Customer Reviews

Disney's Buzz Lightyear 2nd Grade

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm sorry I bought this program BEFORE reading the other reviews here, because they're generally right on.

"Buzz Lightyear 2nd Grade" is just a superficial money-maker cranked out by people who either don't know or don't care about child education. Most of the "activities" are so brainless and boring that I was secretly ashamed to be encouraging my child to "enjoy" them.

Plus, the installation on my plain Windows 98 PC was a nightmare. I'm a very knowledgeable user but it still took me almost two full evenings. The setup program is at once unforgiving and stupid. My existing version 4.0 Quicktime just HAD to be upgraded to v4.01, for example - and this launched itself (involving a major download) right in the middle of the main program installation. This had predictable results.

Other issues were files installed with the wrong attributes (which later stopped the program), an uninstall file given a wrong extension (which prevented an uninstall), beta test messages popping up, and an almost unsolvable conflict with msvcrt.dll (a common problem). This last would crash the program whenever an activity was exited.

I was ready to give up when I found mention on this site of an available patch.

Running this patch finally got me going, although the speech is often totally garbled, especially in the intro screen.

My advice - save your money. Don't reward efforts like this. We could have had so much, much more from a Disney / Pixar collaboration.

While my son enjoys playing "his software", he is particularly interested in the Toy Story themes. With Buzz Lightyear as his favorite, he is naturally drawn into hours of learning fun with this Disney Interactive program. I have been surprised at his knowledge in geography and his reading skills. Jessie's math maze has expediated his math abilities. There are enough game options to keep his interst level up and his computing skills sharp. I also get the benefit of having my son sit on my lap while helping him through the tougher games. Certainly a purchase well worth the price.

This title is out of date, and installing it will break other applications that rely on newer versions of Quicktime.

It requires Quicktime, but the program installer doesn't recognized the most recent versions of Quicktime, so it won't start. Instead, it recommends that you uninstall your "old" version and install its "new" version, which is actually many years old.

I would not recommend installing this software if you have any need for any other application or web page that relies on Quicktime.

My seven year old really enjoys playing this CD. I am impressed with the math maze and how it challenges him to "want" to learn. With each correct answer, his marble continues along the twisting path through the marble slide. He is encouraged and prompted throughout each task, and the variety of games has him learning "without working." Each activity is completed according to the skill level of the player and the level of difficulty advances with each correct answer. This program seems to have a more challenging material and and over all I'd say I like the set up of the game, the games get harder as the child answers correctly. The one thing this program is lacking is an opening or closing page or a menu that the parent can access to see what the child has accomplished, similar to Reader Rabbit where at the end of your "working time," you can see your progress and where you need more practice. This game doesn't have that unfortunately. The geography click and drag of continents is creative aswell. This is a super addition to any curriculum and it sure beats brainless video games and TV! Installation was completed solely by my seven year old (I supervised) on his Sony Vio computer run on Windows 98, absolutely flawless install.

This product is so-so. My five year old daughter laughs at Jessie's math maze(even though it does not challenge her). She did learn the basic concept of multiplication by using this program. Overall, she is already bored with it after just a few hours of play.