marytara's Full Review: Smart Girls: Playhouse for DS
Last year my 7 year old son stole my DS lite and took it over as his own. Of course, anything he does - his little sister wants. So, at the tender age of 3 she was clammering for her own DS. That didn't happen, but she did get manage to score some DS playtime now and again. Since I didn't think Zelda was necessarily the best thing for her to be playing, I decided to pick up a "baby game" for her. I found Smart Girls in the bargain bin at Target in a pack with a doll or plush toy and it was around $10 for the bundle - SOLD. The MSRP is $20, though I gladly did not pay that. The game is rated E for everyone and specifically says it is appropriate/suggested for ages 3 and up. There is a "boys" version of this game as well that is presumably less pinkalicious.
"Smart Girls is a dumb game." This is an exact quote from my 8 year old son, by the way - and, sadly I do agree with him for the most part. My 4 year old daughter absolutely disagrees, and her opinion is the one that matters.. really.
Like my daughter, your 3 or 4.. or maybe even 5 year old girl will probably enjoy this too. Older children who actually want to play a game will tire with Smart Girls Playhouse quickly. My daughter started playing Smart Girls Playhouse at age 3 and over a year later she still enjoys it though she has lately told me that "it is a baby game". She is now on to bigger and better things, like the Wii and Hannah Montana.
Lets start with my biggest pet peeve about Smart Girls Playhouse - the music. It does not get worse then this, really it does not. Annoying piano music plays nonstop repeatedly in the background. I'm thankful the DS has a volume switch and insist it on a very low setting when my daughter plays this game. One of the few times she gets to play the DS is when I am in IEP meetings at the school for her brother. If I'm feeling particularly fired up, I'll let her keep the volume on high.
So, on to the game:
Smart Girls Playhouse fires up to a menu screen that looks like a cluttered little girls room with icons (and titles) scattered throughout. Since it is aimed at pre-readers, it is the picture that matters to the child so I am not sure why it even has the tiny text - oh, it is for the parents. The games are:
Coloring (ballerina wall poster) Find Differences (Plants on the window sill) Dress up (Dollies on the shelf) Match Sounds (music notes) Puzzle (a puzzle) Picture match (memory game on the floor) Lunch box (play food) Drawing (Sketch book) Feed Hamsters (Cage) Counting (number flashcards) Play Instruments (musical toys)
There is an Options icon that looks like a microphone but it leads you to a screen where you can enter the players, mother, and father's birth dates (month and day) into the DS.
The activities are easy to do and require no reading:
Coloring consists of about a dozen animal/dolly/flower coloring "pages" where your child can use the DS stylus and pick from a color template and fill in the picture. Simply tapping the stylus in any section will fill in the color, so a picture is completed in a manner of seconds or minutes. Surprisingly my daughter at age 3 could color in a picture with better accuracy than I can but perhaps this is because she doesn't find the music grating and happily colors and erases, starts again. This is one of the activities she chooses often.
In Find Differences your child will be shown 2 pictures - one on the lower screen and one on the upper DS screen. They need to figure out the 5 differences between the pictures and touch them. The point is to find 5 differences and collect 5 circles before you make 5 mistakes and get 5 X's. Some of the pictures are more challenging than others but even if you just randomly touch the screen in a couple places you are bound to get a few correct. My daughter has a visual impairment and should probably do this game more than some of the others on the playhouse, but since it is not real exciting she rarely chooses it. The "award" for getting it right is a little girl throws some confetti - yippy dippy.
If there was just one game on Smart Girls Playhouse - my daughter would pick the Dress Up game. Think Paper Dolls that you can re-dress over and over using drag and drop with the stylus. You can change the little girl's hairstyle, shoes, outfit and accessories. She can look like she is going to the beach or a party or a bit of both. When the outfits are "completed" it says in a Japanglish voice "Yippy" and "Excellent". This is the "game" that my daughter goes back to time and again. Little girly girls will enjoy this - mine does.
Play Piano is a small keyboard with Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do on it to tap out "tunes". There are options to switch between organ, piano, or cat. Cat is incredibly annoying and of course is the one that my kids choose. Why did it have to be cat? One thing that is kind of cool is that kids can record their songs and play them back. My daughter was pretty proud of herself when she figured this out (because she couldn't read the icons that said "record" "stop" and "playback") on her own. Of course, she chose to record the cat music. Again, did it have to be cat?
The other music game is Musical Instruments where your child can tap various percussion instruments like jingle bells, a triangle, symbols, a tambourine or zills. Only percussion instruments are represented.
The Match Sounds game is a listening game using animal sounds and animal icons. The game will play 3 animal sounds and then you need to touch the icons in the order they played. The sounds are bird, cow, sheep, horse, and another bird. I am not sure why they chose to have 2 birds but at least the birds are not as annoying as the sheep which sounds like someone is hurting it.
The puzzle game is a "puzzle" where you have to drag picture pieces (squares) to arrange them on the screen to complete a picture. A completed picture shows on the top screen in case it proves to challenging (it isn't) to make a bunny out of 4 pieces. When the piece is near the correct orientation it locks into place.
Picture match is the game Memory where you need to remember where the different animal pictures are and tap them to flip them over and make pairs.
Drawing is the other "game" that my daughter enjoys almost as much as Dress up. It is kind of like a kiddie paint program where they can select a color and then draw free form on the screen. They can also choose from pre-loaded "stamps" to decorate their picture. My daughter likes to draw but given the small screen size how much you can draw is limited. Of course, she also likes to have me draw her pictures on this screen and then tells me that my drawings are not good like her brothers. Again, the same annoying music plays over and over while you are drawing. Counting is supposedly an educational game but it is more of a counting quiz than a game that "teaches" counting. A whistle blows and some cards with pictures flash on the top screen. Your child has to quickly count them and then select the number on the lower screen that corresponds to the images.
Feed Hamsters looks like it will be a warm and fuzzy pet game, but it is Whack-A-Mole. There are 6 holes on the screen and hamsters pop up randomly from the holes. You need to quickly tap them with the stylus to drop a seed and "feed them". I thought this was cute and fun but for what it is worth my daughter doesn't like this game because she says it is hurting the mice. Your mileage may vary but my 4 year old doesn't like to hurt mice.
Lunch box is supposed to be a food game where kids pack a lunch box. First they pick from a couple of lunch box designs and then they pick and choose which foods to put in. My daughter didn't "get" this because the lunch box doesn't look like a lunch box as she knows it and the food is unrecognizable to her. This is because it is a Japanese style bento box and the food happens to be things like rice balls or egg sushi. Perhaps she needs to play a few rounds of Cooking Mama first to familiarize. There is no point to lunch box other than dragging and dropping the food into the lunch box. Its not really all that fun, but it is "busy work".
As you can see, I'm not real entertained or enthused by smart girls - but then again I am an adult and I actually like a game where there is a bit of challenge. If there was one thing I wish for Smart Girls it would be the ability to turn off the music in the game without having to just turn the volume all the way down.
My daughter, on the other hand, really enjoys Smart Girls Playhouse overall. There are a handful of "activities" that she prefers and she goes from one to the other and keeps busy and entertained. She rarely asks for assistance and she feels like she is playing the DS like a big kid. I know that when she's playing this, she isn't being exposed to anything inappropriate and she is having fun. While the game isn't all that educationally based it is completely age appropriate. I do also like that she is able to complete the activities and play them as intended as opposed to just taking the DS stylus and tapping it madly wherever in attempts to try to play a game that is way over her head (and while doing so, erase my saved games!).
Smart Girls Playhouse is what is is - an intro "game" for preschoolers (ages 3+). I'd suggest as an inexpensive game to pick up if little sister likes and wants to play her older siblings (or parents) DS from time to time. An innocent and decent intro "game" for the littler DS players and girliest of girls.
Fun For Girl: An assortment of mini-games specifically made for girls. Wholesome Mini-games: With over 12 mini-games that bring out your child's talen...More at Amazon
Fun For Girl: An assortment of mini-games specifically made for girls. Wholesome Mini-games: With over 12 mini-games that bring out your child's talen...More at Amazon Marketplace
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