Game Review: Bob the Builder: Bob's Busy Day
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What Parents Should Know
Parents need to know that this Bob the Builder game features
eight educational that teach color, letters, logic, numbers and
shapes.
Families who play this game might want to discuss how Bob the Builder helps the town and his friends. If kids are playing this game on a VSmile Pocket, parents can plug it into the TV so that they can see what is happening in the game and then make supportive comments.
Common Sense Media Review
Earlier this year, VTech introduced VSmile Pocket, an
educational handheld gaming system for young kids that doubles
as a TV gaming system when it's plugged into a television. The
VSmile Pocket plays software called Smartridges, which is the
same software format used with the VSmile TV Learning System.
Here's a look at the Smartridge BOB THE BUILDER: BOB'S BUSY
DAY.
Kids join Bob the Builder and his talking truck friends to play eight educational games that teach shapes, colors, letters, numbers, and logic. Most appropriate for kids ages 4 t0 6 years (not 3-year olds, as recommended by the packaging), the Smartridge offers two modes of play: Learning Adventure and Learning Zone.
If kids select Learning Adventure, they explore activities by controlling Bob. They may hunt for his missing tools or search for alphabetically-lettered materials scattered around town.
In the Learning Zone, kids play games with Bob's animated truck friends. Kids move the trucks into position to "kick" the soccer balls into goals marked with letters of the alphabet. They also race the trucks against each other while counting objects, matching shapes, and finding paths through grids of colored dots.
Bob's Busy Day does a good job of introducing early learning concepts to young kids in a video gaming context that is easy for them to master. However, the four games in the Learning Adventure are very similar side-scrolling games in which Bob walks around to find or catch objects. And unfortunately, the picture blurs when Bob is moving, so kids need to stop periodically to make sure they can see an object they are trying to collect.
The bottom line: Choose Bob's Busy Day for young children who love Bob the Builder and are new to playing video games so that the sameness of the game play doesn't bother them.
Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information to help parents make media and entertainment choices for their families.
