Animal Genius (Nintendo DS)

...review is for the game Animal Genius for the Nintendo DS and the game was developed by Big Blue Bubble and published by Ubisoft. The aim of the game is to go round five different levels and learn more about the animals in each area.

The game is educational, and is based around the five main levels, rain forest, arctic, sea, grasslands and woodlands. The problem however with educational software is that it is difficult to merge both educational ...
...an image to see what animal is underneath.

The graphics in the game are quite fun, quite arcadey and bright, to suit the intended audience of the game. The sound is used well, with a lot of speech to get information across, and also some perfectly adequate background music and sound effects.

Beyond that though, that’s really the limitation of the game. Play a few mini games, learn a few new facts and then most children are ... more

This review is for the game Animal Genius for the Nintendo DS and the game was developed by Big Blue Bubble and published by Ubisoft. The aim of the game is to go round five different levels and learn more about the animals in each area.

The game is educational, and is based around the five main levels, rain forest, arctic, sea, grasslands and woodlands. The problem however with educational software is that it is difficult to merge both educational value and fun value. This game doesn’t really succeed in that aim either and isn’t likely to appeal to most children for very long.

There is a lot of reading to be done in the game, as there is a lot of useful educational information that the game tries to impart. This is helped by the speech element of the game however, as a lot of the information is actually read out, which does make it easier to maintain the interest of children, who might have become bored if they had to read too much.

There are of course inter-active elements in the game, and it’s not just an educational tool. There are quizzes which come up and also mini games such as mazes to complete. The mini games are quite entertaining, but there are only a handful of them, which is a little disappointing, as more of these would have made the game much more entertaining.

The controls in the game are easy to use, using both the stylus and the d-pad. Children should be able to find these controls easy to pick up, and the developers have tried to use some of the functions of the DS in the mini games, such as in the game where you have to use the stylus to scratch away part of an image to see what animal is underneath.

The graphics in the game are quite fun, quite arcadey and bright, to suit the intended audience of the game. The sound is used well, with a lot of speech to get information across, and also some perfectly adequate background music and sound effects.

Beyond that though, that’s really the limitation of the game. Play a few mini games, learn a few new facts and then most children are likely to be quite bored. None of the games are interesting enough to want to come back to again and again, so this is a game that’s likely to soon be sitting on the shelf collecting dust.

The game retails normally for 24.99 pounds, but at the time of writing the game is available from Amazon for 9.99 pounds. If you’re happy with a second hand copy, these can be found for around five or six pounds on sites such as Amazon and eBay. The game is rated as 3+, so is suitable for children of nearly all ages.

Overall, I found this a very uninspiring game in general. It’s suitable really for only the younger children, somewhere in the three to seven years old age range, and is unlikely to appeal to older children. There’s not a great deal in this game to keep kids playing, but as an educational tool, it’s possibly of interest for a few hours, so maybe worth a look if you can pick the game up cheaply.

(also on dooyoo under same name) 

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