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Now kids can really get a head start on gaming with the Entertain Your Brain Adventure Series for kids ages six and up. These point-and-click titles have an appealing 2D cartoon format and can be an ideal “starter” set for young gamers. This set has a profound and popular history on the PC and Mac before this latest remediation. Interaction works well with the Wii remote (no nunchuk required) except when accessing item inventory at the bottom of the screen.
The autosave feature interrupts game play, but can be adjusted in two of the games. Players can skip animated cutscenes by pressing the – button, but then they would miss some of the funniest moments. Players can interact with several objects and move by selecting the edges of the screen or navigation markers like arrow signs. The characters' mouths don’t always match the dialogue and the audio can be hard to hear at times, but the easy levels make progression a breeze for young gamers. So take a leisurely pace and enjoy these easygoing adventures with beneficial puzzles, side missions and problem solving challenges.
Pajama Sam in Don’t Fear The Dark and Freddi Fish Kelp Seed Mystery have good puzzles, lots of interaction and adventurous settings. These two games have an autosave time in selectable increments of zero, five, ten, 15, or 30 minutes. The adventure changes each time with new clues and story paths, which boosts the replay value of these easy level games (no difficulty selection here, what you see is what you get).
Spy Fox in Dry Cereal has the most comic elements thanks to the gadget incorporation and existing spy and related spoof stereotypes plus sidekick names like Monkey Penny and Professor Quack. This title has the deepest gameplay of the three with several levels, the different story paths and plenty of interaction opportunities in the environments.
This sly sleuth works to return cows so kids can have milk with their favorite morning cereals. This is the only game in the series that does not feature the time increments within the autosave feature, so prepare for the occasional interruption in gameplay.
Spy Fox and Pajama Sam are the stronger titles with extra points going toward Sam for more originality. The calypso style music in Freddi Fish stands out in the music department while all three titles have an affordable price ($19.99). This educational themed series teaches great skills in a fun format, though the visuals, sounds (a separate music and vocal volume option would be great) and overall production could use more updated improvements for easier use. Large print text subtitles would be also a nice enhancement…maybe in the next possible series featuring Putt-Putt and Fatty Bear?
for Freddi Fish Kelp Seed Mystery
for Spy Fox in Dry Cereal and Pajama Sam in Don’t Fear The Dark
Entertain Your Brain Adventure Series is rated E (Everyone) by the ESRB for Comic Mischief.
