Stuart's Adventures (Stuart Little Big City Adventures (PC))

Member Name: Karenwilson

Product:	Stuart Little Big City Adventures (PC)
Date:	03/01/02 (1065 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: see text

Disadvantages: see text

Father Christmas bought my five-year-old son the Stuart Little, Big City Adventures CD-ROM game for Christmas and now we have to prize him off the computer so we can have a go.


System Requirements:-

Operating System Windows 95/98
Processor: Pentium 133mhz or higher
Memory: 32MB RAM


** How to Begin **

When you first go into the programme you are greeted with an opening introduction which leads you to the sign-in screen. You can skip the introduction if you wish and go straight into the sign-in screen. Type in your name and then press GO.

** How to Play **

After you have signed in you are taken to the Little Family’s living room, which is the Main menu. Here you will meet Snowbell the family cat who is in fact the host of the game. Snowbell tells you the story of Stuart Little and his adventures, and will also help you throughout the game if required.

** Modes of Play **

Story Mode:- If you select story mode Snowbell the cat will tell you Stuart’s story as you proceed through the games.

** Free Play **

To free play you begin by clicking on any of the game icons in the Main Menu area. Here you can choose which games you wish to play and how long to play each one of them.

Now let me tell you all about the five games on offer and each has three levels of challenge. In the Main Room you will see the following items:-

Golf Bag - Play Mini Golf with Stuart.

Mounted Sailboat, The Wasp – Regatta Race

Kitchen Pantry:- Help Stuart escape the cats in the pantry chase game.

Car - Park Challenge

Basement Door & Electric Train


** Regatta Race **

Press the GO button and the race will begin. Stuart is on “The Wasp”, to win the race you need to navigate him through a course of buoys whilst sailing against the clock. A time meter reading slowly decreases showi
ng the remaining time available to you. You score points for going through buoy gates and for finishing with extra time left on the meter. Beware though there are many obstacles along the way which appear at random such as rocks, cans, frogs, lily pads, turtles rubber ducks, logs and messages in bottles.

There is a speedometer at the bottom of the screen, which shows the current speed of the boat. You can speed it up by holding down the mouse button and slow down by releasing it.

When I played this game I managed to complete the course although it was very hard to keep within the buoys. However I was at full speed most of the time. My son Luke also finished he took his time a bit more and managed to hit most of the obstacles as he enjoyed hitting them rather than not.

Out of 10 this game is 6. Good game but not one that is played the most.

** Park Challenge **

Stuart Little is driving his posh red car and is heading home from Central Park. However the street cats are after him and he needs your help. After pressing GO you will see Stuart on the Park Road and ready to drive away. You need to help him collect batteries to power his car. You can never have more batteries than the gauge allows. To avoid an approaching cat you need to collect flashlights which are in the road (if you run over them the car instantly picks them up) The flashlights activates the cars headlights for a short period of time which scares away the cats. If you do not collect them then you may have to take a different fork in the road to avoid the cat. You will need to avoid all obstacles put in the way such as acorns, snails and small rocks and remember to collect bonus points. The game will finish when you have reached the edge of Central Park, but be careful that you do not run out of power first, or the cats will get you. Bonus points are in the form of an old-fashioned car horn and a four-leaf clover.

As in the previous game
you have a speedometer which you can use in the same way as you did on the boat game.

Rating out of 10 is 7. It is better than the boat race, but what I found a little distracting was that the car you were driving appeared as a side view profile and it would have been easier if you looked from the front end of the car. Luke found this game much easier than I did, but that’s the youth of today for you!!

** Mini- Golf**

Help Stuart through all the monuments, (castle, pyramid and windmill). Each monument has three levels of play that increase in difficulty.

Your mouse controls a large directional arrow pointing straight out from the ball in front of Stuart who is holding the club. The idea is to aim the arrow at the hole then click and hold down the mouse button. As you hold down the button watch the gauge in the scoreboard it will increase to show you how much power the golf ball will be hit with. Once you release the button Stuart will hit the golf ball with the club. You are only allowed a certain number of balls per hole.

This is my favourite game and gets a full 10 out of 10. You can never get enough of this game and we have still been unable to reach the end. Only downside is that we are all fighting to play this one.

** Electric train Adventure **

Stuart takes his electric train through a miniature village. He must avoid blockades and switch tracks to manoeuvre through the maze to reach a series of flags. It’s a race against time avoiding obstacles like landslides, fallen trees and other vehicles. You can pick up power-ups along the way. There are spinning toy rockets that you can collect for a speed boost.

To win the game you must go through the maze of tracks to the different landmarks that will be marked by flags. The tracks to the exit are not accessible until the final landmark has been reached. Beware that if the train hits an obstacle it spins around 180 deg
rees and continues in the opposite direction. This can be advantage if you want a quick turnaround.

Out of 10 it’s a 5 for me as I am not a train fan, however my son Luke is train mad and really enjoys it and found it really easy to move around.



** Pantry Chase **

Stuart needs help escaping from Monty the cat. The screen shows Stuart at the bottom rack of the dishwasher and he needs to reach the top to escape. To do this he has to try and jump onto the large pantry drawers that keep opening and closing. The dishwasher also squirts out water and if he gets wet he goes back to the beginning to dry off. When he reaches the end of the dishwasher you need to help him jump on a towel and across the counter top to the sink. Once at the sink he needs to jump from one sponge to another. Stuart also has to jump up onto several utensils along the way. A cracker box spills crackers down the trail of boxes all the way to the right of the upper shelf. Stuart needs to jump over the crackers and up the trail of boxes to make his way to the top.

Rating 6 out of 10. This is quite a hard game to master and so far we have been unable to get very far. Luke has even given up playing this one.


Well that is all the games mentioned. They also have a print area, which is accessible from the Photo Album section. Here you can print off Stuart Little in different outfits or action shots of Stuart. Copy certificates can also be printed off here.

Father Christmas paid £9.99 for this game from Toys R Us, which I consider good value for money. The game is not very educational in as much as there are no counting games, puzzles etc, however it does help them have more control of their mouse skills and obviously observation skills. Two of the games I did not rate very highly but on the whole the good games did out weigh the bad. This would be an excellent gift for children aged four years plus.

If yo
u would like further information on this and other Hasbro products their web site is www.hasbro-interactive.com

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