SimPark
Reviewed by Anise Hollingshead
Published by Maxis

Age Group: Age 8 and Up Type: Science Price: $24.95 US

Description:

Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my! Actually, there are no tigers or lions in SimPark since it is set in North America (does anyone remember the large assortment of non-indigenous animals in the Tarzan movies? Bears, tigers, etc. in the African jungle). What you do have is lots and lots of animals and plants that can be chosen to inhabit different regions of North America in conjunction with human attractions to attract park visitors.

At the beginning, you are given 3 levels of difficulty to choose from, then you can choose which region you would like to place your park. For each region, there are many different sites to pick. The first thing is to choose locations for the plants, then for the animals. Paths, outhouses, and other park visitor necessities will be needed as well. The park will then take on a life of its own, with time marching as you fine-tune your park.

As a ranger, there are many tools at hand to help with park management. The ranger computer has a field guide, email, park information, and lots of other information to guide you. Natural disasters occur randomly and must be taken care of promptly for the park's continued health.

Features:

• Flora and fauna!
• Online Tutorial
• Tons of animal and plant information
• Teacher's Guide

Technical Aspects:

SimPark installs easily and gives three choices of installation. You can either install fully (but this takes a lot of HD space), install a minimum of files, or elect to run off the CD. There is also a Teacher's Guide, which will require Adobe Acrobat to be installed if you don't already have it. The game ran smoothly, and there were no bugs.

Report and Conclusions:

SimPark can easily become addictive! It is fun to design your own park and take care of it. With the Teacher's Guide, it is also an excellent teaching tool for the classroom. The age range is 8-up, but the younger kids will need help with this program, as the time races by VERY fast, and young kids can quickly become overwhelmed, even in the easy level. I would suggest that parents first go through the online tutorial and also play the game first, and then sit down with their kids and help the first few times. The result will be a confident child who can soon design his/her own park with no help from Mom or Dad and who will pick up lots of natural science along the way!

If you have any problems when using Kids Domain then please contact Cindy, who will be happy to help where possible.

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