Puzzle Reviews

I love this mat! I got this for my 9 month old daughter and she immediately took to it. She loved the vibrant colors and the fact that she can pull out the letters, within a couple of days she found out that she could pull the whole mat appart (a lot of work for the parent...but all comepletely worth it). Friends have pulled it appart and have used it as a hop-scotch board and built things out of it. The foam is a little flimsy though, so I would recomend watching children when they are teething and figuring out the capabilities of their teeth. But over all I love this and have recomended it to many people.

We have hardwood floors, which are nice, but when you have a baby who wants to be on the floor, it's hard on everyone. So, we went out and bought this. It's much better than the floor, but it's not carpeting. They're pretty durable - my son has taken all of the letters and the numbers out and put them back and they don't seem to be very worn yet! (He's 18 months and we've had it for at least 12 months.) For a long time, that was one of the things he enjoyed doing the most, taking the letters out, walking around with them, and chewing on them. He would also put them back in later, but not as often as he would take them out. I didn't really worry much about the small pieces - the small circles for the inside of the eight, six, zero, b's, etc - since we're with him when he plays with this. But if you are, you can simply take them out and put them away for later. Of course, that means that your child will be able to pull out the letters and numbers more easily, but that's part of the fun. (Little ones have a hard time getting much of a gripe on the letters and numbers when they're pushed flush with the blocks.) Also, I think that it's nice to have the alphabet out and some numbers. My one complaint is that the one we got, when it's put together has six vertical stripes through all the letters, but then the numbers don't continue it. I guess I wish ours was more random, which some are.

Love the ABC mat concept and the vivid colors! The mat's letter "I" was missing. Tried to pull up D&S Products International's website, ... and it just came up a general directory page called Retroglo Directory Page. I searched for Fun Foam Letters Mat and it came up amazon.com and ToysRus. Said that the product is no longer stocked or has been discontinued. Did a Google Search and found no D&S Products International or RetroGlo--only sourceguides came up when I even plugged in the address of D&S. ... I read other products reviews of this mat and others are missing borders and letters as I am.

I am impressed with the way these puzzles were made. I was looking for wooden puzzels and these have painted on pictures, not decals. I am not worried about my daughter ruining them. I am a little disappointed as others have said with certain aspects. I didn't read the reviews before I bought this one. I will be more careful next time. I just bought it for the good price. One puzzle does not have pegs. None of mine have the pictures under the pieces, only the words. My daughter doesn't mind as she can't read; however, I think that the pictures would better facilitate her learning and the pegs would make it easier to use.

I bought this toy for my 2 year old daughter and she just loved all four puzzles. These puzzles also served a valuable purpose in that my daughter thought she was playing, but she was actually learning the different animals, foods, transportations, and so forth. She has never got bored with these puzzles . . . and these were all she had!!

I wanted the learning experience of puzzles for my 2 year old, but there is one big flaw in this toy, the pictures dont appear under each piece, so once they are all out of place, my toddler cant find a way to put them back. I was very dissaponted by this, I dont like putting it together myself, its way too complicated for a child. She is not interested in these puzzles at all, I feel l«ve wasted my money.

the object of this game is to keep little bubbles from overrunning the area by getting 3 of the same color in a row. The graphics are great. it is well worth the price. it is very fun, because you have to think quick, or the area gets overrun by bubbles.

This game is great. At first you start off at the first puzzle and the object is to get three of the same colored balls in a row. Some people say it is hard to see what the colors are but my brother is color blind and he is ALMOST better than me. Well, than once you pass the first puzzle than you go to a harder on, I think there are like 100 puzzles, well, it times you so even now after I beat the game my brother and I try to beat eachother's scores. Well, there is also a mode where you play against other charecters on the game. I am 12, my brother is 17, and my sister is 19 and she loves the game too, so this game is for all age groups. Thank you for reading my review.

The is a great game. You should get a worm light though because it can be hard to see the differnet colors of the bubbles.

We liked the description of the map puzzle and thought it would be perfect for our puzzle-loving toddler, but we read an Amazon review (dated 11/03) noting that the upper peninsula of Michigan was colored the same as Wisconsin. Obviously, accuracy is important for an educational toy, so we planned on buying it and painting the piece to fix the Michigan problem. But when the puzzle arrived, both parts of Michigan were yellow, and Wisconsin was blue - the manufacture has fixed that oversight!

Note however that some of the small Northeastern & New England states are combined on single puzzle pieces, so in fact the puzzle only has 44 pieces, not 50. Toddlers won't mind because the puzzle is fun, but parents might think twice before buying for children trying to learn all the states.

My 4 year old loves maps, so this was a great Christmas present for him. Now he knows where all of the states are and almost all of the capitals! He also knows the Pledge of Allegience now. The only thing I don't like is the speaker is on the back of the puzzle, so if you set it on the carpeted floor or couch it's muffled (and you have to lay it almost flat otherwise the pieces will fall out). But the volume is real loud if you hold it upright and there's no volume control. But overall, it's a great toy and one of my son's favorites. I bought another one for a family member and she loves it too.

My son is a USA puzzle nut, so he was thrilled to receive this gift. What I especially like about this puzzle is: #1:Each shape fits into its own compartment, so my 2 year old daughter can figure it out too if she keeps turning the piece around until it fits #2: There is a storage drawer on the side for easy clean up. I just wish there were a volume control on it (when the states are pushed, the name of the state is recited along with other facts, but I can live with that.

While this isn't the version of Galaxian I remember (no ship capture, no green aliens, etc), I sure enjoy taking a few moments out of a busy day and playing an old favorite. I also love to revisit my Pac-man days! Only thing that was surprising to me was that software came on 3.5 diskettes... I was expecting CD-ROM instead of magnetic media.

I received my game yesterday, and I rushed home to try it out. I was amazed to find myself still playing at 3:00am. I was not disappointed. This game brought me back in time to when I fed quarters in the machine hour after hour. The graphics and sounds are exact, and Pinky, Blinky, Inky and Clyde are awesome. I did find that purchasing a joystick enhanced my playing fun. The only thing missing is the warning label that this game is still highly addictive.

Microsoft did a pretty good job on providing us with the 4 Namco arcade classics for the computer. Each game is exactly like the original, but you can use different controlling devices such as a mouse for Pole Positions, and the much better keyboard for Pac-man. Also you can change the settings to make the game a little bit easier or harder. The problem is these games wont run in 16 bit color or higher, but all you have to do is just change it to 256 colors.

He plays with it all the time, has learned to say the names, and can put the pieces in place. He loves to bring the puzzle to me and have me say the names. Very sturdy. I love that the pictures underneath match the pieces. Great puzzle!

My kid mostly played with the cars as though they were cars. He did some shape matching for a few minutes, but would get bored with that pretty quickly. My biggest problem was pulling the splinter out of his lip after he gnawed on one of the puzzle pieces.

I'm having the same splinter problem with the wooden ABC blocks. Funny -- I don't remember that being a problem when I was a kid.

my son got this as a gift, he loves vehicles and learnt all the different vehicle names on this puzzle. the pictures are detailed and colorful. the only thing is he mastered it so quickly, there are only a certain amount of times you can do this puzzle before it becomes basic. (this may be true of any puzzle) i try to keep it out of sight and bring it out every now and then to keep the interest.

This game is great for people who do not know much about baseball. This game gives me trouble sometimes to throw the ball and it is really hard to get a hit or even harder to hit a home-run. i would not say this is the best baseball game out there.

This game is a pretty good baseball game, but it should have more features. Some of these features are trades, average and stat calculation, better graphics, etc. If you just like a simple baseball game, then this game is for you.

All-Star Baseball 2000 for GBC reminds me of the old-school baseball games from the days of the NES, but it is generally good. Two annoying things with this game: the uniformity of the players' look and the sluggishness of the defensive plays. However, the graphs are good and the possibility of plays is interesting.

A good level of entertainment for road trips!

Okay, okay, I had fun. But I was also incredibly frustrated by the set up and "logic" (or I should say lack of logic) of this game and that truly detracted from my enjoyment. I wanted to learn something from this game, but I didn't get the connections half the time!
This game has so much potential for teaching chemistry, but the set up was lacking logic - you don't know what you are supposed to be doing, and you have to go back and forth between the various "stops", never knowing if you have really done what needs to be done. And because you have to go back and forth so much, you have to wait for each area to load when you go to another stop. I tried skipping the animation of the transport zooming through the tube, but it still took a long time for the stop to load. And you want to scream when you click on the wrong button and have to wait twice!!
One example of frustration for us is that you have to melt the ingredients for solder someplace other than the melting furnace before you put it into the melting furnace... How does that make sense? The logic behind why some ingredients are placed in certain places is very foggy, and sometimes you just don't have enough (understandable) information to figure something out, or the information is there but so obscure that you have to be a rocket scientist to understand it.
So you look for help, and all you are given is a walkthrough, when hints would be so much better... and would help you learn why you are doing things. I have thought of making my own hints to pass on to someone who would like to learn something from the game.
I ran Chemicus on a mac running OSX. It had to run on classic, so there were many times when it lagged. Don't know how it runs on a PC.

My wife and I are avid adventure gamers and, to help pass the time until "URU: Ages Beyond Myst" is released later this year, we decided to try "Chemicus". We played "Physicus" a couple years ago and, while we enjoyed it, we both thought that it could have been a much better game if it had tied into Physics a little deeper and if more effort was put into the adventure game design (look for my earlier review).

We just completed "Chemicus" and I can honestly say that this was a MUCH better overall attempt. Nearly all of the puzzles of the game are chemistry-related ranging from the fairly easy and logical to the pretty hard and requiring a hint or two (we peeked into the included walkthrough only a couple of times to get us unstuck).

The greatest improvement over "Physicus", however, was on the game design side. Like "Physicus" the graphics and music are lush and inviting. But, the scope of the game is where "Chemicus" shines over its predecessor. "Physicus" was just a singular environment or location to explore with very few cut-scenes and conveyances to enjoy along the way; both popular elements to a successful adventure game. In "Chemicus", even though the "subway" system was a little on the cheesy and repetitive side, at least it felt like we were transporting between unique locations (thank goodness the space bar forwards you through the animations). Plus, after solving some particularly difficult puzzles, we were rewarded with some nice cut-scenes; the balloon ride over the city being the best one. It wasn't on the same level as the bigger games like Riven and Schizm, but still an improvement.

One thing that "Physicus" did get right and that "Chemicus" fails on, is its link into the "Brain Center", the included chemistry text book. The content of the chemistry text is impressive, although, it looks as if the inclusion of animation and narration of some of the experiments and topics went by the wayside probably due to the added scope of the underlying game. What really annoyed us was the fact that we couldn't follow a link from the particular puzzle we were working on into the appropriate chapters or topics of the textbook. Along the way, you pick up "Knowledge Chips" that add chapters to your Brain Center and I suppose, if you kept up with the reading along the way, the new topics would relate to the new puzzles in the area. But, later on, when we were still working on the puzzle, it was very difficult to find those same topics in the textbook again. Like "Physicus", a link to just the appropriate topics would have been very useful.

Other than that, the game was very well written and designed. The user interface was very intuitive and easy to use. Could have done without the gratuitous, politically-correct diatribes on "greenhouse gasses" and "socially responsible science" that we have come to expect in these games (easy to ignore, though). We just started on "Bioscopia", but it looks as if that one more closely resembles "Physicus" in design and scope, bummer. I hear they are working on a "Chemicus II" game, so once we finish with URU, we will probably give it a go, too.

This is great game but it is NOT easily solved. It has Myst like elements where you find puzzles and solve them to move around. The game has a twist where you keep an inventory of items you will need in other areas of the game. The hints that came with the game were helpful..I hated to use them but after getting stuck and not making progress after a few hours I had to take a quick peek to continue. At first I thought it was too easy but then it got hard. If anyone writes otherwise they are not being truthful. I took many chem classes in college and not everything is intuitive in the game. Infact, sometimes you know what to do but the game only lets you do things in order to perform a task and you think that you are wrong (but you're not). You only switch CD's once ever and then you are done. I copied the help file to my computer so I would not have to reference it off of the disk. The only part I did not like was the navigation. If it had not been for that I would have given it 5 stars. . All in all I have zero regrets getting this game. I had just finished playing Myst III and I wanted another same type game. great buy

Please do yourself a favor and exit this page right now. This game is the worst game on gameboy. There is no point to this game beyond the simple arcade bit. ...

If you've ever played this game before, then you know what to expect. So to you folks, it's just what you think it's going to be like! For those who have never played Rampart it goes a little like this: Build city walls around castles to stay alive and gain more points. Then place cannons. Then prepare for a frenzied round of battle! After the round, you do it all over again! I'm not sure when or how you win, but you just do. Even though it sounds simple, it's quite entertaining. I cannot play for more than a half hour or so at a time because it just gets too difficult. When it says GAME OVER, you just feel like you need a break. That, however, doesn't stop me from playing again later. Overall, the simple tetris like strategy for adults and blow em up to bits action for the kids make this a game everyone can enjoy.

I haven't seen any port to Gameboy that so matched the arcade game as well as this one. I rented the game, expecting the worst, and am so pleased I'm buying a copy. Even the shouting voice telling you to "Surround Castle to Stay Alive!" is right where it 'sposed to be. Sure the graphics are small, and that direction pad is nothing like the trackball of the original, but the gameplay is just right. If you're like me, and still think the best arcade games are gone -- shucks, I dated my wife by dropping quarters together in arcade machines -- but you somehow have two or three gameboys sitting around when the little rugrats are asleep, I think you'll be happy with this game.

super puzzle fighter 2 turbo is one of the best games of all time!!!!!!!! but make sure you get it on playstation, much better gameplay and effects

This is perhaps the worst port of a game I've ever seen. I can't understand how the other reviewers have failed to mention some of the serious flaws in the game. I'm guessing they all work for Capcom. The biggest problem in the game is the two player mode. In the playstation/saturn versions of the game the two player mode is what made this game an absolute gem ~ without doubt the best puzzle game in history. Unfortunately the gameboy version is completely buggy. When you play two player mode, the game gets out of sync and it's possible for both players to win against each other. In fact, this happens regularly - play it twice and it will happen. Even worse is that once it has gotten out of sync you can't play against the other person anymore. Of course, you could try playing two player using one gameboy (yes, this is possible), but that's just ridiculous.
Also, it should be mentioned that the game slows down noticeably when you break even small gems. Combine that with the fact that gems don't fall smoothly - sometimes they suddenly appear at the bottom of the screen - and you get a very jerky experience of the game. I'm really annoyed actually because I REALLY love this game and I was looking forward to being able to play against my friends wherever I went. Capcom, did you do ANY quality testing before you released the game?? Make sure to test a friend's copy of the game before buying. Don't trust these other reviewers. They're all Capcom stooges

No doubt about it, its a great game. I never have had any memory bugs as in the other reviews, I have completed all of the challenges, and they are still saved months later. The learning curve is pretty big, but once you learn it, its awesome. If ya wanna try the arcade one, get a CPS2 system emulator and download the rom (although I can't say I did this, I know it exists). Pay attention to the learning video, and always just work on combos, and don't break little blocks, and lay pieces very fast. I wish there was someone here at my university that played it, I could go on for hours playing this. For an added challenge, try to beat the game with Dan (something I did on hard mode last night), or unlock master mode and go at it on there (not the toughest thing in the world). Although, I do feel master mode w/ Dan will never happen over here.