Customer Reviews

Playhouse Disney's Stanley: Wild for Sharks!

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

 

 

My son's new interest in aquatic life, particularly sharks, is what led us to this software program. He's four years old and very used to working on the computer so we have quite a collection of software. Well, this has become one of his favorite programs for many reasons but mainly because it is FUN. The key character, Stanley, is very likable, smart, and determined to get his school project finished. His British/Australian (?) sounding fish friend sounds nice to listen to and is a good "thinking" companion to Stanley throughout the program. The graphics and music are also very colorful and upbeat. Apart from just playing, I see that my son is also learning bits of information on ocean animals by referencing the "Great Big Book of Everything" during the game. The only frustration is that he wants to start every game from the beginning and if you click on a previously entered name the game picks up where you left off. Other software programs let you choose to start a new game each time. Nonetheless, we both like this program so much that I'm going to explore other Stanley software. By the way, we don't watch the TV program so it's not necessary to know the characters in advance of playing. Just have fun!

Not only has "Stanley" become our 3 year-old son's favorite program on TV, it's also the one my wife and I admire the most. The creative team behind "Stanley" does a remarkable job of making the show educational AND fun. However, we had modest hopes for this software, because other educational software titles we've bought based on TV or movies have proven to span the quality spectrum from merely okay to downright lame.

Wow, were we ever pleasantly surprised. "Stanley: Wild for Sharks" borders on amazing. It's truly fun, yet truly loaded with educational opportunities. The creative team behind the software has done a commendable job of injecting a "scaffolding" approach to teaching young ones, and they've seemed to maximize the opportunities for challenging the three to six year-old set while minimizing the avenues that might lead to frustration as proficiency with the program increases.

I've lately tried to avoid giving a product five stars simply because I like it, but this one deserves six.

Beware. This game does not work with Windows XP. The vendor said that it would work on any XP Version except Media-Center, but I have XP Pro and it crashes there despite changing compatibility settings to older versions and changing the video resolution. I suspect that it's like another game we purchased that worked fine when XP first came out, but Windows Auto Update changed something that destroyed compatibility with old Win 98 games like this.

We have it up and running on an 11 year old laptop with Win 98 , but it's too CPU intensive to run properly on that old thing.

The game seems OK for the right PC and operating system though...