Aidan Reviews Pharaoh Serket and the Lost Stone of Fire
In our house Anthony is the video editor. He puts in an incredible amount of work to make Aidan’s videos look and sound good. Thank you for staying up way too late Anthony, Aidan and I really appreciate it.
On the weekend, Aidan and I went to see Carousel Theatre’s musical “Munscha Mia”. Aidan has started doing video reviews of the plays he sees, so here’s his review of “Munscha Mia” for you to enjoy.
You can also see his review of Bird Brain.
On the weekend, Gwen and I put on a “Geocaching 101” event for some people we’ve met through Twitter. You can read an awesome summary of the day on the Outdoor Vancouver blog.
As part of that event, the fine folks (Helen and Chris) at Landsharkz loaned us a Geomate.jr GPSr.
The Geomate.jr is a “family-friendly” GPSr. It’s intended to be simple to use so that kids can just pick it up and start geocaching. You don’t have to worry about downloading caches from it … it comes with 250,000 caches already installed. It promises to be quick, easy, and uncomplicated.
The device itself is small, rubberized, and only has a two buttons (plus a power button). The display is a black and white LCD that presents a small amount of information at any given time. When searching for caches, it shows distance in metres and an arrow pointing the way. On the periphery of the display are LCDs for cache size, difficulty, and terrain.
And, it’s quite inexpensive: $70 CAD!
We had the GPS for a bit over a week, and brought it to the Geocaching 101 event where quite a number of kids were able to look at it and use it. We used it to find a few caches and even after a short time with it I think we got a pretty good idea of what it’s like.
The best things about it are the things it’s designed for: it’s a nice small, rugged device that’s quite suitable for small hands racing around the forest. The display is easy to understand on the cache hunt, with big numbers counting down the distance to the cache, and an arrow pointing the direction.
On the other hand, I found using it a bit less intuitive than I liked. The only information you have about the cache you’re seeking — other than the size, terrain, and difficulty — is the GC number. No cache name, no description, no hints, no logs, nothing else. As such, you still need this information somehow, so you need another device or print-outs.
The distance display is good, but the arrow is only helpful when you’re moving. For kids, this is a bit of a challenge: they (and me!) like to stop to get bearings.
Additionally, I found it confusing navigating between the units different screens, and getting it to go back to the cache I was interested in. One of the buttons on the unit goes from the closest cache to the next closest and so on, but to get back to the beginning of the list you have to hold the button down and wait. Sounds easy but I was never sure it was working.
Also, those 250,000 caches? They’re all US caches. To get international caches (including Canada), you need to buy the Upgrade Kit (a special cable) and download caches to it. And they’re just traditional caches. No multi’s, no letterboxes, nothing else. That’s probably ok for kids (we mostly do trads anyway) but it’s a bit confusing when you’re trying to figure out what the next cache is (or should be).
Pros:
Cons:
In the end, while I’m grateful for the loaner, and while I applaud the goals, I don’t think I’d get it for my kids. For a few more dollars, a Garmin eTrex gives you a GPS that does all the same things, except has maps and can show you (marginally) more information.
Review: Go Diego Go! Safari Rescue (Wii)
“Based on Nickelodeon research with preschoolers and their families to determine how the platform’s motion-play capabilities are absorbed by younger children, Go, Diego, Go! Safari Rescue was designed with 13 intuitive Wii-centric motions that maximize the engineering of the Wii Remote for a preschooler. Taking on the role of Diego in a race across Africa, gamers stomp to scare away lions, jump with Baby Jaguar, paint stripes on zebras, climb up ladders and swim across the jungle river by mimicking those actions with the Wii Remote.” (from Metacritic)
After some research on the net, I decided that Safari Rescue was going to be the first game I tried to get Aidan to play on the Wii. I mean, sure, he likes holding the Guitar Hero guitar and watching the notes scroll by, but he’s not really playing.
A mosquito lands on a magic wand, turning it into a magician. The magician decides she doesn’t like elephants and turns them to stone. Well, some of them. Diego and Baby Jaguar have to find and use a magic drum that can turn the elephants back.
Seriously.
But, you know, we don’t have to really worry about characters’ motivation do we? It creates some tension for the kids and gives them a goal.
The story and controls are explained by Diego in cut scenes. The cut scenes are just like the TV show, with Diego addressing the audience directly. The graphics are the same as you’d expect from the show and the character voice is identical too. OF COURSE THAT MEANS HE’S CONSTANTLY SHOUTING! But somehow Diego’s not quite as grating as DORA!
Gameplay is a typical side-scrolling adventure. Diego has to travel along the path, jumping over the occasional obstacle, retrieving the occasional object behind trees, rocks, bushes, and sundry other things. There are platforms that boost him to other areas, trampolines, meerkat holes, zip lines, muddy hills, and other interesting devices to make it a bit more than a simple side-scroller. Again, the graphics and sounds are essentially what you’d expect from the TV show. Every once and a while you get interrupted by the backpack or the camera, or the occasional story-advancing cut-scene, but it’s pretty much get Diego from one end of the scene to the next. There are tokens to collect along the way, and food for various animals, but there is no consequence to not collecting “enough” tokens. Also, there is no “dying”. If you fail to jump over some obstacles, Diego trips and mutters something (oops?) but keeps on going. You can’t fall off ledges. You can’t fall off swinging vines. You can’t miss jumping on the swinging vines.
The crowning glory on the game is the control scheme. You control Diego entirely with moving the Wiimote and a single button. The Wiimote is held horizontally, and to get Diego to walk to the right, you tilt the Wiimote right. Want to walk left? Tilt it left. Jump is pushing the button. Which button? Well, the “2” button (under your right thumb) works. So does “1”. I think even “A” works.
Climbing ladders is tilting the Wiimote left, then right, then left, then right, etc. Getting things out of trees? Push the button to climb the tree, and then shake the Wiimote. Push over a rock? Push the button to brace, then push the rock with the Wiimote.
The control scheme is just brilliant and a full realization of the potential of the Wii.
But it gets better. The game also has a parental assist mode. For some of the more “complicated” manoeuvres, a parent, sibling, or friend can perform the exact same motion as the main player with a second Wiimote. This gets the child beyond parts that might be more difficult, but also brings in an element of teamwork and cooperation.
The boy loves this game. He’s able to follow the story line. He’s able to perform all the control actions. It’s not scary. It’s not violent. It’s not frustrating. It’s Diego (for some reason, this is a plus for him, but a minus for the parents).
From an adult point of view, the tasks are repetitive and your focus will wander. Not so Aidan. He was thoroughly enjoying himself. I’m not ashamed to say that he played for over an hour the first time. We’ve limited his play time since then, though, to about 20 minutes once or twice a day.
The only other down side is that pressing on the “D” pad causes Diego to interrupt and give a little cut scene on how to move him using the Wiimote. Given that the “D” pad is under the left-hand thumb, this can be very irritating as the toddler accidentally presses the pad again. And again. I wish there were some way to prevent the “helpful” cut scene from happening. Also, the little graphic showing how to use the Wiimote shows a stylized person tilting the Wiimote back and forth. Aidan tried to duplicate that motion identically and of course all it does is twitch Diego back and forth. And back and forth. It didn’t take a long time for Aidan to work it out, but it was a bit misleading.
Wow, a home run with the first swing! This game is absolutely awesome for the preschool set. It features someone they’ve inevitably seen on the TV. Gameplay is preschool-friendly, non-violent and non-frustrating. The Wii’s control scheme is amazing. It’s both interactive and physically active. It’s probably not a game for kids much older than … oh 6 or so, but it’s perfect for the 3-6 crowd.
