Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

JumpStart Pet Rescue

1. Official Site
2. Platform: Wii
3. Publisher: JumpStart
4. Developer: JumpStart
5. Release Date: 08/26/09
6. Genre: Action/Adventure

by Mike Repella

Here at GamingTrend we normally don’t review purely educational games. But when we were asked if we had any interest in reviewing JumpStart Pet Rescue for the Wii I jumped on it. I have a three and a half year old son who fits perfectly into the game’s intended demographic, so I figured if anyone could give the game a fair shake it would be him.  

JumpStart Pet Rescue marks the first time that a JumpStart game has been released on Nintendo’s popular console. The game aims to mix in a healthy dose of preschool age learning and traditional video game fun. True to its target audience, children will take fun lessons in the form of mini games that are designed to teach them basic reading skills like learning their ABCs, matching games, shape games, counting games and more. None of the learning games are overly complicated and with the help of a parent I think that most children will be able to complete each lesson.

My son is not exactly a computer or video game wizard. He is more interested in playing outside than he is with playing on the computer, so I was a bit worried that he wouldn’t be able to control the game. Jumpstart has designed the game to work with the Wii remote’s pointer function. If your child wants to go to a certain learning activity they simply have to point the remote at that activity and hit the A button. The same holds true for selection of correct answers within the mini games. I’m not sure how they could make the controls any easier. So if you think your child is able to hold the remote, point it at the screen and hit the A button on their desired target, then they shouldn’t have a problem navigating through the game. In the beginning I did have to help my son with aiming at the screen and getting his tiny thumb to hit the A button, but with a little bit of practice he was able to do it without me. It is also helpful that the icons used to activate items in the game are all fairly large and they all use voiceovers to tell the child what will happen if they hit them.

JumpStart Pet Rescue is presented in a storybook fashion divided into five different zones. Each zone has the child collecting clues to find a lost pet. The clues take them from learning stage to learning stage and when they have finally collected all of the clues they will get to read along with a story. It’s a pretty nice system that guides the child along the game and ensures that they aren’t just roaming around each zone wondering what they need to do next. Alternatively, there is a free play option where you can go to whatever learning destination you want.

I was fairly surprised by the amount of content packed into this title. In all there are 5 different zones for the children to explore, each with their own learning games. In total there are 70 different learning lessons. Included in the mix are sing-a-long videos, action oriented exploration games, matching games, story books, etc. Throughout the course of play the children will gain pets that they can feed, groom , train and even play with. To round it all out your child can customize their character’s look with a variety of clothes and hair options.

Graphically the game isn’t a real stunner. However, the visuals are serviceable and the characters are all cute and child friendly. JumpStart Pet Rescue does feature a fairly deep voice over system. Since the game is targeted at children who most likely can’t read yet almost every object in the game that can be interacted with also gives an audio clue as to what it does. If there is a stop button on screen it will say “stop button” when you highlight over it. In addition, almost every character in the game is voiced by a child friendly actor.

JumpStart Pet Rescue definitely offers a preschool friendly gaming experience for children. There are a wealth of activities to do and things to learn. The controls were a big area of concern for me going into the game, but JumpStart has done a nice job of utilizing the Wii controller’s pointer, making the controls as simple as possible for a preschool age child. My son does enjoy the game, but with such a short attention span for anything electronic he is hard pressed to stay occupied with it for anything more than 30 minutes. At the end of the day I do recommend JumpStart Pet Rescue for the preschool age child, however children who have a longer attention span for computer games will definitely get more use out of it than a child who would rather be playing with their action figures. It also helps out that no matter how long a child plays the game they will be learning while having fun at the same time.

Gaming Trend Score

82

1. Graphics: 75
2. Audio: 85
3. Controls: 85
4. Gameplay: 80
5. Value/Replay: 85
6. OVERALL:82