Review : Land Before Time Activity Center : PC

Land Before Time Activity Center
PC
By Steve Fulton
Originally published on gamerdad.com

If You Can Stand It, Your Kids Will Love It

I am a self-proclaimed “bargain-bin diver”.  My ultimate price-point is $2.00.  I’ll buy any software for $2.00.   When Havas bought Sierra in the late 90’s they dumped dozens of their low-rent titles for $2.00 each at CompUSA.  It was like finding buried treasure.  I’ve never owned more copies of pinball, miniature golf, and You Don’t Know Jack games in my life.    I dream about finds like that, but they are few and far between.   These days, the lion’s share of the bargain-bin and jewel-case racks in major discount stores are filled with Kid’s software, sometimes in packs of 2 or even 3 titles for $9.99.   One of the titles currently available is The Land Before Time: Activity Center.  It can sometimes be found packaged in a two-pack with The Land Before Time: Math Adventure, or in multi-pack named The Land Before Time: Three Pack that also includes Kindergarten Adventure and Math Adventure.

The first thing you should know about The Land Before Time Activity Center is that you will hate it.  You will loathe this CD-ROM.  The graphics are at best, unappealing and music will irritate on you.   You’ll wish the phrase “Tree Star” had never been invented by Judy Freudburg and Tony Geiss when they wrote the original movie.   Of course, in a bit of irony that I expect will be commonplace for many GamerDads, your kids, especially ages 3-6 (younger if they have mastered a mouse), will absolutely adore it. 

The game consists of an ugly scrolling interface with various rollover hotspots that lead to the title’s 9 activities.  The interface may be little to look at, but mouse-skilled kids will traverse it with relative ease.  Even if they seem pointless to you, there are some solid and compelling games here for younger kids.  “Make A Story” is your standard stickers/Colorforms activity with lots of backgrounds and options to let kids imagine their own Land Before Time adventures.  “Egg Roll” is a puzzle game in which kids must place various chutes and ramps to make sure a falling dinosaur egg will reach the bottom of the screen safely.  “Make A Dinosaur” allows kids to assemble body parts (legs, torso, head, tail, horns) to create their own prehistoric creatures.  “Dino Trivia” is your standard quiz, and the only activity can be deemed “educational” (and only if you believe multiple choice tests are educational).    “Bramble Maze” is a randomly generated, pseudo-3D first-person quest to find objects and escape before the Sharp Tooth finds you.  Kids will find most of the activities are entertaining, however, they will be hooked by the dinosaurs and the Land Before Time licensed characters.  The narrator does an admirable job with the material provided, but you will tire of his voice very quickly.  As well, a few 5-second music loops are played over and over and over.  Saying “they get old fast” is an understatement.  Try: instantly.   This would not be a problem if you could turn the sound down, but you can’t.  Your child will need to hear the instructions for most of the games, and to listen to the Dino Trivia questions

Success in the activities is awarded with “Tree Stars” that can be “spent” in the “Tree Star Forest” to view short video clips from various early Land Before Time films.  There are problems with this economic system, and they become obvious after playing for just a few minutes.   The video clips cost 5,10,or 15 tree stars each.    There seems to be no quality or length difference between the clips at these three price points, and even the cheapest are too expensive.  Most activities will award you 1 or 2 Tree Stars for success, and take 5-10 minutes or more of play (child) or work (you) to get there.   Gaining enough “Tree Stars” to watch even the cheapest clips will take a sizable amount of time.    Even so, these clips will become a favorite of your kids.   No matter how many times they have watched the movies, they will want to view these clips on the computer. To make sure you don’t go insane playing “Build A Dino” or “Make A Story” to earn enough “Tree Stars” to view a video clip, the following hints may help:

1. Play “Dino Trivia”.  The questions are pretty easy, and you get multiple Tree Stars for each correct answer.  The questions are read-aloud, which make it easy for non-readers to play.
2. Explore the CD for the rewards/video folder.  There you will find QuickTime and AVI versions of the videos that you can watch any time you want.

This title does not work under Windows XP.   The “print” function (a little dinosaur paw-print available on the creative activities) cannot be disabled, so make sure to disconnect your printer while your child is playing, unless you want your $40 print cartridge to be converted into custom dinosaurs and “Little Foot “ drawings.  As well, there is no “save” function, so your child will restart their “Tree Star” quest every time the game is played.

Most reviewers don’t take price into consideration when they review games, but I’m not one of them.  For $5.00 as part of a 2 or 3-pack collection, this title is worth the money.  The video-clips alone (even if you own the movies) will provide hours on entertainment for your kids. Even if you just steal the video clips and make a screen saver or Flash movie out of them, this package would be worth the price.

Kid Focus:  If your kids like Land Before Time, this game may never leave the CD-ROM drive.  It has been a constant in our house for almost 3 years now.  Many, many other titles have come and gone (even other Land Before Time games) but this one keeps coming back.   It’s not much to look at, it’s nearly feature-free, and it could drive you nuts, but your kids will really enjoy it.  

Score: 2.5

Disable Print: No

Save Progress: No

Best Value Price: $5.00

Age: 3+
ESRB: E - Everyone
Producer: Sound Source Interactive