Buzz, Woody and all the Toy Story 2 gang are on hand in this six-pack of entertaining activities. Cone Chaos is an arcade game where kids must navigate the toys across a busy highway. Toy Shelf Showdown is a three-level game where children help Buzz assemble a rocket ship while avoiding bouncing nerf balls and hostile robots. In Luggage Lunacy, kids must rescue Woody who is trapped in a suitcase on a luggage conveyor belt! Logic and planning is required to save him. Kids will also find a one or two player game that is similar to Chinese Checkers, where the goal is to move critters into their opponent's corral. The most open-ended activity is Create-A-Comic where templates, props, characters and writing tools enable children to make their own Toy Story comic books. Like the movie, the software is a just-for-fun experience, with no strong learning value. Some of the activities are multilevel, some are arcade-like and all are fun, according to our testers. Overall, children adored the program, and while they found the games to be challenging, they didn't want to stop playing.
Teaches: game play, strategy, timing, creativity
Age Range: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Copyright © 2000 Children's Software Revue
Amazon.com Review
Hey howdy hey, all you deputies out there! Now you can have as much fun as Andy does with Buzz and Woody in this activity pack that's chock full of arcade games and printable art. Most of the games have a theme found within the movie; you'll even get to play "dodge the traffic" hidden inside road cones! There's also a hilarious trek through the luggage carousel with Buzz on a hunt to rescue Woody, and it's trickier than you might think.
All the games have adjustable levels of difficulty (so kids can play at more advanced levels, while you putter around as a beginner, 'cause let's face it, they're better at these things than parents are!). One of the elements that kids can print is a fantastic colorable comic book featuring all of Andy's toys. Even those goofy three-eyed aliens put in an appearance! Also ready-to-print are posters, stickers, and greeting cards; a birthday party could easily be decorated with the stuff within Activity Center.
Whether kids see themselves as a space ranger or identify as a cowpoke, there's plenty of fun for a rainy afternoon or two in this game pack. --Jill Lightner
