JumpStart Adventures 4th Grade
© 1999 Knowledge Adventure, Inc.
This all-new version of the JumpStart Adventures 4th Grade stars kids, Sally and TJ, and their dog, Gizmo. Their task is to explore an old mine, recover a stolen treasure map and catch a villain. If this sounds like a difficult mission, that's because it is, and the tedium of the gameplay contributes to the challenge. Each level of the game requires hours of play to advance. In the first, children travel through three open tunnels— each with a math game and another activity that tests geography, art, history or spelling. These games are innovative, educational and fairly fun at first. Kids have to use a laser to cut out correctly spelled words, for instance, or solve math problems to turn on lights in the tunnels. Unfortunately, the games must be played so many times in order to advance that kids lose interest— we had to beg them to play! The second segment of the game is also tedious, with only two types of games that must be played over and over again. In all, the content is solid. A total of 11 games drill 30 skills, and there are 200 tutorials if kids are having difficulty in any subject. Other nice features are the optional pretest that can be used to set skill levels and the thorough record-keeping system. It's also great to see a daring and intelligent female main character. Weaknesses include some problems with responsivity and some annoying music loops, in addition to the afore-mentioned repetitive format. Only the most dedicated, persistent kids will stay with this mystery to the end.
$20, Win 95, 98; Mac OS (CD-ROM)
Teaches: math, reading, science, history, geography