Format: iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch
Developer: National Geographic Society
I was a little surprised when I first fire this app up as I was greeted with the National Geographic logo. While if I am being honest I am not a reader of there magazine I do like a great deal of there shows. So I called over one of my kids to check this out with me.
To start lets talk about how this game looks. And you know what at first when I looked at this game I thought that it was average at best. Geo the little fellow that you will be controlling does has a decent, but unremarkable look about him. Although my daughter said she thought he was cute so really what do I know? But then I noticed something about the game and that was the amazing and that was the backgrounds. The backgrounds in this game to me look like something that you would see in the Lion King.
This is more than a game its an educational tool. What I love about it is that it is very devious about this. I do not mean this as a negative. My son learned a whole bunch about various different animals without realising that he was actually learning. He just thought he was playing a game. In my experience many times my kids think that if a game is trying to “teach” them something that it is boring. But it is handled very well here.
If I had to say what style of game this is I would probably call it a platform game. You see Geo your character that you play as is a little robot and he is wanting to learn all about various different animals and there habitats. So he goes around various places finding new animals. When you find a new animal you are treated to some animal facts. Which are explained very well and I think that more importantly they are not that long winded.
One really cool thing is that you can get upgrades for Geo. He can learn new abilities from the various animals ability tokens that he finds on his journey. For example you find a frog token then he learns the ability to jump like a frog. An encounter with a baboon token will let him climb like one. If Geo moves to slow for your liking then by finding a cheetah token you can run as fast as one. What I and my kids loved about this was not just the fact that you got a new ability, but Geo’s appearance would also change. So when he can run like a cheetah his body will stay in the same form, but he will have a cheetah print on him. My kids got a real big kick out of this and it made them addicted to the game to find more.
There is so much content in each level as well as finding the special animal ability. You can also find animal information cards, some bonus fruit and of course you will need to find the key that will open up the next level for you to explore. Each level is packed with content.
This is a great app any game that also gets kids learning something is cool in my book. Not only that, but it is so well made as well. I am sure that kids all over the world will fall in love with this game.