I am the first to admit that I love computer games. Role playing particularly and sometimes strategy types and occasionally puzzles etc. Until recently I'd never heard of Neopets but had noticed the Neopet gift cards you can purchase in places like WHSmiths. I had wondered what it was but never remembered long enough to search online. I read a review recently where it was mentioned so I went to the site to check it out for myself.

Neopets is a webiste hosted by Nickelodeon and is a virtual world inhabitted by virtual magical animal type characters. It's a great way of humouring your imagination as you can literally customise everything of your own in this world. From your character/pet's appearance and name to it's home! It has endless possibilities!

The first thing you do when you join Neopets is to begin working on your own 'avatar'. There are lots of templates to choose from and all are mythical creatures/animal types so no people based characters which I think makes it brilliant for children. It seems a little less threatening to their online safetly in my opinion. The character you pick needs to be named and have it's characteristics/personality set which gives you lots of freedom to decide what type of animal yours will be. Whether it's strong and bullish or sweet and shy it's great to be able to dictate this and again I like being able to give children the opportunity to express themselves by choosing this.

Not only can you customise your character animal but you can also choose their home! There are many destinations to choose from where they can live from woodlands to cities or under the sea! And each of these places has a type of house to choose for your neopet! Their are pirate ship themed house and palaces for princesses-it's great and gives you the freedom to decorate and furnish it inside as you wish! This is a very popular part of online gaming, especially for children and teens!

When you join at the moment you instantly get 2,500 Neo-points. This is a type of currency for the whole site. Neopoints are what you use to purchase food, furniture, toys, clothing etc for your Neopet so it's great that you are given a good amount to begin with. Most things cost between 50 and 150 Neopoints so it's not like one 'purchase' will use all your points right away either like some games. The idea is thta you can play hundreads of games on the site to gain more Neopoints. There is a whole area dedicated to these games and you can choose from all sorts-strategy, card games, action games etc and if you win you get more Neopoints which means you've always got currency to buy things. This is one of the main elements of the Neopets website-the games. It's the part that means you've always got something to do when you log on. You don't just look after your Neopet but you get to play games too and they are quite good for all ages and go up inlevels so they aren't too simple for adults to use which is good as an all rounder. The games section is accessed from the top pannle of buttons and takes you directly to the games room to choose your game genre and then exact game.

When you have won some Neopoints the place to redeem them is under the 'shops' tab. This takes you to another part of Neo-world. There is the general store, the book store, the bank, the pet shop, the art centre and much more. Each shop offers different types of items you can buy for your Neopet with the Neopoints. Obviously you need to buy food to keep your pet fed but another main idea is their clothing. You can dress them by theme-woodland fairy, monster, dancer, ice-skater etc and you can buy everything to make their outfit from wigs, wings, dresses, tights and armour shields! The shops come with great features for items like clothing-the ability to try them on your pet before you purchase them and use your well played for Neopoints. That way you can see if the particular item suits your Neopet before making a buying decesion! You can find even more shops and places to buy things at the Neopian Plaza and the Neopian Bazaar!

The Neocash mall is however the best places to buy the best items. As expected when I joined the site I knew there would be a money making catch somewhere! This is it. The Neocash Mall has the best items, the most detailed ones and the ones that makes kids eyes see pound signs straight away. The choice is more vast than other Neo shops and of course your well played for Neopoints are worthless here-the currency that works is Neocash and this is what is bought with those gift card's I've seen in 'real' shops. You can also use paypal to buy Neocash and 500 Neocash will cost about £5 a time. To put that in context most items here cost 150 Neocash so that means your only likely to get three things in the shop before you can't buy anymore unless you spend more. Furniture and bigger items can cost a lot more than 150 Necash though. I expected this site wouldn't be all singing and dancing for free but considering this site is aimed at children and teenagers I don't like it's high 'exchange' rate. I think the value should be more affordable and provide more points because as it is the points don't go far. Children will be using this site to have the best avatar of all their friends and that means spending money and no-child wants to be the one with the most simple of their friends so prepare to be nagged for gift cards if your child becomes a user!

There is also an area called Pet Central where you can enter competitions, reda facts about the stories behind Neopets, visit the pound, read statistics on the various inhabitants of the Neopet world. Another part of the website is the Neopia Central which gives you the opportunity to take your Neopet travelling through their virtual world. Visit different terratories, play different games, buy different items etc-each area is themed and adds another dimension to the site. You can often find items you can't get elsewhere in this section.

Overall I think this site is fabulous for children and young adults and I can see it would become quite addictive and now realise their is a whole craze behind this! I have no doubts that the younger members of my family would love this website and I'm sure as my son grows he will too. As a parent I feel quite happy to let my child access and frequently use this site. Their are parental controls that can be placed in order to give you full access to what your child does or has been doin and this provides a great peace of mind as the internet gets a lot of justifiable bad press when it comes to children. The games aren't particulalry educational but will enable your child to use their brain and I think the whole idea is a very cute and harmless one. Giving your child the opportunity to inhabit a world with no inhabitions is a very simple, effective and fun way to spend time on the computer.

For an adult I also think the website is good. I know a lot of adults rave about this website just as much as children. Being a lover of computer games it's so-so. It's got a whole range of things to do so you wouldn't get bored, but it's not particularly challenging. I am a member now and would say I will continue to use the site in the next few days if I have spare time, but after that once the novelty has worn off, I'm not so sure what my useage would be.

Overall fantastic for children-one of the best online games I've come across so 4 and a half stars for children and three stars for adults. But beware young or old this game has elemnets that will be addictive for all ages!

To join for free and redeem your 2,500 free Neopoints visit the website www. neopets.com and give it a go for free!