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Sesame Street has been around for many years. Part of having a following over generations is keeping up with
technology, and Sesame Street has certainly done that with games like Sesame Street: Ready, Set, Grover!
What You Get: You get the game, a nice thick, yellow Grover stylus that is great for little fingers, and a lanyard for your Nintendo DS.
The Game: You can have three save files in the game. English and Spanish are both provided as language choices. There are four categories in the game: "The Street," "The Garden," "The Park," and "The Pond." Each category has five mini games to be completed.
The Street: Stretching is the first game in "The Street." The player taps the body part on Abby that Grover stretches. I would have taken this game a bit further and had the player drag the body part in the direction of the action instead of just tapping. Other games in this section include Grocery Catch, where you slide your tray from side to side so falling groceries can be caught. Elmo's Danceathon is the same game as Stretching except the characters dance instead of stretch. Feed the Monster involves matching the color of a food and flinging it at a monster with a matching color card in front of it. Sesame Street Scramble has your characters ducking and jumping.
The Garden: The games in this category include Harvest Catch, Duck Duck Fruit, Colorful Cuisine, Three Sneezes, and Plumb Drop. These games all have a similar counterpart in the previous category. My five-year-old minion actually was bored with this set of games since Duck Duck Fruit only uses ducking as a skill and Harvest Catch only uses jumping. In Sesame Street Scramble both of these skills are used in the same game.
The Park: Again, the games are fairly similar to games from other categories. Grover Says, like the name implies is similar to Simon Says. The mechanics are just like the previous stretching and dancing games. Grover's Freeze Game involves keeping your stylus moving until Grover says, "stop." The kid did stop moving the stylus long before being told to stop. The other games in this category include Potato Sack Jump, Tricycle Trail, and Sporting Catch. All of these games have similar mechanics to games in previous categories.
The Pond: Three of the games in "The Pond" feature Elmo, which for my taste is more than a game featuring Grover needed. I personally find Elmo's voice too high and squeaky to find him cute. This being said, I think "The Pond" has the most unique challenges in the game. The challenges include brushing a horse's teeth, counting how many times a ball bounces in the air, and steering a boat to pick up beach balls.
Acheivment Unlocked?: This game is easy for young pre-schoolers, colorful, and subtly educational. My five-year-old had no problems maneuvering through the entire game in a 45 minute period. She chooses to play it occasionally. Even though it was "easy," my daughter really enjoyed the characters. The games are educational enough without being brainless gaming. The Grover stylus works especially well and has become a favorite tool of family members.
Shelf Fodder: There are 5 different categories, but each seems to have very similar games. Grover is in the title, but there seems to be a generous amount of time dedicated to Elmo. The skill sets could have been put in a better order and some of the skills could have been expanded instead of being used repeatedly in the games.
Sesame Street: Ready, Set, Grover!
**I received this game for review purposes**
