Great Adventures Wild Western Town

Based on the popular Fisher-Price Wild Western town toy, this program allows your children to interact with their favorite toy in a new way. Davidson has released other Great Adventure programs this past year based on their Pirate Ship toy and other Fisher-Price favorites. Great Adventures Wild Western Town is a better program than Great Adventures Pirate Ship, but it is still rather simplistic, and should be purchased for children on the younger end of the suggested age scale (3-7.) Of course the exception to this rule would be my thirteen year old who for some strange reason finds this rather fun in a juvenile sort of way...just don't tell him I told you.

Bandit Bob has taken all of the gold and hidden it throughout the town. Your children must help Deputy Prairie Dog and Sheriff Sassafras find the gold. As the search progresses, learning activities are found along the way. Activities included teach sorting, classification, problem solving and encourage creative thinking.

In the hotel, your children will help deliver items to hotel guests which have been left at the front desk. Each guest needs an item which fits their physical characteristics or professional needs. The owner of the General Store needs help sorting items for customers. Here your children may need to find items used by miners, items needed for winter or other categories determined by the owner. As each of these games progress, Deputy Prairie Dog will offer clues as to the whereabouts of the nearest gold bar. Nine gold bars must be found and safely locked back in the bank safe.

As in the other Fisher-Price Great Adventure programs there are songs to sing. In the bar your children will be able to choose from approximately ten 'wild west' songs. As the characters sing each song the words are flashed across the bottom of the screen so your children can hopefully learn a few words through osmosis. The only two 'creativity' activities are the least fun. Your children can create a deputy badge by placing stamps on various badges and printing them on out for real play. In the Sheriff's office there is the usual wanted poster on the wall. Your children can design their own wanted poster by changing the facial features on the poster. These activities are not nearly as much fun, or as educational, as the others included in the program.

For kids who like arcade action, there are two 'shooting' activities included. Barrel Boot is a game where your children will launch barrels at the bad guys as they walk through town. This game looses it's appeal rather quickly, but it does fulfil the arcade action many children crave. The town cannon is similar to the cannon activity in the Pirate Ship. I don't care for this activity. Your children will place various items into the cannon and shoot them off for the fun of it. Many of these items include animals and other creatures. While rather humorous, I personally don't like the idea of anything irresponsible happening with weapons (even old cannons) with children this young.

Great Adventures Wild Western Town is a good program, but not one which will have extremely great replay value once the activities are conquered. For this reason I would recommend against buying this program for a child who is already at the upper end of the suggested age scale and using it for computer novices, or children who still enjoy playing with their real life Fisher-Price Wild Western Town play set. It is a better program than the Priate Ship program and has more of an actual story line.

Grading for Great Adventures Wild Western Town

Educational value- 3
Entertainment value- 3
Use of medium- 21/2
Age- 3-7

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