Video Games: Ubi? or not Ubi?

Portable video games from Ubisoft for your children to play at home or on the road.

Ubisoft is publishing a wagonload of games for the holiday season and parents who have kids between the ages of around 8 and 12 should probably take down some notes because I expect many of these games to be hot sellers.

The Imagine line is a good place to begin. These games focus on girls ages 8-12 and the professions they are interested in. The one game in this line that stood out was Imagine Artist. By utilizing the Nintendo DSi’s stylus, touch screen, and camera, a youngster can draw on photos they take (with the DSi’s built-in camera), or draw on a blank canvas. The array of tools is rather impressive and paint colors are created through mixing of individual colors rather than a palate of pre-determined ones to allow for creativity. The story mode of Artist is essentially a giant tutorial of how to use the tons of tools available for the imaginative spirit. I award Imagine Artist 5 stars because it knows its audience and makes sure to give that audience the most fun it possibly can.  Plus it is a wonderful starter for aspiring artists and gives the gamer a chance to experiment with what it would really be like.

Although the animals (or animalz if you’re from Ubisoft) are quite adorable, to enjoy the Petz line of games to the fullest, you need to buy more than one. If you buy the Baby Petz, you can only play with the animals while they are still young, and although they are cute, there isn’t much to do. However if you also own a new Petz game, you can transfer the babies to it and play with the dogs you raised. (Though you don’t need the baby one to play the grown one.) I don’t have a problem with the fact that the games interact with each other; it’s that you can’t fully enjoy one game without buying the others. The Petz series is a fun alternative for those who are unable to own a pet in reality. In conclusion, if you already own a Petz game, I recommend the ones coming out for the holidays. They play less like new games and more like expansions to what you already have, which can end up being a lot of fun.

In the interest of attracting the ten-year-old boy audience, Ubisoft created Battle of Giants: Dragons, a sequel to a previous game centered on dinosaurs. As the Imagine and Style Lab lines were stereotypical of girls’ interests, the Battle of Giants line is the same for boys. Dragons focuses on making your element of dragon as powerful as possible using special crystals found in-game. Parents should be aware that this game does include violence, though there is no blood and it is no more violent than other games targeted at ten-year-old boys. Combat is fast-paced but does involve a significant amount of strategy. You can’t beat this game by mashing the buttons; instead the gamer has to use his noggin, which is always a bonus from mom’s point of view. It’s a difficult trick to combine both thinking and action, but I think that Battle of Giants: Dragons pulls it off quite nicely. Bravo Ubisoft. Overall, the game features decent graphics and for a DS game is very fun and appealing.

A final game Ubisoft presented in its line-up for holiday-season kids games is Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and, as far as movie games go, it’s pretty good. It will be released when the movie hits theatres this fall and will be available for the three major home gaming systems (Wii, Xbox 360, and Play Station 3). This game is extremely child-friendly and fun, intuitive, and a little silly. Nevertheless, for those looking forward to the new movie, a video game featuring this amiable protagonist and his co-op playable chimp friend is a great buy.

To summarize Ubisoft’s holiday line-up, it clearly knows its audience (kids 8-12) and tries very hard to appeal to that specific age group. This is excellent because if you buy one of these games for a child that age, there is a good chance that they will be very happy. Knowing who you are selling to and making sure that this audience will enjoy the product is extremely important to any company and, in this line-up, Ubisoft definitely succeeds.