So, I took and chance and I bought it for my 4 1/2 year-old son to add to his ever-growing collection of Leapster titles. It's a hit. Both he and my daughter love it. They actually played the Sonic X game last night instead of the Wii which they have been playing daily since Christmas. We actually had to pry the Leapster out of my son's hands just to get him into bed.
As for the game, I had my reservations since this game seems to have been produced by Sega as opposed to Leapfrog; so I wasn't sure if it would have the same educational themes as most Leapfrog games do. While the theme of this game is much more video game based than most of the LeapFrog games, it is also very educational. Not having played any of the Sonic game titles that seem to be so popular, I can only compare it to games I am familiar with. The graphics remind me a little bit of Super Mario Brothers, and some of the challenges seem to follow similar themes. Also, the game is set up into different zones, which each have a different activity.
For example, one of the activities in the game teaches addition by having you add blocks at the top of the screen. Once you think you have the answer, you have to find it on the board while taking care to avoid the wrong answers. Another of the activities teaches your child how to count backward by following the sequence on the top of the screen, then racing to find the next number. All the while, you have to collect little gold rings from each stage of the game which are added at the top of the screen. Some of the stages are timed, so you can't take too long to figure out the answer. There are also activities that teach number sequencing and subtraction. Each activity has three different skill levels to choose from.
The target age for this product is listed as Kindergarten to 1st grade. I bought it for my 4 1/2 year-old and he is doing very well with it, but he is much stronger with math than reading and writing. I think this is a great game for preschool and kindergarten aged children to help reinforce number recognition, counting and simple math concepts in a very fun way.
For frame of reference, my son also enjoys the following Leapster titles: Counting on Zero, Mr. Pencil, Learning with Leap, Letters on the Loose, Mole's Huge Nose, Cars, Letter Factory, Kindergarten, Spongebob and Cars. If your child has similar interests, he or she will most likely enjoy this game. If you are looking to reinforce your child's mathematical concepts, I recommend this game or Counting on Zero.
Update: LeapFrog has updated their website in the past few days to at least show this title, although it is listed as "coming soon".
Hope this helps.
Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>
We got this game along with two others and this is by far the favorite of the whole family!! My sister, Dad and I are willing to play this game. It plays more like a real video game then the others did, with the math and learning included. This was the only game I was willing to play on the leapster. I remember playing Sonic on the Sega handheld thing a few years ago and it was still fun now.The game is about counting and numbers. Through each place on the map there are three levels to play. Each level you can get 99 rings to get a jewel. You don't get anything special if you do though like I thought, no secret game to unlock, just the satisfaction of getting them all. Through each level it ask you to find the correct number that comes after what ever number they give you, like 123... what comes next? you have to find the 4. If you touch the wrong number it will make the right number glow. So if your child doesn't know the right answer, they aren't running to you to tell them. Then there are robots that catch you and you have to do some special math game, every place on the map has a different game. Most are adding and subracting and you can't move on till you get it right. This might be the hardest part, even I had trouble with this because on one game you had to circle some robots to add them to your bucket but they moved so it was hard to draw a cirlce around something that's moving.
Overall this game is a must!!!! This is the game that will get your kid to use the leapster for sure and maybe even the dad or other kids.
No comments:
Post a Comment