Mindscape Science Genius Virtual Laboratory review

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Verdict:

With this CD you are really spoiling us! Seriously educational, despite rather screwed-up presentation.

Review Date: 24 Sep 2008

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Reviewed By: Adam Banks

Our Rating 4 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

This package says it 'supports the science taught in schools', but as it was made in France quite a few years ago, they probably aren't the schools your kids go to. Still, it does seem to have been produced with a serious commitment to education.

The song that opens proceedings was probably meant to be cheerful, but the kids performing it sound so lifeless that you might wonder if they've been taking too much Ritalin. With the horrible inevitability of one of those Japanese horror films, you quickly come to realise that after a few minutes with the program's evilly twisted user interface, you're going to feel like that too. Everything is meaningless coloured blobs, and getting the hang of it is like learning to use a computer all over again.

If your kids can cope with this, there's a lot of good stuff to explore. Users can log in with their names to track their individual progress through the many activities. Each consists of an experiment that you perform in a simple style of animation, with generally clear instructions and explanations of what you've discovered. Things don't always quite work as intended, but our testers' occasional frustration was outweighed by their interest in seeing what would happen. There are detailed written notes for each topic, and a really nice touch is the additional suggestions for real life experiments using household materials.

Unlike many 'educational' titles, this package attempts proper teaching, although you might need to encourage your kids to focus on the explanations rather than just clicking through the experiments. The confusing interface and droning voiceovers are a pain, but it's still a program that our testers would come back to and learn from.

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