Sesame Street: A-B-C

Name: Sesame Street: A-B-C
Year: 1989
Publisher: Hi-Tech Expressions
Developer: Zippo Games
Genre: Educational
Hours Played: Countless
Beaten: N/A

In 1989, Hi-Tech took a quarto of previously released Sesame Street computer games and ported them as two-packs for the NES; Sesame Street 1-2-3, which includes Astro Grover (counting game) and Ernie's Magic Shapes (shapes & color game), and Sesame Street A-B-C, which includes Letter-Go-Round (ABC's) and Ernie's Big Splash (um... spatial reasoning?).  They later released all four games on a single cartridge, but as per our rule on multi-carts, we won't be covering that here.

Now, I'm not afraid to give an educational game a good score, but Sesame Street A-B-C sadly just isn't all that educational.  Letter-Go-Round is meant to teach letters, but it does this by either matching letters (matching captial A to captial A teaches matching skills, sure, but not letter recognition) or by having you spell words.  The problem with the world spelling portion of the game is, you're meant to fill in the blanks by picking from the letters they give you... Only they often give you more then one letter that fits (for example, _AR, with the choices C, F, T, and X).  Not only is their no indication of what letter you're suppose to pick, but spelling a perfectly valid (but incorrect) word gives you the same response as picking a ludicrously wrong choice (like the X).

The other game, Ernie's Big Splash, scores slightly better in that you can at least have fun with it.  The basic premises is the same as Pipe Dreams or Loopz - you have to put down tiles to guide Rubber Duckie to Ernie's bathtub.  There's no time limit or limit on which tiles you can use, so it's no stress, and cute little animations play as Rubber Duckie makes his trek.  It's charming, but I'm not exactly sure what children are suppose to be learning from it... basic reasoning skills, I suppose.

I feel bad being so hard on this game... I loved Sesame Street growing up, and my kids love it now.  But for an educational game to get a good score, it needs to be good at either the educational part, or the game part; preferably both.  This game does neither.


Graphics & Animation: 3 (Good)
The graphics are the high point here... There's plenty of Sesame Street characters packed in (excluding Elmo, who wasn't popular yet), and they're all big and colorful and easily recognizable. The carnival scene in Letter-Go-Round is surprisingly atmospheric.  During Ernie's Big Splash, each tile has a different animation as Rubber Duckie makes his way to the bathtub, and it encourages you to try each tile, just to see what they all do.

Music & Sounds: 2 (Average)
There's four Sesame Street games for the NES, and this is the only one to feature the Sesame Street theme song... complete with a little sing-a-long!  Other then that there's not a lot of music to be had.

Controls & Level Design: 1 (Bad)
The controls are fine, there's just not a lot to do., and the level design is almost non existent.  One game is a still screen with a spinning Ferris wheel, and the other game is a static screen where you place tiles.

Story & Presentation: 2 (Average)
There's definitely some love put into the presentation... the title screen has a cool little sing-a-long, and the moving background changes depending on which game the cursor is pointing to.  However, other things, like having to reset the NES to switch games, held this score back.

Length & Replayabilitiy: 0 (Awful)
I commend Letter-Go-Round for having so many modes, but it's hard to image spending more then a couple minutes with each.  Ernie's Big Splash might have earned a point, except all three of it's difficulty settings are basically the same thing.  For shame.

Total: 8 (Average)