Customer Reviews

Storybook Workshop

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I'll give a quick review and share some tips below.

I give this 4 stars for a simple reason: my preschooler really enjoys it. From a grownup's POV this really doesn't seem to deserve to be a Wii game: the graphics is crude, the sound effect poor, and the interface juvenile. And there're only 16 stories plus 4 short sing-along songs. The voice-changing mini game is extremely low-quality, although the voice painting mini game is a lot of fun for a 2- to 5-year-old. The included microphone is lightweight and looks good in white and is made by Logitech -- supposedly it can be used with other Wii games that utilize a mic, but I haven't tried.

But it's exactly the simple (but colorful) graphics and simple sound effects that appeal to a preschooler or pre-kindergartener. And, really, the deal is, this is the only video-console storybook game, so if you want your kids to learn to read and have some fun at the same time on your precious Wii, I think this is your only choice. The price can seem a little high, but it's a good way to get your kids something to play on the Wii.

To be honest, I can barely stand the game myself, but my preschooler thoroughly enjoys it (esp. the voice painiting game!), so I'm not going to argue with its merit for its target audience. And it really beats having to let the kid play Wii games that ain't appropriate yet.

Now, I'd like to share a few important tips:

1. You must plug in the included USB microphone before starting the game. There are two USB ports in the *back* of the Wii. You can plug in the mic before or after you power on your Wii, but before you start the game from the Wii Menu. It's totally okay to leave the mic plugged in, whether you play this game or not. (The mic, made by Logitech, also reportedly works with other mic-compatible games, but I haven't tried.)

2. Before you start the game for the first time, I highly, highly recommend that you have created a Mii for each of your kids who will be using this game. A kid's Mii will be required to unlock the "Mii Story" feature. Five of the 16 stories have this "Mii Story" feature whereby after it's read three times, your kids' Mii's can be used inside the story starting with the 4th read.

3. When you start the game for the first time, do the following two things before you do anything else!

3a) Go into the Sticker Book Desk from the main treehouse menu (it's the icon behind the Grape Room door). Open the sticker book for each child and change the background to something he/she likes. The default background is a Christmas tree but you can change it to one of 7 other designs. This is important because if there are stickers in an existing sticker book and you want to change the background later, all the existing stickers will be lost. (So, if you do want to remove the stickers, simply change the background.)

3b) Go into the Grape Room from the main treehouse menu and click on the red computer, to set up profiles for your kids who will use this game, as well as a profile for yourself or your spouse. If you want the kids to use the Mii Story feature (see tip #2 above), you should pick their Mii's for their profiles.

4. The instruction booklet is difficult to understand. Once you have followed my first three tips, go into the Acorn room on the main treehouse menu, click on the board icon on the right, and read the four-page "TV-Head's Tips" (TV-Head is the little guy that runs around on the menu screens and gives you instructions.) These are way much better to read than the booklet - which also doesn't include enough info.

5. You need to remember that, in the Orange Room where the stories are located, the "Mii Story" feature is locked until your child's profile has a Mii (see tip #3b above) and one of the Mii Stories is read through three times (by anyone). Also, remember that only 5 of the 16 stories are Mii Stories. Also keep in mind that the "Favorite Stories" feature is locked until a story is read at least three times, and the "Recorded Stories" feature is unavailable unless you or your kids have actually recorded a story.

My 7 year old loves this game! She was super excited when we opened the box and she saw the microphone. The game is a fantastic way to put some excitement back into storytime! A child, (or adult) reads the story on the screen and their voice is "magically" changed into character voices! We were cracking up listening to my husbands voice transfer into Little Red Riding Hood's voice and my daughter's turned into The Big Bad Wolf's. There are also other games, like painting with your voice! Amazing! I can see this being a great improvement to a classroom. Or a great way to get an unenthusiastic reader more excited to read! I would recommend it to anyone with children under the age of ten.

My 4 year old LOVES this game. She enjoys both the story portion and the sing along. Is it a game any adult would enjoy? No. It is made for kids and it is perfect for kids learning to read. The only reason I enjoy the game is because of the reaction my daughter has to it. For me, knowing she is learning while having fun, is a reason to smile!

I do wish they offered more sing alongs.

I advise parents to preview the stories before their children use this program as some may be upsetting to more sensitive or younger children. For instance, in this Little Red Riding Hood version both Grandmother and LRRH get eaten by the wolf, a hunter happens by, sees the wolf's big belly and assumes he has eaten people, then proceeds to cut them out of the wolf's belly. Out they come, alive and well. They then sew up the wolf and he is fine too. I grew up on violent cartoons but thought this was pretty weird to say the least. My grandchildren are a little "sheltered" compared to most kids today and they were bothered by that one story. The others I saw were fine but I only watched seven out of the sixteen that are supposed to be included.

I think this program would be most enjoyed by children ages 4-8 yrs. Much of the content requires reading so parents would have to be present to help non-readers.

PROS
-easy, child friendly menus
-deep, bright colors
-painting with voice segment of the program very cute
-with the included microphone children can record their own voice reading stories
-cute stickers as rewards for performances that they can put on their choice of background
-generous content for a low price

CONS
-while the microphone is a great feature, children have to be supervised while using it. Young children naturally move and jump around, especially with an interactive program such as this, and twice the WII got pulled over by the microphone wire. A wireless mic would be great but would of course add too much to the cost of this inexpensive program.
-while the colors are good, the graphic quality could be better, very basic and not very sophisticated as compared to other children's programs.
-some of the synthesized background voices can be annoying and for the sing-along part of the program there is no way to get rid of these voices so that the child can sing by themselves to the music, like in karaoke.
-the voice changeovers for the different story characters are optional. This is a creative idea, having a different voice for each character in the story, but the voice sounds need improvement, one is very metallic and another is pretty distorted sounding.

All in all I think this is a decent program for the price and will provide a lot of fun for the whole family.

How much enjoyment your kids will get out of this is dependent upon several factors.
1. How old are your kids? We played the game with a 3 and 4 year old. I wouldn't think significantly older children (older than 6) would be interested in this, but just the same, I don't think children younger than 3 would be interested either, but I could be wrong.
2. How tech-savvy are your kids? The children we played the game with had a lot of fun, but these kids don't ordinarily play with or around many tech items, so the microphone itself had huge appeal. If your kids are used to super high-tech, then this might not do it for them, especially considering how low-tech the sound and graphics on this game are. I'm surprised this wasn't released as a stand-alone that you could just hook up to your TV. I guess I expected more from something meant for Wii.

Based on the enjoyment of the 3 and 4 year old, I am giving this 4 stars. If it were based on my enjoyment, I would probably give it a 1 or 2, but I'm not in the age demographic for this product and have decided to put the children's opinion above my own.

Conceptually, the product works pretty well for what its supposed to do, which is entertain children through the power of classic stories. You can read the stories to kids and mess with the voice playback to sound a little more cartoony. You can save your readings and play them a later date. I think technically, this product fails on a couple of levels. I feel like the voice playback usually sounds kinda blah and it has an overall feeling of rinky-dink cheapness to it. Even the mic doesn't feel particularly sturdy. Still, there's a good mix of stories to read (though you may want to avoid "The Little Candle Girl", which I had never read until this game introduced me to it. Let's just say my wife was in tears by the end of it...) and kids will definitely eat this up. I think this game could've used a bit more time at the drawing room stage frankly but if you want a guaranteed quick buy that'll get your child's attention, consider this an option.

I got this to play with my 4 year niece and nephew. My niece, who loves singing, reading, etc. really got into this...her twin brother, not so much. There are several different activities on this game. You can read along to the story (kinda boring), paint with your voice (kinda cool), play educational games (this is the one my nephew enjoyed, as well as the painting with his voice), or you can sing along to songs (kiddie karaoke!), etc. The option I liked the best is the ability to record stories in your own voice. Really cool if you have an absent parent, or a far away grandparent. When they visit, they can record a story in their voice, that way the youngsters can hear them read along to story anytime they play the game. My niece was enthralled with the whole thing. My nephew was bored after 20 minutes or so. The one thing I would suggest as an improvement is to have more common stories as choices to read along to. Some of them were not familiar at all. I absolutely LOVE that this comes with a microphone, and so did the kids. However, the long cord could be a real hazard, and their 2 year-old brother was determined to show me just how hazardous that dangling cord could be!

This is a very "innovative" video game which needs more innovation!

It's a cute concept: A video-game-book that you read while using a microphone that changes your voice to match the characters on screen.

Overall, the kids liked it - well, one of them did anyway. The 5 year old got a big kick reading each sentence - especially since his voice was being changed. He would read the sentence then babble like crazy just to hear his own voice as it was changed. He got a big kick out of that. The free-form part of the game where you can just talk in different voices was his favorite. He already LOVES reading, and doesn't need any more motivation. But he defintiely liked this game.

The 3 year old was scared - scared by the weird looking characters on screen and definitely scared by the voices. So - I would say ages 4 and up here.

When I say it needs more innovation, I mean the technology behind the voice-changing gimmick is severely outdated. 20 years ago, my sister had a voice-changing megaphone, and it sounded EXACTLY like the crummy voices that this product uses to "change" your voice. It's as if that's the best we can do. I highly doubt it. I don't know what patents or other speed bumps are holding up this technology - but surely we can do better. Because really it sounds quite awful. But - the kid liked it so, maybe when he's 25 it will finally be up to par!??

Overall - cute idea, could use a little work but the 5 year old did really like it and will probably use it again.

My 7-year old would not play it again after she had tried it the 1st time. It had been gathering dust till a friend of me dropped by the other day with his two kids, one is a three-year old girl who really enjoyed playing it with her mom. I let them take it home after a bit of convincing that I indeed had no use for the game.

There are some things that don't need to be replaced or improved with technology. Sitting on the bed with a child reading together from a colorful storybook, making up voices for the characters and talking about the scenes in the pictures, is one of them.

That is the experience that "Storybook Workshop" is attempting to replicate. There are sixteen stories overall, both familiar and not, coming from a variety of cultures. The parent and child (or child alone) read through the stories using a microphone, and the child can collect stickers for successful completion of a story.

Some of the features are pretty cool. The ability to record the story and then listen to your own voice was a hit with my four-year old niece, as was the voice-changer that accompanied some of the stories (although this wasn't available in the play-back). If your child isn't a reader yet, you can listen to a storyteller tell the story and try and follow along with the on-screen text. Obviously the mini-game of being able to scream into the microphone in order to splatter paint on the screen was a hit.

I wasn't too impressed by the graphics, which were far inferior to your standard picture book. The Wii remote use was limited; the child can "grab" some of the pictures to advance them to the next stage instead of pressing the A-button. I was hoping that the Miis would be more involved, and that there would be some more interaction, but the Miis can only join in after a story has been completed three times, and then they only substitute for another character.

The selection of stories was nice, and I especially appreciated the inclusion of the Japanese tale of "Hats for Jizos," which is one of my favorites. Most of the stories are familiar favorites, with the Norwegian folk tale "The Boy who Went to the North Wind" being the only one I was unfamiliar with.

Ultimately though, I just didn't like the barrier of reading fairy tales through the TV screen. I would much rather sit her on my lap, set the big book in front of us and spend the time going through the story together. That's what the picture on the front of the "Wii Storybook" game shows, and that experience is so much better than the game itself.