Game Review: Dora the Explorer: Animals Adventures
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What Parents Should Know
While fun, this title doesn't cover many preschool skills.
Previous Dora titles are better.
Common Sense Media Review
Dora the Explorer, the Hispanic cartoon girl whose
television show lights up the Nick Jr. lineup, is back in her
third software title. In
Dora the Explorer: Animal Adventures,
preschoolers join Dora as she helps her cousin Diego at an
animal rescue center located near a rainforest.
Diego needs help locating animals after a big storm, so he asks Dora and the player to look for missing animals. With Dora, players go to different parts of the rainforest, including its understory and its canopy.
Careful searching will reveal leaf-cutter ants, Blue Morpho Butterflies, a jaguar, and other fascinating inhabitants of the rainforest. When a child clicks on a hidden animal, it reveals itself and then the youngster can take a picture of it for the Field Journal.
Some of the baby animals have scrambled up into the rainforest treetops. To reach them, players help Dora navigate by instructing her to move like animals of the rainforest. She may have to hop like a frog, crawl like a snake, or swing like a howler monkey to reach the babies.
Preschoolers also will meet nocturnal animals in a match-up-the-pairs type game, and practice counting with Diego by helping him to feed the rescued animals. They will rescue another animal by playing a side-scrolling arcade game.
Dora the Explorer: Animals Adventures is a pleasant preschool title about rainforest animals, but it falls short because it has too few activities and the ones it has lack depth. While fun, it doesn't cover many preschool skills.
Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information to help parents make media and entertainment choices for their families.
