Sesame Street: Countdown

Name: Sesame Street: Countdown
Year: 1992
Publisher: Hi-Tech Expressions
Developer: Riedel Software Productions
Genre: Educational
Hours Played: 2
Beaten: Yes

Sesame Street: Countdown was the last Sesame Street game released for the Nintendo Entertainment System.  Like the previous game (and unlike the first two), the game was developed specifically for the NES, and includes digitized speech.

The first thing you'll notice about Sesame Street: Countdown is that there's two modes, Hop and Run.  My feelings about the game vary greatly depending on which mode you pick.  If you pick Run, the game becomes an adequate (if enemy-less) platformer, not unlike Mickey's Safari in Letterland. Each level starts with a wheel of chance, which determines the number you'll be searching for in that level.  You then walk around as the Count, occasionally jumping or climbing on obstacles, looking for the number, groupings of objects that equal the number (e.g. a cluster of four ghosts if your number is 4), and lightning bolts.  Grabbing these things will gain you a point, and grabbing a wrong number or grouping will cost you a life point.  You begin the game with nine life points and only a three point minimum to finish the level, but with each subsequent level you need one more point and have one less hit point.  The game's hit detection is slightly off, but I actually think this was on purpose; you can brush a wrong number without being punished for it.

Where the game falls apart is when you pick Hop.  The idea here is to make the game playable, even for very small children.  It's the same game, with the same levels and the same game of chance at the beginning, but all of the platforming is removed.  Instead, the numbers and item groups are spaced out an even distance from one another, and instead of moving with the D-pad, you use either A or B to hop.  A hops you to the next number or grouping, while B makes you hop straight up, collecting it (or taking a hit).  All of the Sesame Street NES games share this problem to a certain extent, but Countdown by far has it the worst: by trying to simplify the controls, they actually make them more confusing.  While using a D pad feels very intuitive, trying to figure out which button hops you in the right direction does not.  I have trouble picturing a four year old, or an elderly parental figure trying to play with their child, being able to figure this out, and anybody in-between those two ages should be playing with the normal controls anyways.

In the end, I'm torn.  The educational value is certainly there; The Count teaches you how to count at the end of each level, and collecting groupings of objects (instead of just the number) will help your kids learn how to apply counting instead of just memorizing it.  The game was clearly built around Run mode, and as a "baby's first platformer", it works.  Hop mode, however, is a mess, and it's also the default mode (you have to move the cursor to pick "Run"), meaning it's the first, and probably only, mode most people will play.

Graphics & Animation: 2 (Average)
The graphics here are fine.  The Count is instantly recognizable, which of course is the most important thing, The first level takes place on Sesame Street, and the remaining six levels take place in locales ranging from prehistoric times to the moon, and finishing with the Count's castle.  Everything is recognizable, but not much stands out.

Music & Sounds: 4 (Excellent)
The Count talks!  The digitized voice here is very good, and the Count's counting sounds very natural, which is harder to pull off with digitized speech then you'd think (I'm looking at you, Mickey).  The music is fine as well, although I wish they'd included the classic theme song.

Controls & Level Design: 1 (Bad)
Honestly, I wish I could score the two modes as separate games.  Run mode controls pretty well, and being able to brush against an object without activating it, while annoying in most games, is actually a pretty nice touch here, as it means kids can accidentally bump into a wrong answer without getting penalized.  Hop mode, on the other hand, is inexcusably bad.

Story & Presentation: 2 (Average)
Like everything else with this game, I'm really torn on the presentation.  On the one hand, if you collect a lightning bolt, and you're already maxed out, the lightning bolt will fly up towards your status bar, ricochet off the lightning bolt tally box, and then fly exasperatedly away.  That's a really creative touch!  On the other hand, after beating a bonus challenge in the sky, the Count unceremoniously levitates  down the screen to the ground, making the game feel amateurish.

Length & Replayabilitiy: 1 (Bad)
Once again, I'm torn.  The random nature of which number you're looking for does give the game a little replayability, but by the time you finish the game's seven levels, you'll feel like you've seen everything the game has to offer.  If they had just left out Hop mode...

Total: 10 (Average)

Sesame Street: Big Bird's Hide & Speak

Name: Sesame Street: Big Bird's Hide & Speak
Year: 1990
Publisher: Hi-Tech Expressions
Developer: Riedel Software Productions
Genre: Educational
Hours Played: One
Beaten: Yes

Sesame Street: Big Bird's Hide & Speak is the third Sesame Street game released for the Nintendo Entertainment System; it's also the first one to be created specifically for the console, and the first NES game of any kind to feature digitized speech (i.e. the game talks).

When you start up the game, you're greeted by several walls of text (with copyright statements, credits, etc), and then an impressively large graphic of Big Bird skates onto the screen and gives you a choice of six different mini-games.  Oddly, there's no title screen with the game's name (unless you count it being crammed in among the walls of text), and no name or description for any of the games.  I guess they figured their target audience couldn't read anyways?

The format of each game is simple.  Four random Sesame Street characters (the only ones I've seen so far are Ernie, Bert, The Count, Grover, and Elmo) go inside the famous Sesame Street apartment building, and take their places at four different windows.  Big Bird comes out from hiding and issues you a question, and Little Bird is used as a cursor.  You select the appropriate window, and once you've answered four questions correctly, one of the characters comes out of the building and does a little animation to celebrate (Elmo blows a bubble, The Count juggles numbered balls, etc).

The six games comes in three different flavors: two of them are about identifying the correct Sesame Street character, two are about finding the correct letter, and two are about spelling three-letter words. In the first game, the four characters are clearly visible, and you just pick the one Big Bird asks for.  In the second, you see the characters for several seconds, and then the windows close and you have to remember where each one was.  The third and fourth are repeats of the first two except each character has a letter, and Big Bird asks for letters instead of names.  On the fifth game, you have to spell a word using three of the four letters available, and in the sixth you have to spell as many words as you can before a cartoon sun reaches the bottom of the screen.

On the whole, as an educational game, this one works all right.  The overly simple controls and Big Bird verbally speaking instructions makes this game playable even for very small children.  There's not much to be learned from the "find the characters" modes, since you don't even have to guess at their location (as you would in a game like Memory); the real meat of the game seems to be learning your letters and spelling.  It's not the best letter and spelling game I've ever played, but it is the best one I've found so far on the NES.

Graphics & Animation: 3 (Good)
Bird Bird and his friends are all nicely rendered here.  The game doesn't have too many sprites, so the developers wisely put that extra space to use with oversized sprites for all the characters.  The Big Bird that skates onto the title screen is particularly impressive for the NES.

Music & Sounds: 3 (Good)
Big Bird talks!  The digitized speech isn't perfect; I had trouble telling if he was asking me for a "b" r a "v".  Still, for the first talking NES game, it's hard to be too critical; even by 1994 (the end of the NES's life cycle), this was still impressive.

Controls & Level Design: 2 (Average)
If you read my review for Sesame Street: A-B-C, you know how frustrated I was that the game won't accept valid words if it's not the word the game is looking for.  I've played several rounds of Big Bird's Hide & Speak and haven't come across this problem.  The controls here are almost frustratingly simplistic, but that's appropriate for the target audience, and you can quickly jump back to the main menu at any time.

Story & Presentation: 2 (Average)
It's odd how text-free the menu screens are.  Don't be fooled by the screen shots; when you play the game, it's really easy to miss the "title screen" among the other screens of text that flash by.  I am however impressed by their dedication to recreating not only the characters but the sets from Sesame Street; the famous brownstone apartment building is instantly recognizable, as is the made-from-doors fence that surrounds Big Bird's nest.

Length & Replayabilitiy: 1 (Bad)
My only real complain about this game is I would have liked a couple more modes; maybe numbers in addition to letters, or at least a harder version of the find-the-characters game.  The game as it stands is a little on the simplistic side, but it's still heads and shoulders over games like Fisher Price: I Can Remember.

Total: 11 (Average)

Sesame Street: 1-2-3

Name: Sesame Street: 1-2-3
Year: 1989
Publisher: Hi-Tech Expressions
Developer: Beam Software
Genre: Educational
Hours Played: 2
Beaten: N/A

In 1989, Hi-Tech Expressions released two collections of old DOS Sesame Street educational games packaged as two-packs for the NES.  One was Sesame Street A-B-C, which taught letters, and the other one is Sesame Street 1-2-3, which teaches math, shapes, and colors.  In this review we'll be looking at the latter.

The first game, Ernie's Magic Shapes, is about shape and color matching.  A shape appears over Ernie's head, and a second one appears over his magic hat.  Hitting the direction pad cycle through different options (it doesn't matter what direction you push, but given the game is aimed at three year olds, that's understandable), and when you find a shape of matching size and color, you hit A or B.  If you get it right, a bunny pops out from the hat and celebrates; if you get it wrong, he shakes his head at you.  There's quite a few game modes, from a tutorial, to matching only colors, only shapes, both, or picking from multiple shapes to create a picture.

The second game, Astro-Grover, is geared towards counting and math.  The idea is there's little aliens, called Zips, and you have to match the number of Zips shown on the screen.  There's multiple game modes, and they all play differently; in one you count the Zips then pick the right number, in another you're given a number and must pick the group of Zips that equals the right amount.  In the more difficult modes, you add and subtract; unlike Mickey's Adventure in Numberland, which presents you with a math problem and then acts like it taught you something, in Astro-Grover the problems are always illustrated with Zips; even if you can't work the problem yourself, you can still count the Zips on screen and get the right answer.  This is a pretty effective way to teach the basic concepts of mathematics.

I gave Sesame Street A-B-C a pretty hard time in it's review, suggesting that Letter-Go-Round did a poor job of teaching reading, and that Ernie's Big Splash didn't teach much of anything.  This game is a much better effort, and definitely one of the more educational games for the NES.  If this were the early Nineties and I was buying a game for my four-year-old, this is probably the game I'd go with.

Graphics & Animation: 3 (Good)
Like Sesame Street A-B-C, they definitely put more effort into the graphics then they really had to.  Ernie's Magic Shapes takes place at a magic show, complete with stage and curtains.  There's two screens for Astro-Grover, one involving a night sky over a neighborhood with an onlooking moon.  Astro-Grover in particular seems to have a lot of effort put into the animation; unfortunately they slow the game down, as you're not allowed to keep playing until things are done moving around.

Music & Sounds: 1 (Bad)
The songs here are pleasant enough, if forgettable.  There's no jingle or sound effect to tell you when you're wrong, though, and I miss the Sesame Street theme that was so lovingly recreated in Sesame Street A-B-C.

Controls & Level Design: 2 (Average)
The controls are simple enough for little kids.  It's funny how in most places, which button you hit on the D-pad doesn't matter, but in a couple of the Astro-Grover games, it doesn't.  I won't fault that though, as I feel like the games that utilize it are aimed at slightly older kids then the rest.  While Ernie's Magic Shapes feels like one game with several different modes, the modes in Astro-Grover are varied enough to legitimately feel like several different games, which is nice.

Story & Presentation: 2 (Average)
As with the graphics, the presentation here has more effort put into it then was strictly necessary.  Little touches like the rabbit, moon, or Grover shaking their head when you get things wrong go a long way towards selling the game.

Length & Replayabilitiy: 3 (Good)
Sesame Street 1-2-3 has an impressive amount of modes for different skill levels.  Between shapes, colors, counting, and simple mathematics, there's a lot to learn here, and unlike most "educational" games for the NES, I feel like someone actually had some kids play and test these games to make sure they were effective.  Astro-Grover may be no Math Blaster, but he's the best the NES has to offer.

Total: 11 (Average)

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)

Mickey's Adventure in Numberland

Name: Mickey's Adventure in Numberland
Year: 1994
Publisher: Hi-Tech Expressions
Developer: Beam Software
Genre: Educational
Hours Played: Countless
Beaten: Yes, Many Times

Near the end of the NES's life, Hi-Tech Expressions released two Mickey Mouse themed educational games.  The second game, Mickey's Adventure in Numberland, came out one year after it's predecessor (Mickey's Safari in Letterland), and it shows.  The two games play very similarly, but Numberland builds upon the the first game in many ways.

The game begins with a map with four areas: City, Museum, Observatory, and Factory.  Each area has two levels (although you're returned to the map screen each time you clear one, meaning you need to visit each area twice).  Clear all four, and you open up the final area, Pete's Hideout.  Gone is the world-spanning safari theme of the last game; here, the levels have a very urban feel, and Mickey is dressed in sportswear.  He even has a basketball he fiddles with during his idle animations.

Your objective in each level is to collect a specific number.  Incorrect numbers are sprinkled throughout the level, and Mickey shakes his head disapprovingly if you try to grab the wrong one.  There's bubblegum to collect that you can shoot at the enemies, and you actually have a life meter this time around, making the stakes a little higher (for a game aimed at very young children).  The coolest thing in the levels are the blackboards; they cycle through numbers, and if you land on them when they're displaying the number you're looking for, you get a bonus point.  It's completely optional, but it actually involves a little skill (something rarely seen in edutainment titles).

All in all, Mickey's Adventure in Numberland feels a lot more like a bonafide platformer then it's predecessor.  Sure, it's easy, and a seasoned gamer can beat it in about ten to fifteen minutes, but at least it requires a little skilll, especially when you crank up the difficulty and go for all the bonuses.  The downside to this game is that I'm not sure it really succeeds at being that educational.  There's a single digit addition or subtraction problem at the end of each stage, but the game does nothing to teach you how to work the problem.  Sesame Street: Countdown may be a terrible game, but at least you have to collect the right number of items, instead of just the number.

Graphics & Animation: 3 (Good)
The graphics here are big and colorful.  Your child will instantly recognize Mickey, Donald, and Pete.  Mickey himself has a lot of different animations, including playing with a basketball while waiting for you to hit a button.

Music & Sounds: 4 (Excellent)
Mickey talks!  I said this with the last game, but it still applies here: this was very impressive for the time, and still holds up pretty well today.  Sound bites take up a ton of cartridge space, but they managed to squeeze quite a few clips in.

Controls & Level Design: 2 (Average)
The addition of an attack (and the ability to take damage) add a lot more depth to this outing.  The levels here are longer, but shorter; sadly, gone are the secret passages of the first game's Egypt levels.  You still have to explore the levels pretty thoroughly to find everything, though.

Story & Presentation: 3 (Good)
The story and presentation is the one clear step up in this game.  We now get an opening cut scene showing Pete stealing all the letters, and Mickey and Donald pop up with full screen portraits to give messages to the player.

Length & Replayability: 3 (Average)
This game is shorter then it's predecessor, but I feel like it will entertain you for a little longer.  The levels are longer and more interesting (even though there's only ten of them as opposed to the last game's twenty-six), and there's still three levels of difficulty.  I can also see an older sibling playing this game through at least once (I certainly did with my little brother's copy, back in the day), whereas Letterland would bore any older kid pretty quickly.

Total: 16 (Good)

Mickey's Safari in Letterland

Name: Mickey's Safari in Letterland
Year; 1993
Publisher: Hi-Tech Expressions
Developer: Beam Software
Genre: Educational
Hours Played: One
Beaten: Yes, without cheats

Mickey's Safari in Letterland, and it's sequel Mickey's Adventures in Numberland, are two of the better "edutainment" (educational entertainment) games to come out for the NES.  Both games teach a general concept to kids (in this case, letters) while still playing like a simple low-stress platformer.

Letterland looks suspiciously like a world map.  Mickey picks one of six locations, some of them real places (Yukon, Egypt) and some hilariously non-specific (Forest, Swamp).  You play a short platforming level, and then it's back to the map.  You're meant to play each location several times, traversing a different "stage" of that location each time, but the game doesn't communicate this very well.  Once you've beaten every stage in a given location, it's picture is replaced with a Mickey face, and once every location is completed, the game is over.  No final level here.

The stages themselves are pretty short.  The main goal is getting to the stolen letter at the end, but there's also three letter gems on each board that, when collected, spell a word. Mickey lacks an attack, but the enemies only stun you for a couple seconds anyways; you can't die in this game.  Mickey does have a butterfly net he can swing, but it's only used for picking up letters;  I wish they'd left it out and just let you pick things up by touching them.  Some of the areas are much more difficult then others (slippery slopes in the Yukon, hidden passages in Egypt), but there's nothing on the map screen to suggest this; in fact the cursor defaults to Yukon, which is one of the more difficult levels, instead of starting over an easier location like Forest.

All in all, Mickey's Adventures in Numberland is a better game, but I feel like Mickey's Safari in Letterland is more educational.  My three-year-old sat on my lap while I played this, and he had a blast spelling the words out with Mickey.  Unlike Numberland, which is basically a platformer with a couple math problems thrown in, I can see how a few rounds with this game could actually help him learn to read.  Definitely the best educational game on the NES I've played so far.

Graphics & Animation: 3 (Good)
I'm well aware I'm going to get made fun of for giving Mickey's Safari in Letterland such a high overall score, but darn it if this game doesn't have some of the best graphics and sounds on the NES!  There's cameos by plenty of different Disney characters, and they're all rendered in colorful oversized sprites.  Now, I could argue all day why the sprite size in Ducktales fits the style of gameplay better, but when it comes to which one you're toddler will instantly recognize and identify with (and yes, I tested this), it's this game.

Music & Sounds: 4 (Excellent)
Mickey talks!  This might not sound particularly impressive in today's age of branching dialog trees, but it was pretty impressive back in the days of the NES.  You and I  as adults may not be particularly thrilled to hear Mickey's high-pitched chirpy exclamations, but let's face it; we're not this game's target audience.  My three-year-old, on the other hand, loved every second of it.  And I have to admit, it definitely sounds like Mickey.

Controls & Level Design: 2 (Average)
The controls and level design are definitely skewed towards younger gamers, but it still plays like a platformer, meaning you still have to land jumps.  This is where I'm torn; while the gamer in me wishes it were a little harder, the parent in me thinks this would be way too difficult for someone who's actually still learning the alphabet, as the game assumes.  I doubt this is what the game designers intended, but it's probably best played exactly the way we played it: daddy at controls, toddler in lap.

Story & Presentation: 3 (Good)
Did I mention the graphics?  Everything here is bright and colorful, and even the menu screens are bursting with personality.

Length & Replayability: 3 (Average)
This game has a surprising amount of stages of a game of it's ilk (26, one for each letter of the alphabet!).  It also has three difficulty levels that nicely tailor the game to your little one's skill level.  It may not entertain older gamers for long, but for a younger gamer, you could do a lot worse...

Total: 15 (Good)