Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's Adventure in Tinker Town
Reviewed by Jason Levine
Published by MGM/UA Family Entertainment

Age Group: Age 4 to 8 Type: Puzzles/Memory Price: $29.95 US

PC version requires:
486-66 8 MB RAM, 2M 2x CD-ROM, VLB/PCI, Windows 95, 640x480x256

Mac version requires:
Not available.

Description:

For its initial entry into the world of children's software, MGM/UA Family Entertainment has wisely decided to draw on one of its own in-house classics for inspiration: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the 1968 musical extravaganza starring Dick Van Dyke as eccentric inventor Caractacus Potts and Sally Ann Howes as the lovely Truly Scrumptious. (Author Ian Fleming's penchant for giving his female characters, er, descriptive names apparently carried over from his Agent 007 novels.) Equally wisely, instead of attempting to create some kind of interactive storybook out of that sweeping movie, MGM Interactive plucked the other main character from the story, that marvelous flying and floating car, and placed it at the center of a program that is at once totally original and refreshingly simple in concept.

Our Fine, Four-Fendered Friend

As the title, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's Adventure in Tinker Town , implies, the program gives the child an opportunity to do something in virtual space that every child loves to do in the real world (without the anguish that the real world version can cause): Take things apart and put them back together again. The program accomplishes this in a way that maximizes interaction by the child without putting any pressure on the child to accomplish anything. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is the child's conveyance through the colorful land of Tinker Town. Serving as the child's guide is Otto the Airbag ("a life-saver with savoir faire"), and on-board the Chitty are the child's main helpers: Screwy Louie the Screwdriver (who can handle both flat head and Phillips varieties), Slammer the Hammer and Rita the Wrench. Except at the start, Chitty doesn't do much flying in this program. Unlike the movie, however, Chitty does talk here. Kath Soucie supplies the car with a warm, comfy British nanny voice worthy of Angela Lansbury or Julie Andrews.

Traveling through Tinker Town the child discovers that the residents are all friendly electrical or mechanical devices like phones, heaters, remote controls, and, yes, even flush toilets. Most of the residents have had one of their crucial parts scattered elsewhere in the town. Using the helpful tools, the child disassembles items to find the parts, takes them in the Chitty to their rightful owner, and puts the device back together again. All of this is accomplished in a completely open and friendly environment. Although the child is informed that a character has a crucial part missing, there's no pressure to find any particular part in any particular order. There's no point tally and no criticism for any missteps. And once the correct part is found and the character repaired, the program cheerfully allows the child to take the device apart and put it back together again as often as desired. Actions are accomplished by clicking on hot spots with the mouse. Hot spots are indicated by the hollow mouse pointer turning solid white, and large yellow arrows appear to indicate the directions in which the child can move. At the easy level, a large capital "T" appears when the mouse pointer is moved over a "tinkerable" part. At the harder level, tinkerable parts have only the same solid pointer as other hot spots. All hot spots seem to have been given a sufficient number of pixels so that small hands will not have difficulty navigating the screens and manipulating the parts.

Along the way, the child will pick up a number of useful lessons in basic science and mechanics. For example, the child will find that a light bulb won't work without a closed circuit and that an electric generator needs a power source like water to make it spin. The child will also learn how plumbing works and even that Thomas Crapper invented the toilet bowl (his name literally went down in history. Sorry!). At appropriate times, Otto the Airbag lends welcome and friendly safety advice in the form of his "Otto's Mottos." My favorite occurs right at the start of the game when the tools encourage the child to "hop in the Chitty, we've got a lot of tinkering to do." Otto immediately jumps in with "Otto's motto No. 63: Never get in a car with strangers!" The child is then prompted to get an adult's approval in joining the adventure by filling out a "driver's license." Wonderful!

Shining Production Values

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a true Windows 95 program. It installs easily from the initial CD autoplay window and includes its own uninstall utility. Three sizes of hard drive installation are offered. I found that the "Tiny" installation of only 1.5 MB worked just fine on my Pentium 120 with 4X CD-ROM, but owners of slower CPUs or CD-ROM drives may want to opt for the "Small" installation of 17.0 MB or the "Big" installation of 45.6 MB. The only irritating aspect of the installation is that CCBB, like far too many other programs these days, insists on installing its own set of the Direct X drivers, even if you already have them installed. Thankfully, these are the version 3.0 drivers, so no real harm is done. But it's time for programmers to wake up here. Most users I know don't appreciate game programs (or other applications for that matter) mucking around with their system software so cavalierly. At least have the program check to see if the drivers are already present for gosh's sake! Packaging is outstanding. Although the manual is slim, game play is so simple and intuitive that all the necessary information is provided. The manual does include a feature I've never seen before: Four coloring book pages of scenes from the game. But don't worry about the kids destroying the manual. Once you've skimmed through it, you won't need it again. What makes the package truly outstanding, however, is separate from the program itself. For MGM has included a VHS video of the movie in the box. At a limited time SRP of $29.95, CCBB is a terrific value.

Shot in Technicolor

CCBB's graphics are marvelous. Without exception, each scene is so colorful and so beautifully drawn, that it's very hard to believe that the graphic artists at Moving Pixels were working with only a 256-color palette. A lot of 16-bit color programs can only wish they looked so good. And all children's software programmers take note: CCBB may use only 256 colors, but it doesn't force users with higher color resolution settings to turn their systems down and reboot.

Almost All Raves, But . . .

There are just a few, relatively minor flaws in this delightful program. First, there's not enough difference between the two difficulty levels. The only thing that differentiates the hard level from the easy is the absence of the large "T" to indicate a tinkerable part. Older children may find this somewhat disappointing. Second, a flyer inserted in the manual apologizes that the programmers were not able to implement a save game feature. Because CCBB is so non-linear in structure, this is not a major omission. Still, there are a few tasks in the game that require one or more actions before others can be performed. Most notably, one of the game's best locations, the "Hot-Z Tot-Z Club" requires that several parts be found before it can be entered. A save game feature would be welcome in such instances. Finally, the exit from the game is very abrupt. Press the escape key and the screen freezes rather bizarrely on whatever color pattern was loaded at that instant and a standard Windows "do you really want to exit?" dialog box appears. Click "yes" and you're out of the program. Mind you, I'm glad CCBB isn't one of those horrible games that makes the child feel guilty by begging not to be turned off. Still, it would have been nice if Chitty could have at least said good-bye.

Encore!

As I say, all of these flaws are rather small potatoes. Overall Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's Adventure in Tinker Town is a splendid first effort from MGM Interactive, easily earning a Silver Bear award. An advertisement in the manual indicates that MGM's next effort will be based on another classic story: Babes in Toyland. We can hardly wait!

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