Review – Dinosaur King (DS)

Educational games always feel that little bit… peculiar. They’re slightly strange and alien, and not always in a bad way, but there’s always something not quite right. It feels a little like your first kiss (and given most of the target age-group of educational games won’t have had one of those yet, allow me to qualify that analogy a little for you) – it feels nice, and everything seems to be working quite well, but deep, deep down is that innermost fear that whispers up from the butterfly-filled pit of your stomach – “you’re not doing it right, something must be about to go wrong”. You didn’t poke her in the eye with your nose, or get your tongue caught in her braces, or bash foreheads and knock her out cold, but that deep-seated paranoia is still eating away at you (and let me tell you, kids, it doesn’t get any better later in life, you just get better at repressing it). This is how educational gaming feels. You’re pretty sure you’re playing it right, and it looks like the developer has done a good job, but you’re learning at the same time as enjoying a game. At the same time! Not thirty minutes of fun, followed by a fifteen minute lecture to keep your studies up to date, but actual, simultaneous learning and fun.