Yoda's Challenge PC/MAC By LucasArts (Lucas Learning) For ages 6-8 KidSource OnLine Review Product Description Requirements Another Star Wars product by LucasArts

KidSource OnLine Review

Summary		Yoda's Challenge is an entertaining and educational product, primarily designed for young Star Wars' fans. Children who like puzzles, music and tangrams will love this title. My 6 year old son has spent many hours playing with it, enjoying all the references to Episode I: The Phantom Menace. It is not your typical Star Wars product - it's devoid of star fighters, light sabers, battles and bad guys. Children can learn and play at their own rate in a non-competitive environment.
Educational Value		Yoda's Challenge has a different mix of educational topics than other CD's for this age category. It is not a general purpose educational product, but focus on a few areas: (1) the math portion is an interesting tangram activity (a fun and rare activity, some of which are difficult for the average 6 year old); (2) for music, child can create songs, learn to read music; and (3) for reading, child create sentences or read the instructions for various activities. There are other activities for spatial reasoning, pattern recognition, following directions and developing general reasoning and judgement skills. The latter activities are its overall strengths. It does not teach a child, but lets them learn through exploring and playing.
Fun Factor		Any child who enjoys Star Wars will like Yoda's Challenge. The characters and their voices are all from the Phantom Menace movie and the game contains interesting facts about the characters that will delight fans. However, this is not a fast-paced adventure title and does not have any fighting or racing scenes, nor does it have the evil Darth Maul or Darth Sidious in it. While this will please some parents, some Star Wars fans may be disappointed. Yoda's Challenge is an educational title, not pure entertainment. Personally, we found this to be a relief and a welcome change of pace.
Lasting Value		If your child is a lover of Star Wars, he or she will come back again and again to solve the puzzles just to uncover the Star Wars facts and pictures. There are six different activities, each with 4 levels and many fixed activities for each level. It will take a child a while to complete all activities on all levels. Scores are not kept and children advance levels when they are ready. Since the activities do not change when the title is replayed, some children will enjoying playing the same ones over and over again and will appreciate its consistency.
Quality		Overall, it is a nice title, with many nice graphics and audio tracks and nicely done animations from Episode I. The performance is good, it's reliable and plays equally well on a Mac or on Windows. Players receive positive feedback each time they are successful. It is a 'non-competitive' game.

Description

Select from six challenging missions that will transport you to Naboo and Tatooine! Build and sharpen your skills through math, reading and music activities while playing in the exciting world of Star Wars Episode 1. Each activity features 20 to 40 preset puzzles organized into four levels. The levels are designed to gradually increase in difficulty and complexity, introducing new concepts and challenges along the way. Change the color-coded levels at any time; play the activities in any order. Yoda's Challenge offers a variety of positive feedback for a young Jedi. In certain activities, you can earn original illustrated pictures of Episode 1 characters and vehicles. In the cantina, print out sheet music, including notes and lyrics. Complete all difficulty levels in each activity and you can print out a certificate of completion, issued by the Jedi Master himself, Yoda!

Requirements

PC System Requirements

• Computer: 100% Windows 95 or 98 DirectX compatible computer required.
• CPU: Pentium class 133MHz or faster processor required.
• Memory: 32MB RAM minimum required.
• CD-ROM: 4X IDE or SCSI CD-ROM drive minimum required.
• Graphics Card: 100% DirectX compatible PCI or AGP graphics card required.
• Sound Card: 100% DirectX compatible 16-bit sound card required.
• Input Device: 100% Windows 95/98 compatible mouse and keyboard required.
• DirectX: Microsoft DirectX 6.1 is included on this CD and must be installed to play Yoda's Challenge. Please refer to the DirectX section in the guide for more information about DirectX.
• NOTE: Your system may require the "latest" Windows 95/98 drivers for your particular hardware.
• Installation: Typical Install requires 28MB free hard disk space. Complete Install requires 254MB free hard disk space. It is recommended that you have an additional 50MB of free space available after installing the game for the Windows swap file.

Macintosh® System Requirements

• Computer: Apple Macintosh and 100% compatibles.
• Operating System: Macintosh OS version 7.6 or higher.
• CPU: Minimum 160 MHz PowerPC 603e, 120 MHz PowerPC 604, or any G3 or higher processor required.
• Memory: 32MB RAM minimum required.
• CD-ROM: 4X CD-ROM drive minimum required.
• Display: 640x480 display with thousands of colors required.
• Input Device: Mouse and keyboard required.
• Installation: Minimum 30 MB free hard disk space required to install Yoda's Challenge.

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