Customer Reviews

Great Museums of the World

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

 

 

The package should more properly be called "Great Art Museums of Europe", since there are a lot of great museums that aren't art museums, and a lot of great art museums that aren't in Europe. However, ignoring this technicality, the software is a lot of fun. It includes two CDs that cover major European museums, and three CDs dedicated exclusively to the Louvre. Everything is organized around "tours", available on a variety of art styles, regions (mostly in Europe, with a special section for the Egyptian collection in the Louvre), and topics (from the Virgin Mary to eroticism). If you aren't looking for anything in particular, it is great to just sit back and let the tours run. If you try to go beyond the tours, however, it is not so good - the interface is navigable, but not intuitive, and the works included are comprehensive at the masterpiece level, but thin out very quickly below the point of "everyone has heard of it".

Just a word to the wise, I purchased three different copies of this software, and every single one came up with the same problem. I couldn't load the last 3 cd's. I have a Dell Pentium 3 450Mhz computer with 16 gigs of hard drive space, so I know it wasn't my computer. This product never worked and I would have to dicourage any person looking to puchase it. What a disapointment!

This is amazing for the money. For those of us who long, and I mean long, for a trip abroad, this is well worth many times the cost. I run a 633MHZ, Intel Celeron and it runs like a dream. Very authentic in atmosphere and effect. The scope is wonderful - a taste of the architecture, the art, and the history.You must understand that I am of the older generation - we were stuck with expensive books or saving for these trips. Maybe that is why this tour seems so valuable to me.

What can I say? Hey, I'm happy...

I thought, from looking at the material presented on it, that it would be useful. It has lovely multimedia but it has very fuzzy images. For the paintings that aren't considered "masterworks" the images or even fuzzier. Its a lovely overview but I don't reccomend it for reference or educational use. It takes about an hour to see all that it has to offer.

This is a fine bunch of CDs. There's not a whole lot of art from the last century--they might have included a bit more modern stuff--but overall it offers a fine, sizable collection of art. Beyond that, I would recommend this because it is the perfect match of form and format; the art looks better on a computer screen than in does in a text, and you can click in for close-ups and details that enlarge with astounding clarity. If these guys come out with CD's focusing on modern art--or architecture--I will be in line to scoop them up.

There are 3 CD-Roms dedicated to the Louvre, and 2 for other assorted European museums. My favorites are the 2 assorted (The Hermitage,etc.)with the focus on art masterpieces. The Louvre program focused on portraits and historical pieces. Had difficulty loading multiple discs under original program for initial disc.

This program is very buggy. We couldn't get it to run properly on two different computers. From what we were able to see, it could be a very good program if you could get it to work, so it does get one star for potential. One major problem is that error messages came up in Italian and we didn't have our English/Italian dictionary handy to figure it all out.

I had trouble loading one cd, but the rest worked well. I called the tech support and the problem got solved. The images are all very sharp. Overall, I enjoyed it. Even though I had problem loading one CD, getting 5 for the price was worth it for me.

The five cd's required individual setup for each one. Never could get the third Louvre disk (Egyptian/Italian Art) to load properly. Tried two different computers. Initial viewing of other disks look interesting and informative. I sometimes get a peculiar "double exposure" appearing presentation on the slide shows. I don't know if it is a problem or is intended as some artsie effect. I guess I have paid more for worse programs.

I bought this product when I was running a laptop PC. Fortunately, I did not have any of the technical problems that have been experienced by some other reviewers. I found the programs quite comprehensive, not so elementary as to be insulting and visually well done. The music was a good touch.

Having said all that, why in the world is it not MAC-compatible? Now that I have switched to MAC, this software is useless. Any software that claims to be of interest not only to interested adults but to school-age learners should not have this shocking shortcoming. In all the time since I first bought this product, CounterTop Software has done nothing for the non-PC user. The three stars were for the PC content I used to be able to enjoy, after considering the fact that all I can do now is stare at the disks. Great.

Steven M. Wolf
Villanova, PA