Scooter's Magic Castle

"Do you believe in magic?"

OPENING STATEMENT
Scooter’s Magic Castle is an interesting hybrid of edutainment and mini-games from EA Kids. EA Kids is a division of Electronic Arts working on kids computer games. This is the best way I can sum up Scooter’s Magic Castle.

GAMEPLAY--7
Make sure your mouse is working properly! A very large portion of Scooter’s Magic Castle is point and click, point and click. Keep in mind this game was designed for six year olds, however, and that may be all they can handle. In a few of the mini-games you can use key strokes, but I wish you could use them while navigating the castle, because that would make Scooter’s Magic Castle much more enjoyable. This game may bore you with the repetitive action of clicking, clicking, and clicking.

GRAPHICS--6
The graphics are quite colorful, but they are nothing spectacular. In fact, they are rather ordinary even for the early nineties. The textures are pretty good for the time period though. They are at the level that you can tell what everything is, without them being realistic. I do think that EA Kids did an excellent job coloring everything. Scooter himself is brightly colored and drawn, perfect for the six-year old element Scooter’s Magic Castle was designed for. All-in-all, we might not find them great, but younger children will love them.

MUSIC--4
SOUND--6
Please keep in mind that I am doing my best to rate this game from a six-year olds point of view. But even a six-year old should not be able to hear the same song over and over throughout the game. Some of the mini-games have their own variations on the main theme, but they are still eerily similar. This is the second weakest point in this game. It caused me to unplug my speaker.

The sound effects are better, but still not great. They are all doing their best to sound magical, but some of them just sound too much like a car horn. Then there is the ‘waving of the magic wand’ sound that does its best to sound as generic as possible. There is nothing creative here. But, at least, the sound quality is all quite good, and the sounds are not horrible, just not innovative.

CONTROL--2
Argh! This is the weakest point in the game! Point and click! Point and click! Aaaahhhhh! I cannot stand this control. You can only use the keyboard in one or two mini-games, while you must use the mouse for ABSOLUTELY everything else. This is just pointless. Why must you navigate the castle walls by clicking on the left or the right side of the screen? Why can’t you just press Left and Right on the keyboard? I seriously wish this was fixed.

FUN--7
In spite of the horrible control, Scooter’s Magic Castle is still fun for the target element. The mini-games are high in number, and they all are different, and completely unrelated. There is absolutely nothing to tie this game together. This is a game of many, many mini-games and nothing more. These mini-games range from piecing together your own Frankenstein to making a banner to hang on the walls, to fishing for a specific colored fish. This is the perfect combination of education and fun for your kindergartner.

CHALLENGE--LOW
Well, this is hard to rate from a six-year old’s perspective. I recall thinking the game was quite easy when I was a wee one. And when I played it this morning, it was even easier. This could very well be the easiest game in existence. “Click on the teal tile after I do!” “Catch the purple fish!” “Type the word Cake!” Great for six-year olds, bad for everyone else in the universe.

REPLAY VALUE--MEDIUM
I can see someone opening Scooter’s Magic Castle up once in a while to play their favorite mini-game. I cannot see many people playing through all of them, but you may want to play your favorite once in a while. It can be fun to relive your childhood.

PROS
*An actually interesting edutainment game.
*Fishing mini-game more fun than many real fishing games.
*A large variety of mini-games.

CONS
*Graphics are none to impressive.
*Some of the mini-games seem rushed and pointless.
*Music will make you want to kill yourself after a long play session.

CLOSING STATEMENT
Scooter’s Magic Castle is a wonderful little kids game. You may want to pick it up if you have children in that five to eight age range. They will have some fun, and you can force some learning on them without them knowing it too!

OVERALL--6

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/14/01, Updated 07/18/01