Junior Classic Games (Nintendo DS) - Review by Andrew

Introduction

Any DS owner will be well aware just how many titles claim to make your brain more efficient by giving it a daily workout. The same market for children though remains untapped so, whilst most parents want their offspring to succeed both academically and in their daily lives, there's not an awful lot to choose from on the DS. Fortunately Avanquest Software have spotted the gap and, wrapping the whole thing around a jungle theme, they hope to get your child's 'grey matter' working just as hard as yours.

Gameplay

As with all mini-game collections the front end is a menu where you select the type of game you wish to tackle. First though you'll be asked to create a player profile which is essential as you'll want to revisit your favorite games to improve your high score. There are six different categories, each identified by an icon which is a little confusing at first as there's no additional text to tell you what each section or even each game is all about. This forces you into a trial and error situation where you're simply forced to play though each of the games before you discover which are your favorites but this shouldn't trouble younger gamers too much.

The games themselves are based around logic, numbers, music, words, puzzles and finally arcades with each game also featuring three levels of difficulty. There's nothing new here but, although most adults will have seen them all before, the developers have put a certain amount of thought behind the various games, so for example, although the memory section is a simple 'pairs' game featuring different animals there is a lot of fun to be had. The music section features a variety of rhythm based games and the observational has sorting, spot the difference and odd one out games. The letter games feature word searches and hangman and there are jigsaws and sliding tiles in the puzzle section. In fact there's just about every type of mini-game you could possibly want and even when you've managed to master these there's still the more challenging logic section to deal with.

Controls

DS, mini-games... you should know the drill by now: it's all touch-screen control! Seriously though, one real plus point is the fact that once you're in, each of the games is fronted by a short description of the aims and, for a change, it's written in plain English although it's still much better to just jump into the action and hope for the best.

Graphics

The visuals are average at best and if you imagine an early shockwave based title, then you are probably getting close to what's on offer here. It's not bad, it's just nowhere near the type of thing we all know the DS is capable of.

Sound

Presumably because it's is all based around wild animals, most of the audio consists of tropical or jungle themed compositions which may be to some gamers tastes but we found it a little irritating after 10 minutes or so. The sound effects have clearly been lifted off the shelf and once you've heard one lion roar, you've heard them all at least that's how it feels.

Dual screen

Nothing really groundbreaking but kids will be able to select, tap and drag their way though a number of different challenges.

Final comments

In our experience younger gamers are usually short changed with many publishers delivering substandard titles time and time again. What's surprising about Junior Classic Games though, is just how much enjoyment your average pre-teen is going to get from it and while the '30 Classic Games' label is possibly a bit of a stretch, there are enough quality games here to warrant the asking price.

Pro: Good Value, Variety of Genres.
Con: Some Games are Very Similar, Poor Sound Effects.
Final score: 7.3

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