Eco-Rangers: Animal Kingdom DVD Game - E

Educational DVD game turns TV watching into active experience.

Publisher: Snap TV Games Category/Genre: DVD Games - Trivia Game Platform: Plug and Play TV games Price: $24.95 Graphics: Wonderful animal videos Playability: Very easy to play using DVD Remote Reading Level: 1st grade-up Release Date: 09/26/2005 ESRB Rating: E

Common Sense Note

Parents need to know that this fun DVD game features over 250 high-quality videos about animals and their habitats. While it does not have a two-person mode, friends and family will enjoy the trivia-question format and can join in helping kids to solve missions.

Families playing this game might want to discuss animal habitats and why some animals are becoming endangered.

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Common Sense Review

Reviewed By: Jinny Gudmundsen

Parents can easily set up a fun, educational experience for kids using a DVD player, television, and the Eco-Rangers: Animal Kingdom DVD Game.

In Animal Kingdom, kids ages 6-9 use the DVD remote control as a game controller and help five heroic characters complete environmental rescue missions to save wild animals.

Players head into one of five wildlife regions: the savanna plains, the ocean, the woodlands, the tropical rainforest, or the Artic Circle. To rescue each ecosystem, kids must answer questions correctly about animals that live in the different habitats. Kids are shown video clips from the BBC, National Geographic, and the Discovery Channel before they are quizzed.

"Which food does an orangutan like best?" might be a question after kids watch a video clip about this species of ape. Kids use the DVD remote to scroll to the correct answer of "fruit" from a listing that also includes "leaves" and "eggs."

Correctly answering an animal question earns a player a gem. If a child earns three gems in one wildlife region, he or she completes the mission. The game permits some wrong answers; but answer incorrectly too many in a row, and the game sends the player back to the Eco Rangers' base to restart the mission. Kids earn an onscreen Eco Ranger Medallion if they finish all five missions.

Eco Rangers: Animal Kingdom is a fun game to play, especially because the five Eco Rangers are so dynamic. The three women and two men are racially diverse, very contemporary in their look and speech, and clearly excited about saving animal habitats. The high-quality videos feature over 250 animals and are fascinating to watch.

While there is no two-player option, friends can join in to answer the questions and play the missions. And kids weren't put off by failing a mission; they simply tried again.

Eco Rangers: Animal Kingdom DVD Game, turns passive TV-watching into a thought-provoking, active experience.

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