Customer Reviews

Mia's Reading Adventure: The Bugaboo Bugs

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

 

 

This is our first Mia purchase and I'm VERY happy with it. My oldest is 5 yrs old and loves it. She starts kindergarten in the fall. There are 2 sections of the software. One section is games, the other is an 'adventure' story where you collect items and play all the same games as in the game section. There are a variety of 'games' to play each a bit more challenging than the last. You can also choose a difficulty level from 1-4 for each game. My oldest is on the easiest setting now and can do about half of the games and loves the challenge of the ones she hasn't accomplished yet. My 3 year old daughter is also having fun moving thru the adventure half of the software. I expect this to keep my girls entertained for quite awhile.

And as the previous poster mentioned, Mia saying 'OK' does become annoying.

So, with a product called "Reading," I assumed -- although you know what they say happens when you assume -- that there was some educational component to this program. There isn't. The "adventure" is nothing more than an addictive computer game. The children have to look for items, like a rubber band, or kill bugs with the bubble blaster. (Not that I am opposed to killing bugs, but I am not certain that I approve of killing bugs that are drawn to look like little people. Is it really meant to train the child to work up to Halo?) Sure, mixed in there are some mildly educational games, but they don't really teach anything. There is nothing coherent to the games' approach to make them valuable as an educational tool. For example, there are some fill in the missing letters. Okay, but the easy level is too easy for my child in kindergarten, yet the advanced level requires the child to be reading. The irony is that if he were reading, the game would be too easy. It doesn't teach, but only goes over material that a child would have had to have known to complete.

I thought that this might be an okay activity on a weekend morning for our son when we would want to sleep in. I am honestly not certain, if I am going to continue to allow him to play. It lacks true educational value, which is what I look for in games for my child.

That said, the graphics are awesome, although this is the one aspect that my son couldn't care about.

The animation in the product is wonderful. It is entertaining as well as educational. The only thing that drives ME crazy is Mia's response of "OK" after each correct choice. But, the little ones love Mia and so do I. Can hardly wait to get the others in this series. Granny

Warning: This game is written for Mac's running on the old PowerPC chips. Emulation is no longer supported on Lion so it's useless. How do they still sell it???

This appears to have a DOS inspired interface that gets in the way of learning for a child. I purchased this for my grandkids, after seeing the interface: with Press function keys, and complex key sequences, I tossed the product. I will be searching for a product rooted in this decade, not 1980s. There is no excuse for this poor of a product aimed at defenseless children.