Blue's Clues: Meet Blue's Baby Brother (Windows)

Blue, the animated canine star of Nickelodeon's Blue's Clues and Blue's Room TV shows, announced that she had a new baby brother in a TV special that aired in the fall of 2006. The PC game BLUE'S CLUES: MEET BLUE'S BABY BROTHER is based on that special. In the game, preschoolers join Blue and her human friend Joe as they travel to Puppyville in search of Blue's new baby brother. They start at the Puppyville train station where they meet all sorts of puppies, but are unable to discern if any of them are Blue's brother. In the quest to find Blue's brother, preschoolers travel around Puppyville to collect three gold clues. In addition to Blue and Joe, a little white puppy named Sprinkles joins the expedition. Sprinkles is traveling around Puppyville trying to earn his spots.

The quest takes kids to four locations -- Alphabet City, Colortown, Number Kingdom, and Shape Forest -- and culminates on top of a mountain in the Golden Thinking Chair. To earn the three gold clues, kids play a variety of learning games. For example, in Alphabet City, they click on lettered balloons in alphabetical order and direct a taxi down a road by following the alphabet. In all, there are 10 activities to explore.

This is a cute game for fans of Blue's Clues and Blue's Room to explore. The game looks like you're watching the television and stays true to the source material. Once kids have played through the adventure, the 10 learning activities become available to them, so there's some replayability. But don't expect much depth from Meet Blue's Baby Brother. The learning games don't offer any levels of difficulty; nor do they offer much support when kids make a mistake. Sometimes the activities help kids to learn by identifying a color or shape, but other times, when you click on a letter, it won't say its name. And the educational content is, at times, inappropriate because kids will be asked to count to "5" and then rushed into counting for "7+9."

Available on: Windows
Not available online
Genre: Edutainment
Developer: Activision Value Publishing
Released on: March 10, 2008
Price: 20
ESRB Rating: E