Only reviewing the CD of Thomas and Friends (Thomas Tank Engine Stuff Pack (PC))

Member Name: mateypeeps

Product:	Thomas Tank Engine Stuff Pack (PC)
Date:	18/02/01 (580 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Kids love Thomas stuff

Disadvantages: Wish there were more activities

I only review the CD here, I have no experience of the gift pack. Wish I had known about the extras earlier!

The product Thomas The Great festival Adventure was bought for my two young sons, both of who love Thomas merchandise.

I first got it when I had a Tiny Computer, and the less I say about that the better for you all. If you are that interested in my attitude to Tiny then read it on Ciao where I am mascarasnake.

Needless to say the disc would not work with them, being jittery, stuttering and faltering and at the wrong speed. Only when I got the Packard Bell Pulsar 600 did I get the opportunity to see this package in all its glory.

I am glad that I did as my sons love some of the activities, and it helps general hand-eye coordination using the mouse to pick up and move objects for example.

There are 7 activities, dotted around the Island of Sodor. These comprise: =

The Engine Shed where you can clean and oil and tighten up nuts on Thomas, Percy and Gordon.

The Rock Fall Quarry, where you can load up trucks with fallen boulders, sorting sizes to match the size of the truck to accept them, so helping pattern/shape matching and size estimation.

Unloading Bulstrode at the Harbour, where the barge Bulstrode is unloaded by Cranky the crane by matching colour and shape symbols with the corresponding trucks. This is similar to the above Rock Quarry, but there the emphasis is SIZE, here it is purely PATTERN MATCHING SYMBOLS AND COLOURS.

Picking up Passengers with Annie and Clarabel, where you are told the number and type (boys, women, teacher, etc) to load on board before telling the guard to carry on.

Cow roundup with Terence, where you ride Terence the Tractor and chase cows into a gated field where the farmer shuts the gate on them. This seems to be aimed at anticipating where the cows are going to try to go, and heading them off like a sheep dog.

Assembling Stalls and R
ides with Harold, where Harold repeats his helpfulness at the quarry, by picking up the parts of a “circus” from the train low loaders and placing them in the correct position on the site in the field. The youngster is given a hint by the greyed ghost like outline (of the object being moved) at the position it should end up at. This is again pattern recognition as well as congruency cognition as the `ghost image` is of a larger size than the object on the truck. It is only when the two are married together that the smaller image `clicks` into place and expands to the correct size.

Making Music at the Festival, where different instruments can be coordinated to produce the music for the festival. Even Thomas peeps in time to the music, Terrence the tractor makes noises in time, and Bertie the bus blows his horn in time to the band. The kids love it at first but it soon wears thin after a few minutes.

At the end of each gane/activity, you can go to the Fat Controllers office and print out the certificate for completing that activity. Something that my 4 year old was particularly proud to have it must be said. The certificates are nicely done with a space for you to write their name, although I would have liked to have the option of adding it on the computer before printing out as well.

Talking of printing, you can print out postcards as well, but we have not bothered with that yet so I cannot comment on it, other than to say the pictures used are nice.

The animated video sequences between games/activities are nicely done.

Ultimately however, I would be unhappy to pay the asking price of £19.99, so I only got it by using a £10 Electronics Boutique Voucher, which meant I only paid £10.

At around £10 it is quite acceptable to me, even though there is not as much variety as the Adiboo disks that my sons also adore. (Adiboo will be a separate article later).

Summary: