The ClueFinders' 3rd Grade Adventures
Reviewed by Anise Hollingshead
Published by The Learning Company
Age Group: Age 4 to 8, Age 8 and Up
Type: Language Arts, Thinking Games
Type: Math, Thinking Games
Price: $29.95 USPC version requires:
486/66MHZ, 12MB HD, 8MB RAM, 4x CD-ROMMac version requires:
System 7.1, Power PC, 12MB HD, 8MB RAM, 4x CD-ROMDescription:
Yikes! A nasty mythical monster named Mathra has kidnapped Dr. Pythagorus just as he was on the verge of discovering what was behind the mysterious disappearance of the jungle animals. Now it's up to the ClueFinders to use all their thinking skills to decipher the mystery!
Our eager group of young detectives (Joni, Santiago, Leslie, and Owen), are always ready to take on a new case, especially since Dr. Pythagoras is Joni's Uncle Horace. After they arrive in the Numerian rain forest, they team up with Laptrap, a flying machine thingy, who informs them that they need to find 2 halves of a key that the ancient Numerians used to lock up Mathra in the Lost City long ago. Their search for the 2 key halves will take them first through the Monkey Kingdom and the Goo Lagoon, then the Jungle Canopy and finally on to the Lost City.
The ClueFinders may choose either the Goo Lagoon or the Monkey Kingdom to start their search. The Monkey Kingdom is populated by "monkeystidors" who need lots of math help to help them with the problems of daily living. The Goo Lagoon's denizens are the "liverpudlians" who are goo loving, bug eating creatures. Logic is what they need plenty of to help things run smoothly. Once the keys are found, its off to the Jungle Canopy where the birds want some directional help. The birds then fly the Cluefinders into the Lost City where science and reading are combined to pass the final hurdles to reach Uncle Horace.
Features:
- Choice of adventure or practice mode
- Adjustable difficulty settings
- A good dose of 3rd grade skill-practice
- Lots of randomized problems
- Online help with problems if needed
Technical Aspects:
ClueFinders' 3rd Grade Adventures was easy to install and ran without any problems. The graphics were well-drawn, similar to Carmen Sandiego. A descriptive manual was included.
Report and Conclusions:
Finally! An upper elementary school-curriculum based game that has ALL of these attributes I consider essential for a top-notch game in this gendre: plenty of humour, great animations, interesting story, randomized problems, the abiblity to play games separately from the story, a good mix of fun and innovative learning activities, and ABSOLUTELY NO timers or arcade games masquerading as education.There is a good variety of subjects here with the strongest emphasis on math and logic. This is a game that practices skills already learned; it's not designed to teach so much as help reinforce knowledge and skills.
This is a true Gold Award program because much effort has been taken to ensure that most kids will be able to learn, have fun, and keep playing the practice games without pressure. The only minor thing I would have liked to see changed was the way that the games were set up in the adventure mode. After a game is played once, you have to leave the screen and then come back to play again. In the practice mode you can stay and play; it would have been nice to be able to do that in the adventure mode as well. One last thought, when are the companies going to start adding text options for the upper elementary ages? Hopefully kids can read by this time, and what a shame that hearing- impaired kids can't enjoy these great games as well.
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