Tot TV Watch

Cartoon Network Racing for Nintendo DS has gotten bad reviews, but personally I actually found it to be a decent racing game and have enjoyed many hours of playing it. It also came out for the PlayStation 2, but I have not personally tried that version and it appears it has gotten even worse ratings than the DS version, however considering I like the DS one maybe the PlayStation 2 one is not that bad.

Cartoon Network Racing contains some characters from 7 Cartoon Network shows. The shows are Johnny Bravo, Sonic the Hedgehog, Dexter’s Laboratory, Cow and Chicken, I Am Weasal, Courage the Cowardly Dog, and PowerPuff Girls. Most of these shows are not even on television anymore, so kids may be disappointed and uninterested because of this. Other than it not having any current characters I find little fault in the game. Besides when it did come out those were probably all current shows, so that is just a fault of becoming outdated.

As a racing game this, the only one better I have personally played on the Nintendo DS is Mario Kart. Cartoon Network Racing works pretty much the same way, although it does not appear to have the battle mode, which I do not even like anyways, but I do know some people like that mode. What I love about this game is that it is a challenge. It is not an easy game to beat and it actually gives some challenge to it. This may not be right for younger kids, but I think even kids from around ages 10 can appreciate it being a challenge.

One kind of annoying thing is that it starts with only one cup unlocked and you only unlock one cup at a time as you beat the previous cup. Also, in order to have characters in the hard difficulty classes you have to purchase then as well as purchase the unlockable characters. It is not that hard to buy them, though, as you pretty easily earn the coins you need in the races.

Overall this game is worth checking out if you like racing games and are a diehard Cartoon Network fan. Older kids that remember the old shows will also enjoy remembering old favorite cartoons and characters. Lastly it has an interesting drawing mini game that is a nice break from racing.

The Suite Life of Zack & Cody is one of my favorite Disney Channel shows, so I tried this video game soon after it came out. It turned out to be a big disappointment to the point that I did not even try the next DS game they released called Circle of Spies, although, perhaps they improved the game and fixed the cons at least to some extent.

The game has a few good aspects. For one, it decently recreates the characters and scenes from the show in that it has pretty good realistic graphics as far as a Nintendo DS game goes. Also, it has some good sounds, especially with the realistic character voices.

The cons, however, outweigh the good a lot. The major thing is that the controls are confusing and hard to learn. Also, there tends to be a lack of instruction on how to get through the levels leaving you confused and sometimes meaning you have to start the level over because you get a twin stuck behind. It is a nice challenging game for more experienced gamers, however, I am sure most interested in this game are kids that are not all that experienced with platform DS games. Some kids may be able to figure out the controls and then end up enjoying it, however, it is not worthwhile for most. If your kid is a diehard fan of the show, then rent it first before buying it because I think even most of the diehard fans will not want to put up with the frustrating controls.

Video games based on kids shows are not exactly a major genre of video games, but it has seemed to be on the rise recently. Mostly the games are pretty poor in game depth, but personally I think this is a positive thing, especially for games that are based on preschool shows. As I see it, these games aimed at preschoolers, such as the Go, Diego, Go Safari Rescue game for Nintendo DS, should not have too much depth or that makes the kids want to constantly play it, which is certainly not habit they need to pick up at such a young age. I do not think these games should be entirely avoided either because if used right they can keep kids entertained for short periods of time, but not cut too much into the time the kids spend doing more physical and interactive gaming (i.e. playing pretend safari outside with their friends).

Go Diego Go: Safari Rescue is one the best video games based on a preschool show I have tried out. The graphics are great (at least for a DS game) and it uses the unique capabilities of the DS nicely. This includes using the touch screen and the microphone. There are 25 mini games, although several are kind of repeated. There is a safari mode that you go through and end up doing all the mini games or you can just play the mini games without doing the safari story mode. Since the variety of mini games are limited, this game can get boring fast, but for kids that like Diego (and if you can find it at a good low price) this can be game they will enjoy coming back to for short periods of time every once and a while, such as when you go on trips and need something to distract them in the car or on the plane.

There is also a Wii, PS2, and Computer version of this game, but I really do not think it is a good game for use except every once and a while on the go. Main reason I say that is because it has basically no educational value to make it a worthwhile console/computer game. This is quite disappointing considering the show always teaches about animals and then they make a game that does not even minimally teach some tidbits about the animals you spot on safari in the game. It is even very limited in teaching Spanish, as it only uses the Spanish words for colors in a few mini games.

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