Bear in the Big Blue House: Bear's Sense of Adventure

Other products by Vivendi Universal

Product Details

• Our recommended age: 36 months - 6 years
• Manufacturer recommended age: 0 months and up
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B00001XDV6
• Media: CD-ROM
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #22,948 in Video Games (See Bestsellers in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

From Children's Software Revue® -- "Subscribe Now!"
Yak, yak, yak. If you can get beyond the too-chatty characters in this program based on the Bear in the Big Blue House television show, you'll find an engaging set of activities and adventures. Bear and each member of the gang ask kids to help solve problems, gather needed items and play games. Mouse Tutter, for instance, needs assistance in redecorating his mouse hole. Children must explore the house and yard, gather up requested items and bring them back to Tutter. They'll mix the right color paint for Tutter's walls, take a picture of Bear to hang in the room and retrieve a cool lava lamp from a locked trunk to add light. When this redecorating project is finished, children have access to a printable storybook that relates the day's adventure. There are five adventures in all, which makes the program rich in content. Graphics are great and concepts touched upon include the five senses, color mixing, matching by attribute and so on. Games can be saved and you can learn to click through the excessive narration by using the escape key! Testers, especially fans of the show, liked the program.
Teaches: early learning skills, five senses, color mixing, problem solving
Age Range: 3, 4, 5, 6 Copyright © 2000 Children's Software Revue

Amazon.com Review
While the plot behind Bear's Sense of Adventure features the magical, folksy characters associated with a Jim Henson project, this translation to software is bumpy at best. Bear himself is visually fantastic, interacting with the cartoon house, his fur alive on the screen. However, the introductions are difficult to skip--it requires hitting the escape key multiple times to get into the game area--making it likely that kids will grow bored with this game after multiple uses.

The layout of the game is confusing, too. Bear spends a lot of time talking about the objects you can click on, causing them to do only a cursory dance across the screen. When you click on an object to decorate the house, it's logical to want to place it on a wall, but that didn't happen in our use. Instead, we wound up heading into other rooms and clicking on things like potholders by mistake.

This frustration makes the game seem disjointed and prone to long periods of song and dance--or even just lecturing--in a game that should allow kids much more direct interaction. Bear fans will love seeing him talk directly to them as they click items throughout the house, but others might only see it simply as a great TV episode placed on the digital screen. --Jennifer Buckendorff

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent software. Multiple activities and levels, February 4, 2000

By	K. Foster "writerMom" (New Waterford, OH USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

My 2.5 year old and I love this software. Bear has so many levels and activities that it is truly the only one (thus far) that my husband and I don't get bored with ourselves. Bear and his friends are extremely interactive, leaving a young child with the impression that these characters really do come alive right in your home!

With so many games, exploratory activities, and pop-ups there is always something new. We have had this software for nearly 2 months now and still find something new in it from time to time.

Pip n' pops matching game is PERFECT for teaching the youngest users about mouse usage and point and click.

We especially liked that elements from the program such as "Oh hello you smell like..." and Luna and the goodbye sequence are featured here. Toddlers do love that repetition!

I highly recommend this software to anyone who has a child who loves Bear in the Big Blue House. In fact, it is such fun software with a wide variety of activities that I think even children who never watch the show would enjoy the characters just on their own merit in the software.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good, but not great game, November 18, 2001

By	Christy Sturm "maggiesmom1" (Chicago suburbs, IL United States) - See all my reviews

I was a little disappointed with this game. My 3 year old played a couple of times & got bored with it. It didn't seem to have as much that grabbed her interest as other Bear games did. She will still play it occassionally, but it doesn't hold her interest as other games have.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Boring!, October 4, 2002

By	carolynindenver "carolynindenver" - See all my reviews

From other reviews, it seems as if you either love this game or hate it. We're in the 'hate it' category. The characters talk SO MUCH - it takes forever to get to the games. Some areas have very little instruction and our 4 year old has no idea what he is supposed to do, so he just ends up clicking anything and listening to more TALKING. He either ends up frustrated and walking away or playing the only game he can figure out over and over and over. I gave it 2 stars because there is one game our son likes to play that has taught him a little bit of mouse control. If we hadn't received it as a gift (and need to keep it around in case the gift-giver ever wants to see it), I'd be checking in to the satisfaction guarantee. This game is terrible. There are so many great software titles out there for this age group (the Reader Rabbits, and Blue's Clues ABCs for example), I wouldn't waste my $ on this one.