY'S THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE-GROOVE CENTER Published on January 2nd, 2001

This activity center offers children the opportunity to play with the characters from the movie in four fun activities. One encourages children to explore their creativity as they design their own six-paneled tapestry. What is particularly cool about this activity is that the tapestry animates upon completion. In another activity, children help the character of Pacha plant and harvest food for his village. Children help hoe, plant, water, and harvest virtual crops. On the higher difficulty levels, players must contend with the weather and natural disasters. The two remaining activities are arcade-style games. One involves some strategy as children throw magic potions at soldiers to protect Kuzco, the star of the movie. The other requires quick reflexes and good timing as players release planks into the mouths of crocodiles to keep them from eating Kuzco. The weaknesses of this activity center are that it has too few activities-four to be exact, and it has an online component that does not ensure children's safety. I would opt to not load the online component during installation. Also, while the box says this is a title for 4-8 year olds, it is best played by 6-8 year olds. The Groove Center's strengths are that each of its four activities is fun to play, and each is well thought out. Three are multi-leveled and in two, you can play against a friend.
Summary Age  6 - 8 Platform  Windows Mac Price  $30.00 Category  Activity Centers Grade  ISBN  Company  Disney Interactive (800) 900-9234 http://www.disneyinteractive.com

DISNEY'S 102 DALMATIANS ACTIVITY CENTER Published on January 2nd, 2001

This activity center offers five activities. Unfortunately, only three work well. Kids will have fun in an arcade-type maze game, playing a logic game in which you ask questions to deduce which dog is the 'Top Dog', and a standard art creativity activity that allows children to use stickers of the movie characters. The other two activities are uninspired and down-right boring. Kid-testers lost interest in tossing bowls of food to puppies and trying to play with dogs in virtual parks. As in Groove Center, this software hosts an ill-conceived online component. You have to quit out of the game, go online to download a small program, and restart the game to add more parks in which to play with your dog-an activity that isn't that much fun to begin with. For the price, children will get very little satisfying interaction with the characters from the movie. The age recommendation is off too, these activities are too hard for 4 year olds.
Summary Age  5 - 8 Platform  Windows Mac Price  $30.00 Category  Activity Centers Grade  ISBN  Company  Disney Interactive (800) 900-9234 http://www.disneyinteractive.com

RUGRATS IN PARIS-THE MOVIE CD-ROM Published on January 2nd, 2001

This software houses four arcade games. Unfortunately, these games are not easy to access. Players direct the Rugrat babies through an amusement park to find Chuckie's lost toy, his favorite Wawa. As players move the Rugrats, they run into invisible barriers which keep the characters from moving-something our kid-testers found tremendously frustrating. Another major flaw is that children do not have control of when they play the games. They are forced to wander through the park and underground for long periods of time before a game will become available to them. The bottom line: Enjoy the movie if you want, but skip this CD-ROM.
Summary Age  6 - 99 Platform  Windows Price  $30.00 Category  Activity Centers Grade  ISBN  Company  Mattel Interactive (888) 628-8359 http://www.mattelinteractive.com

All software is judged on a five star scale by looking at the following five factors: educational, fun, ease of use, value, technical.

Jinny Gudmundsen is the Editor of Computing With Kids magazine. If you have questions or comments, please write to: .

© 2010 Computing With Kids