Postman Pat for DS - Review
First impression: The first thing that attracted me to this game was that it was for ages 3+. What 3 year old can handle playing video games on a Nintendo DS? They don't have the motor skills yet!
The game: That being said.. this is a British game for younger children. The music was actually good for once! I had some hope that the game would be good as well. And it was actually pretty good! I didn't play too far into it (I failed at the 4th or 5th task somehow.. ) but I can tell that children would really like it. It has cute cartoon characters and little animals and such.
You do little tasks for Postman Pat like finding his missing kitty in the house by touching on places that he could be hiding, and stamping letters for him at the post office.
The directions aren't the best. I got confused during the letter stamping part. Having an adult there to help the child might be a good idea. Also for American children, some of the language is a bit different than what we're used to. He uses terms like "franking" the envelopes. I can guess what that means... but a child probably won't be able to figure it out.
I went back and played the game again, having failed so early on the first time. This time I finished easily, I just had to read the instructions better.
Pros of the game: It is a good children's game overall. You can do story mode where you go through the story and play the games in a row, and it saves your progress which is nice. So you can play a couple and go back and start where you stopped before. It reads like a children's book, with Postman Pat reading the text to you. Very well produced in that way. You can also play practice mode where you go directly to the different games separately.
Cons of the game: There are only 10 games in the story. I went through the entire game in less than 45 minutes, and I had to restart a couple of the games a few times. A smart kid could get through that entire game in an hour and probably wouldn't want to go back to it again.
Conclusion: This is still a good game for children. If you child gets through things quickly and then gets bored you may not want to get this one, but try renting it or borrowing it from someone.
Good music and graphics (for a children's game) and an actual storyline that they might be interested in made this game worthwhile for kids. Still not sure about thee 3+ part, but maybe for 6 or 7 year olds. I'll give Postman Pat a 5!
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