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Around the World in 80 Days
Last issue in our review of Peter Pan we introduced the EA*Kids' Paintbox Pals as they accompanied Peter on his hair-raising adventures in Never Never Land, and in this issue Sally Sprayer, Jazz Painter, Winston Whoosh and Nick Lead are back. This time they lend their expertise to Phileas Fogg as he jaunts around the world - and they're just as much fun as ever.
The story of Phileas Fogg needs no re-telling but Electronic Arts have used it to great advantage to produce this fun-filled and informative children's game for the age group 5 to 8. Amidst much fanfare, and with a little help from the Paintbox Pals, Fogg and his lovable monkey, Sidney, take flight from London, immediately upon which a map of Europe appears on screen concentrating mainly on the southern European countries. Here players can choose to make either Spain or France their first port of call. Choose a destination and that country's flag appears, then click on 'Fun facts' for more information such as capital city and population. And so the map changes as the game progresses giving basic geographical information on different locations until London re-appears.
Just like Peter Pan this game is in the EA Creative Reader series so the dialogue is printed on-screen to aid children with their reading. In fact Around the World goes a step further with specific words and phrases highlighted. Click on them and they are defined or, in some cases, when they are the names of well known landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower or physical features such as the Sahara desert, a simple encyclopaedia-like caption is displayed. Also, for many of the countries visited common words of greeting and other pleasantries such as 'thank you' are translated. All this is initiated solely by the player so there is no sense of being given a lecture, only a sense of fun.
And when I say fun, that's exactly what I mean. At every stop the travellers run into some sticky situation or other, or they are called upon to do a good deed, and the Paintbox Pals are ever ready to offer their help. A dab of paint from Jazz or just a quick squirt from Sally will conjure up an ally or some other helpful tool to fend off the shark or knock that hunter out of the tree. A quick swipe with Winston will reveal some hidden item to stop the marauding bulls in their tracks, and when Nick joins the dots there is almost always something useful to be found. There's so much going on and usually more than one way to solve a problem. There is even a stop-over in Australia with a lost emu's egg to be hunted down.
It's hard to fault this game. I loved it. In fact, I'm digging deep for these final observations. It was, however, just a little incongruous that the saving of African wild animals went hand in hand with the taunting of a wretched bull in the Spanish bull ring. And, I suppose Electronic Arts could be forgiven for this, but someone forgot to tell them that it would most likely be Papa, and not Mama emu, pining for a lost egg.
Copyright © Rosemary Young 1995.
All rights reserved.
System requirements:
386/25 or higher, 3MB RAM, CD-ROM, DOS 5.0, mouse.
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