Animal Genius

Rating Everyone Genre adventure Publisher Leapfrog / Scholastic External Links Animal Genius

Since the beginning of time as we know it, man’s quest has been to discover new creatures and learn what we can from and about them. Now, Scholastic brings this search to the Nintendo DS in Animal Genius. That’s right, Scholastic has teamed with childhood educational company Leapfrog for what I might say is one of the best titles on the DS in a long time.

I know what you might be thinking, but yes I did say one of the BEST titles on DS.

Parents need to know that there's nothing to worry about here. Kids will learn a great deal about animals. Parents will appreciate the voiceovers that identify all animals and words, making it easy even for non-readers to learn. Families can talk about which games are the most fun. They might also want to plan an off-screen animal adventure to the zoo (or the library) so that kids can show off their knowledge. Some players might shock you with the fun facts they will starts spouting out.

Did you know that snowy owls have feathers even on their toes? Or that a lion's roar can be heard from 5 miles away? These are some of the many fun facts that kids will learn by playing Animal Genius. Players will learn about animals' habitats, characteristics, and behavior. This software works so well because it combines a fun quest, winning twenty-five animals, with innovative science games that kids will want to play. It's rare to find a game that makes learning science so much fun

The object is to populate five habitats - Grasslands, Arctic, Rainforest, Woodlands, and Ocean - with five animals each. To win the animals, players must play four different games to win points. Some animals cost as little as 10 points, while others can cost as much as 75+. Because players can only earn a maximum of three points for each round played, they must play lots of games to earn enough points to win an animal. What's more, they must also correctly answer 10 questions about the desired animal in a limited amount of time.

The games play off of kids' natural affinity for mazes, "I Spy"-type games, and hidden-pictures activities. For example, in the "Scratch & See" game, kids use the Leapster stylus to scratch across a black screen to reveal a hidden animal underneath. But the game won't let them wipe away all of the black, only part of it. Kids have to use their powers of deduction about animal characteristics to see if they can correctly identify the partially hidden animal from a list. In the "Maze Munch" game, players learn about the food chain while navigating a maze. Players becomes one of nine different animals as they move through the maze to collect food, all the while avoiding becoming food to another predator. For example, in one maze, you might play as an anteater. Direct the anteater toward the ants (represented as dots) while avoiding the moving jaguar that's trying to "catch" the anteater.

Music, interesting voices, and wacky facts help to sustain interest. The real hook is the use of photorealistic material along with animations. When kids are learning about an animal -- a snowy owl, for instance -- they view both photographs and videos of the bird. And when they win the owl, they place it in an Arctic environment that looks like a photo of the real place. For added interest, the software also randomly triggers an "Animal Alert" that sends players scrambling through each of the habitats to find an animal that's wandered into the wrong habitat.

Overall the game combines learning with video games perfectly. If I, a twenty-two year old, find this game fun, just think of the fun younger gamers will have. “Are elephants the biggest animals that live on land?” Come on, go ahead, prove you’re a genius!