Creature is not a natural teacher

In a world of violent video games, where dexterity of the thumb and index finger is infinitely more important than the flexing of the cerebrum, there must be a place for children and their parents to interact and actually learn something from that overpriced multimedia computer/gaming system. Take a deep breath and enter the ROMper Room, where learning is a four-letter word — cool.

A biblical legend known for keeping his furry friends from getting soaked offers a way for children to learn a bit about animals, logic and spelling in Noah: The Creature Teacher.

The program, which contains nine activities with multiple difficulty levels, will appeal to 3- to 6-year-olds. It acts as a starting point to the world of computer-based educational entertainment.

Despite the lack of content to explain the story of Noah, the software marginally succeeds through its simple design, ease of challenges and use of children’s voices to relay directions and navigate the screens.

Among its creativity highlights, the Creature Teacher offers two art programs. In one, images are colored using multisize pencils and a variety of hues. In the other, a scene is created by adding environments and pre-colored elements. Each finished piece can be embellished with a message and printed out or e-mailed to a friend or family member.

The title’s games are a mixed bag. A Concentration-type challenge will bore participants, and a timed puzzle to assemble an ark will only waste time, but the Matching Games area will keep the budding zoologist fairly happy. This area offers five simple identification quizzes in which the player must drag images or animal names to their accompanying attributes, be they parts of an animal’s anatomy, what it eats or skin texture.

Unfortunately, the Creature Teacher has no way of competing with more time-consuming and animated titles from the likes of Disney Interactive and the Learning Company. Perhaps a more robust sequel is in the works that will spend more time on animal and Bible educational opportunities and less on tedious games.

Noah: The Creature Teacher, Jazz Toys Ltd., $19.99, For PCs with Microsoft operating systems.

ROMper Room is a column devoted to finding the best of multimedia edutainment. Write to Joseph Szadkowski, The Washington Times, 3600 New York Ave. NE, Washington, D.C. 20002; call 202/636-3016; or send e-mail (jszadkowski@washingtontimes.com).

TRIPLE TREAT

HERE ARE THREE MULTIMEDIA OR ENTERTAINMENT ITEMS TO TRY:

• VEGGIETALES: AN EASTER CAROL, BY WARNER HOME VIDEO FOR DVD-ENABLED HOME ENTERTAINMENT AND COMPUTER SYSTEMS, $14.99. Children learn the true meaning of Easter as a group of talking vegetables offers a re-imagined version of a Dickens classic to explore the resurrection of Jesus.

The 49-minute animated, musical tale revolves around the tomato Cavis, pickle Millward and an egg-shaped music-box angel named Hope who try to convince Uncle Ebenezzer Nezzer that Easter is about more than candy and plastic eggs laid by mechanical chickens.

As always, the creators at Big Idea Inc. unload on the bonus features, which include an art gallery, a documentary on stained glass, a virtual Easter egg hunt, interactive storybooks, coloring pages, trivia questions, singalongs, mazes and even lessons on how to draw the characters. It’s the definitive digital video celebration of the religious holiday.

• Pokemon Colosseum, by Nintendo for GameCube, $49.99. In a game that’s part role-playing, part 3-D strategy, part collection management, a single player snags and trains these cute creatures that have been sucking money out of parents’ wallets for eight years.

Based on the cartoon franchise and licensing bonanza, Nintendo presents an immersive adventure for the solo gamer who visits beautifully designed environments, talks to a variety of folks and assimilates rogue Pokemon into his collection through victories against computer opponents.

Once junior conquers the voluminous Story mode, he can enter the Battle mode, where he and up to three friends connected via Game Boy Advance units can combine his Pokemon and transfer all 201 Pokemon from their Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Sapphire GBA games for the ultimate Colosseum clash.

Those who have reached addiction proportions and still cannot tell a Surskit from a Shroomish will want BradyGames’ two-book encyclopedic Limited Edition Strategy Guide ($19.99) for files on each of the characters and a wall map to memorize while staring away from the television screen.

• Chased by Dinosaurs, by Warner Home Video for DVD-enabled home entertainment and computer systems, $19.99. From the makers of “Walking With Dinosaurs” comes a digital video compilation of a BBC series featuring a Steve Irwin-type explorer interacting with prehistoric beasts. This Jurassic Park for junior paleontologists comes to life through fantastic computer-generated dinosaurs as time-traveling zoologist Nigel Marvin rifles off dino-facts and looks amazed as he performs such feats as feeding pteranodons, outrunning a giganotosaurus and barely ducking the snapping jaws of a sarcosuchus.

In addition to the three episodes offered, “The Giant Claw,” “Land of Giants” and the most eye-opening, “Chased by Sea Monsters,” the DVD also contains a 50-minute featurette for the more science-minded dinosaur hunter and fact files of all the creatures found among the episodes.