Thomas DS! (Thomas & Friends Touch Screen Fun)

Member Name: kaitlinsmummy

Product:	Thomas & Friends Touch Screen Fun
Date:	30/01/09 (417 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A fun way to learn.

Disadvantages: None!

For a few months now, my son has been begging for a Nintendo DS like his sister. The fact that he is only 4 years old has obviously made me a bit wary.
After deciding that he is still to young to take good care of something that in my opinion costs a small fortune, I decided to look for an alternative.

After going to Toys R Us to spend some of Connor's birthday money a couple of weeks ago I found this little gem, nestled snugly amongst the Thomas the tank engine section.

The toy I will now review is - "Thomas touch screen fun"

The selling point to this unit is the fact it is a young child's version of a DS, in fact my son tells everyone that he actually has one now!

In the box you get a pen stylus, this is a small plastic pen with a large Thomas train on it. There is of course the unit itself. This a big plastic and may I add sturdy looking computer, there are lots of Thomas decoration over it finished off by some big red buttons down the side, though why they are there is beyond me they serve no purpose!

There are 19 games in total pre programmed into the unit, there are no external games that can be purchased. The child will inevitably get bored one day, but the longevity of this game is immense, the reason being that the games get gradually harder, this goes in sequence, ie number 1 is the easiest, gradually increasing skill levels until you reach the 19 game.
The child can play any game though, they do not have to complete the earlier numbers to get to the later numbers, though they will find it easier to start at the begining, so to speak!

If you child is unfamiliar with a touch screen unit this would be the perfect starting point. As I stated the games start relatively easy to break the child in gently to gaming.

Included on the unit there is -

1, Maintenance. This game simply asks the child to touch the screen and help Thomas avoid any objects that may hamper his journey on the train line. Once the game/ journey has been completed the child can watch the game and journey in its entirety played back as a short video.

2, Follow me. This is a game of memory. Thomas's face covers the screen, the idea of the game is to remember which way his eye's were pointing. The child then touches one of the direction buttons at the bottom of the screen, this determines whether the eye's were pointing up, left or right, the sequence gets longer the more correct answers the child gives.

3, Falling cargo. This game entails the child moving the train via the stylus and catch as many pieces of falling cargo as possible. When the game is finished the fat controller counts the final amount.

4, CoalRace. This game has the child directing Thomas towards pieces of coal to power his engine, this is very similar to a maze effect, but with a twist, the flags must be avoided at all costs. Again the fat controller scores the game.

5, Flying Harold. Harold is flying in a particularly cloudy sky, to win the child has to move Harold either up or down to avoid the clouds. The good part of this game is the fact the child doesn't lose a life if they hit a cloud, but encourage better motor skills by counting up the clouds they actually managed to miss.

6, Catch me. This is a pretty pointless game in my opinion. The object of the game is to catch the falling "T" shapes. The child simply touches them and they disappear, they can catch up to 30 "T's", then the game ends. Even my young 'un thinks this one is crap!

7, Hide and seek. This game involves three cups and a stone. The object of the game is to find as many stones as possible hidden beneath the upturned cups, this is again a game of memory.

8, Music. This is actually more a video than a game. The child chooses one of the six instruments on the screen, then a man plays the Thomas theme tune with the chosen instrument.

9, Rapidity. Spencer the train shows an object that child must find. The object is then hidden in a pile of other objects, the aim of the game is to simply find it, this game is where it gets a little more advanced as there is a timer against it.

10, Sodor race. This game has my son in stitches when he plays it, and explains why the unit has been so sturdily built! The child picks a train out of a selection of three, then to win the race they have to tap the direction arrow at the top of the screen. The quicker they tap the quicker the train goes. How Connor hasn't put his pen through the screen yet is beyond me!

11, Odd one out. This game gives the child four pictures to look at, they then have to work out the odd one out. The example given in the instructions leaflet is a bike, a bus, a train and a cat, yes obvious to us (hopefully!), but to a child not as easy.

12, Character puzzle. A full screen picture is shown then half disappears. The half that is missing starts to have other half pictures scrolled down, the child has to tap on the correct picture half to start the animation. This game is again that bit harder as the pictures move reasonably quickly.

13, Dirty pictures. Up until now I hadn't realised that I had something that contained dirty pictures...... oooh you smutty minded people. The premise of this game, and I use the word game in the loosest sense of the word, is to touch on the completely blacked out screen until the picture beneath is revealed, the picture features one of the trains and this in turn starts the animation.

14, Maze. The last few games on here my son has not been able to complete yet, these are the hardest ones on the unit.
The idea of this game is as follows - There is a grid of blacked out squares on the screen, in the top right hand corner is the train station where the child must get to. As the child taps on the blacked out squares starting from the bottom left hand corner he is presented with an array of symbols. If you get an arrow you can continue, if you get a flag you can go on but anymore than three revealed and you lose, a sad face and you will automatically lose and a number "1" and you have to go back one space.

15, Numbers. Although, again, I don't class this as a game as such, this one really encourages the child to equate a number to a number of objects thus encouraging the whole counting process.
The child simply picks a number between 1 - 10 and that amount of shapes, trains or objects appear on the screen.

16, Tennis. Now this is more like the games I played as a child! This is the ball and two sticks method of tennis. The ball bounces between the right and left hand walls, with the child using the stylus to move the sticks and stop the ball scoring in the gap, simple yet so brilliant!

17, Boulder, ticket and scissors. This is a Thomas themed game of rock, paper, scissors. The child gets 10 goes against the computer then the scores get added up at the end, the choice of which they want must be touched then at the same time the computer produces there answer.

This game can be played in the two player mode, this I will explain later.

18, Three in a row. This is an electronic version of Connect 4, the difference being that only three pegs are needed to win the game. The different pegs are differentiated with one being black and the other white.
This again can be played in two player mode.

19, Noughts and crosses. This is again a well known and well loved game. The child must play against the computer successfully aligning either three noughts or crosses to be the victor.

The infra red mode on this unit allows another child that owns a unit to play a game together, there are only the two games mentioned above that allows this play, and the kids would have to literally sit with there units touching to get the best connectivity.

Another thing I should mention is the graphics themselves. This is a basic child's computer so don't be expecting DS standards, it is a bog standard black and white pixelated picture. At no time is the picture not recognisable, but there is obviously not going to be the greatest of detail to them, this has not hampered my son'd enjoyment of the games in any way shape or form.

The buttons on this unit are simply to work and easy to understand. Aside from the touch screen there is an on/off button and also a repeat button, this is to let a child reset a game if they are not doing as well as they would hope.

There is also an automatic shut off feature on the unit, a godsend if you ask me, the times I have had to buy in new batteries due to the kids leaving games on all night! If the game is not played with for more than 30 seconds a snoozing train will appear on the screen, after a couple of minutes the unit will shut off saving battery time.

The unit takes 3 x AAA batteries. We have the unit for 2 weeks so far and it has been played with constantly and we have yet had to replace the batteries, not bad considering I put a battery in another toy he has and it literally lasted half a day.....grrrr!

I'm hoping that having read this mammoth review (SORRY!), you will be as amazed with the price as we were when we got it. For all that gaming and entertainment we paid a paltry......£19.99! I know bloody brilliant isn't it.

For more information visit - www.toysrus.co.uk

As you may have gathered I cannot recommend this highly enough, if your child is a Thomas fan, or even if they are not, my kids have done more fighting over this than they did over my daughters DS! This is the perfect aid to encouraging new motor skills, this computer encourages learning on every level.

Thanks for reading x

Summary: See review.