LEGO Rock Raiders
© 1999 LEGO Software
The LMS Explorer and its Lego crew are stranded in orbit around an unfamiliar planet. The crew must collect enough energy crystals from the planet's rocks to allow the ship to safely return home. To uncover the energy crystals, a lot of work is involved. The crew has to build a Rock Raider Headquarters and must use dynamite and drills to demolish rocks. They have to remember to feed the workers to keep their energy high. All of these important tasks are accomplished while avoiding avalanches, hot lava and Rock Monsters. The software uses the same mini-figures, vehicles and monsters that are found in the Rock Raiders toys, but even kids unfamiliar with these were immediately drawn to the program. There are numerous missions to accomplish before enough energy crystals are collected, perhaps a few too many for some testers. Each mission makes a slightly different request, asking kids to build a power station or a pathway, for instance. As children complete the missions, new sets open up, each one more challenging than the last. While kids found lots of help on hand, they had a tough time remembering the functions of each of the icons and controls and got bogged down in the logistics of the tools, machines and vehicles. Children also inadvertently chose a tutorial mode, and once started, these lessons were hard to stop. Testers on the whole, however, enjoyed the program. They loved drilling, dynamiting and riding the vehicles, even though none of these kids accomplished more than four missions. The biggest impediment is the program's very buggy design— although tested on several different computers, it only ran well on a loaded Compaq. Second best performance was on a brand new Gateway, but kids on this machine were frequently kicked out to Windows. Note that a version is also available for PlayStation.
$39.95, PlayStation, Windows 98 (CD-ROM)
Teaches: creativity, game play