This talking picture dictionary contains 1,700 words accompanied by pictures and spoken sentences. Children can swipe through the pictures, just exploring, or they can search by keyword. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
There are quality racing games abound, but not with the comedic antics of Nickelodeon’s Ben 10 gang. The latest PSVita version looks and sounds more real than ever, with 25 tracks and the ability to unlock additional cars. You can play as Ben, or one of the 15 aliens. Content includes 25 grand-prix tracks from five planets. Even if you don’t like the show, you’ll like the game. Teaches: racing, fine motor skills. D3Publisher of America, Inc.. www.d3publisher.us, $40. Best for ages 6-up.
Rating: 
or .9%
This one player problem solving adventure features Milli, Geo, and Bot from the Umizoomi Nickelodeon show. In order to rebuild a submarine, children move through 25 activities that consist of mazes and puzzles, some of which involve using your voice as an input. There are two modes: adventure (move through the games in the context of the story) and team training (choose one of the 25 mini-games individually). Curriculum is based on the Pre-K and Kindergarten math skills, which includes counting, sorting, matching, identifying, sequencing, adding, subtracting, dividing, measuring and comparing. Developed by Black Lantern for 2K Play. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Based on the children’s line of plush pillows from CJ Products, the idea is to collect accessories for your pets by completing each level. You also help pets find their friends. The story idea works well. Content includes 16 Pillow Pets characters, levels that include “Fantasy Woods,” and “Rainbow Valley”, and the ability to accessorize your pets with 40 items. Developed by First Playable. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Lego Life of George lets you test your pattern matching skills under the pressure of a stop watch, providing you have a camera equipped iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad 2, and have downloaded a free app called Life of George from iTunes (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grNO42UK5q8). The app serves as your blueprint, timer, progress tracker, and — most interestingly — your judge. The $30 kit contains the basic supplies — 144 Legos and a special cardboard grid that serves as a backdrop, allowing your camera to “see” your work, using special software called EyeCue (see www.eyecue-tech.com). In addition to Game Mode which can be played alone or against one competitor in a pass-and-play format, it is possible to design and capture your own models to be saved in a scrap book. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
This 60 level physics game from Singapore lets you try to launch a kitten to catch fish. In order to advance to the next level, you have to calculate the angle correctly. Enemies include Flying Pirate ships, falling missiles, rain drops and castle guards. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This 23 screen book is about Nash, a 7 year old boy who likes to break things — a theme that any child can understand. Each page has one or multi-stage hot spots, plus pull tabs and dials that let you do the smashing (and un-smashing). The story has a happy ending, as Nash learns how to control his impulses. Written by Bill Doyle, with illustrations by Try Cummings. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
The versatile Wii Remote can become a graphics tablet when it is snapped inside the uDraw GameTablet from THQ (www.worldofudraw.com). The $70 Wii-only tablet will be released with a series of three drawing-based titles. You can make watercolor sketches, and replay them when using the included title, called uDraw Studio (to which the ratings apply). There’s an infinite number of colors that can be mixed or layered on a range of textured surfaces. You can replay your drawings as a slide show, erase, cut & paste, stamp and change for switching between, say, markers or charcoal. Work can be saved, or exported to your Wii’s SD card in JPG format. Two additional games (E-rated) will be Dood’s Big Adventure and Pictionary ($30). Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Based on the movie of the same name, this one player exploration game lets you become one of the main film characters, who must find evil Kitty Galore and her gang. You can be Diggs, Catherine, and Seamus, each with unique abilities and gadgets needed to send the bad guys back to the pound. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
The second of two letter tracing apps (the first is Letter Writer: Oceans), this App combines a set of lower case letters with real space facts. For example, after you trace the letter ‘m’ three times, you are presented with a short narrated presentation all about the planet Mars. To complete a letter, you must follow a pulsing line of dots with your finger. See also Letter Writer Oceans for practice with upper case letters. Note that both apps are designed for the smaller iPhone or iPod Touch app (they are not iPad native). Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
The first of two letter tracing apps (the second is Letter Writer: Space, that deals with lower case letters), this App combines a set of upper case letters with real ocean facts. For example, after you trace the letter ‘W’ three times, you are presented with a short poem about the Whale, as a large whale swims across the screen. To complete a letter, you must follow a pulsing line of dots with your finger. See also Letter Writer: Space for practice with lower case letters. Note that both apps are designed for the smaller iPhone or iPod Touch (they are not iPad native). Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
In this game, you play as Buzz, Woody or Jessie as you run, ride and fly through scenes inspired by the film. For example, in one scene, you jump along the cars of a moving train, ducking under low poles or swinging buckets, and navigating across train cars with moving logs. You can complete missions to earn rewards such as gold and new customizations, and purchase new toys with your virtual earnings. Or you can customize new buildings, and then change how they look with paint and accessories. A “Toy Box” mode lets you add new characters and game elements. Developed by Avalanche Software for Disney Interactive. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
In this game, challenges are presented as side scrolling adventures. In order to advance, you have to exactly match each beat, presented in 10 locations such as a tropical beach, a town, a frozen city or a deep forest. Each level has a different tropical-sounding song, as well as a variety of items to collect. There are both story modes and free modes, and there’s a two player download version, for a social experience. As with other Disney titles, there’s a D gamer link on the main menu, making it possible to share scores with other players. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Based on the Webosaurs.com virtual world, this app features 3D versions of the Webosaurs’ characters including Stretch, Pterry, Horns and Rexxy. Players can race their Webosaurs through various environments by moving their iPhone face up and down to maneuver through obstacles and jump over ramps. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Featuring good music and bad design, this preschool app starts with a view of a farm that was modeled after the original Little People farm toy set. Various items launch short animated routines or games.
For example, touching a large turtle (hey, what’s a dog-sized turtle doing on a farm?) starts a multiple-choice matching game where you “touch two turtles that look the same.” The idea is valid, but the game starts too hard for the intended age range and has no contextual value. Inside the barn, children can play the haystack game, a memory puzzle where they track a moving haystack with their eyes. Two other activities include wiping mud off the screen, which is fun, despite frequent prompts to “move your finger back and forth to clean it all up.” Finally, there are two twitching children near the barnyard. When they’re touched, children hear a nice rendition of “Turkey and the Straw.” As they listen they can make the children move to the music by touching them. Created by IDEO LLC for Fisher-Price. Teaches: classification, fine motor skills, memory. Fisher-Price, Inc.. www.fisher-price.com, $1.99. Best for ages 3-5.
Rating: 
or .56%
Want to see a 21st century rattle? Innovative and easy to use, this bite-sized App engages young children with music in a way that could only be done with a motion sensing device like an iPhone or iPod Touch. You start by choosing one of six sound sets: chimes, a flute, drums, barnyard sounds, a xylophone and a random mixture. The instructions are short and sweet — “Tap the screen to add sounds.” From this point, your iPhone or iPod Touch screen becomes a musical open-ended busy box, where every tap becomes a ball, that rolls around the screen, using the accelerometer to detect the motion (hence the term “shaker”). Longer touches result in higher notes and larger balls, helping children understand musical relationships. This is part of the Tickle Tap Apps series. Teaches: music, scales, causality, logic, fine motor skills. zinc Roe Design. www.zincroe.com, $1.99. Best for ages 3-5.
Rating: or .96%
This game utilizes your iPhone or iPod Touch’s accelerometer so that you can steer a flying monkey into the clouds by leaning your screen left or right, while collecting stars and avoiding obstacles like flying geese. The idea of the game is to bounce a monkey named Coco to the moon. There is no worrisome content. Note that there is a Facebook icon that links you to the game’s facebook page from the main menu. We reviewed version 1.0.0.1 updated January 28, 2010. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
The clean rhythms and addicting melodies of The Beatles map perfectly to the Rock Band format, in this best edition yet of Rock Band. While the format is the same as previous editions, for the first time you can sing along in three part harmony, making it possible for up to seven people to share the same song, at once. In addition, the “easy” level is basic enough so that Grandpa can play along — most players find the drums to be the easiest instrument. Compared to previous editions of Rock Band, the sound quality is better as well, providing you have your game console plugged into a good stereo system; you’ll swear you can hear Ringo Starr settling into his drum set. Other goodies include the ability to visit a virtual Beatles museum.
Unlike past versions of Rock Band, this edition is organized into chapters, each with four songs and a challenge. Testers noted that the graphics are “flawless” in giving the title a psychdellic 60′s and 70′s “trippy” feel. Another noted that the Beatles themselves look “weird”, but that their actions are exactly synched to the music (no “fake” mouth moving like in guitar hero). If you already own a Rock Band set, you can plug in your existing Rock Band instruments and purchase the $60 software, or you can spend $250 and buy the special edition Beatle’s wireless controllers, modeled after the band’s original instruments. Four tracks appear at once on the screen — guitar, bass, mic and drums, and, for the first time, the software can detect multiple harmonies at once to recreate the Beatle’s vocals.
The 25 songs include I Saw Her Standing There, Twist And Shout, I Want to Hold Your Hand, Yellow Submarine, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Here Comes The Sun.
The Teen rating comes from the lyrics of the songs. As you play the songs, historic Beatles photos are shown on the screen. More detail has gone into the visual presentation than with any other version of Rock Band that we’ve reviewed.
With this release comes some new frosting including custom-built instruments modeled after the ones that the Beatles used. More information can be found at http://www.thebeatlesrockband.com. Rating: