Puzzle Reviews

My problem with this game (and the other Scooby Games) is that there is no variability. Once your child solves the game and plays it again, the puzzles are essentially the same. The clues might change and the villian might be different, but the puzzles are the same and the clues are in the same places.

This is not a problem for my kids though. They both enjoy the game and play it for many hours.

Enjoy.

First the positive- the scooby gang are in a museum and a green glowing bug man has messed up the displays. They have to put the displays back together in order to earn clues. The clues point to a villian. Each of the 'games' or displays involves a different part of the brain- in one scooby has to jump on a conveyer belt to earn scooby snacks and collect bones, another is a puzzle, another is a matching game and so on. There are three different levels so you can have it fairly easy to fairly difficult. My five year old was able to play the easy with no help and the medium level with only a little bit of help.

The Negatives- The games are the same. The villians change but the games are the same- you are always doing a puzzle in the dinosaur room and it's always the same puzzle. The placement of the boxes in the puzzle might change but the idea is the same. I would have also liked to have seen the ability to change the levels of the puzzle as individual games, not the whole game.

However, it's a fun game.
I would also suggest the Freddy Fish games if your child likes to solve mysteries.

Enjoy.

I also appreciate the way that the animals are depicted in a realistic fashion--they look like real animals instead of the fake caricatures that you sometimes find with children's toys.

In general, I think it's nice to have a collection of puzzles with varied features...some with pegs, some wood, some foam, some inter-locking pieces, some that feature colors, shapes, animals, vehicles, etc. This puzzle is definitely tops for depicting a farm-yard scene.

It's a great bathtime toy!

A few of these games are simply classics with an After Dark twist: "Solitaire" is the classic card game, "Mowin' Maniac" is a whimsical and often maddeningly difficult version of "Pac-Man" that takes place in someone's backyard, and "Moo-Shu Tiles" is just like the game "Shanghai", only with a few scathing twists (layouts include the shape of a piece of roadkill, and the winning fortunes affront players with statements like "You look like something the cat refused to bring in from the rain.") The only one of these remakes I don't really like is "Foggy Boxes"--a version of the famous "dots and boxes" game--and that's just because I win almost every time even in the Hard mode.

The puzzle games, which are my favorites, include "Bad Dog 911", "Fish Shtick", "Zapper", and "Roof Rats". "Zapper" has the best graphics and sound of all the games, and it consists of a bunch of very interesting (but admittedly useless) true/false trivia questions in a race against the clock. You get bonus points and extra time for three correct answers in a row, and then the Zapper jackpot increases. It's not really all that difficult (my highest score ever was 9750 and the jackpot starts at just 50 points). "Roof Rats" is much more difficult, and it's a game where you have to rescue tenants from the top of a large building by detonating adjacent rooms of the same color. I have managed to beat the "Hard" mode in this game only 5% of the time.

"Fish Shtick" and "Bad Dog 911" are both games in which you have to unscramble words in a limited time period. They're both very fun, but they each have two little problems with them: first, words are taken from unabridged dictionaries, so they may seem obscure to people who've never taken courses in molecular biology before. (For example, "otceyo" can be unscrambled as "coyote" or "oocyte".) And second, the clock continues to tick while you pause the game, so you are not allowed to look for a dictionary or other cheating device at any time during gameplay.

The last three games are arcade-style, and they're the most original games of the bunch. "Hula Girl" is a platform game that scrolls from top to bottom, in which Hula Girl jumps down platforms, picks up desserts and extra hoops, and tries to avoid things that make her "yuckometer" go up. "Toaster Run" features the famous flying toaster, and you control his flight as he flies through a dangerous house in order to get into the nursery and put "Baby Guy" into his crib. And in "Rodger Dodger", you take control of a little purple spheroid and pilot him around, picking up the green things and avoiding the red things. These three games are also very fun, but they're overall a little less difficult than the others.

These 11 games are all different in gameplay, so they should satisfy any gamer who just wants a little distraction--whether it's using reflexes dodging killer red pyramids, or using the old noodle and trying to solve words. The only real complaint I have with this package, as a matter of fact, is that it doesn't feature some of my favorite parts of the orignial screen-saver; I was disappointed to see that there was no game involving "Daredevil Dan", or a version of "Rat Race", or the all-time classic trivia game "You Bet Your Head". These were, in my opinion, the funniest forms of entertainment that the original After Dark screen-saver had to offer. But what we have in the package still works as a funny and thoroughly engaging little diversion that never fails to delight. "After Dark Games" is extremely easy to get into and undoubtedly difficult to put down, and I highly recommend it for anyone who hates being an easily-bored person (come on, you know who you are....).

First of all, let's discuss what makes this game so cool. First of all is the appeal factor. People of all ages enjoy this game for a variety of reasons. It's nonviolent, it's easy to learn yet tough to master, and it's even got a versus mode (but you need two Game Boys and games to do this. However, if you get them, this mode is more than worth the price you will pay.) For the music, the game offers a series of classic Russian tunes, which stick in your head long after you're done playing.

Of course, not everyone loves Tetris. The main reason is the lack of complexity and depth. Sure, the game has many difficulty levels and two modes of play, but that may not be enough to woo over non-puzzlers. Some people simply don't like them. With all the high-tech games out there today, many people forget about the classics. Because of this, this excellent game is often overlooked by the current generation of gamers.

Final opinion? Tetris is everything a puzzler should be. If you've got the system, it's a game you shouldn't be without.

This is a "never-ending" game which I have derived much pleasure
using. It never ceases to amaze me and I play it often.

I have other tetris games for other platforms, but I still come
back to this one game. I love it!!!!

The play is excellent and always offers even a seasoned player
multiple opportunities. I hate to admit it but I'm over 60! If you have it already keep it, if not then BUY one!