Next Sunday is a holiday of wonder and celebration. No, not Valentine’s Day! It’s the first day of the Chinese New Year. (2010: Year of the Tiger!) Perhaps the most important holiday in Chinese culture, the New Year is an opportunity to celebrate, exchange gifts, and reconnect with family and friends.

The makers of Ni Hao, Kai-Lan have made a charming Nintendo DS game, Ni Hao, Kai-Lan: New Year’s Celebration that will introduce fans of the show to some of the traditions associated with the Chinese New Year. The game is organized around the activities of a single day: waking up friends, going shopping for New Year’s clothes, cooking special food, playing music, making lanterns and a dragon mask, eating, being in a parade, and watching fireworks.

As in the tv show, Kai-Lan exhorts the player to join in the preparations for the holiday. Each of these activities is cleverly turned into a matching game, whether of shapes or colors or pictures. For example, here’s a screenshot (from the game’s website) of one of the cooking activities:

Most of Kai-Lan’s friends are along for the celebration. There is a moment of anxiety, when they’re concerned that they are too young to participate in the parade, but–at the risk of giving away a spoiler–everything works out. At the end of the game, players should be familiar with many of the different activities associated with the New Year.

The game uses most of the DS’s controls: at various points you tap and draw on the screen, and talk and blow into the microphone.

It is worth noting that game is pitched at *quite* young children: Preschoolers are the sweet spot. 5-year-olds might enjoy the game a few times, especially if they watch the show, but it’s definitely too simple for 6-year-olds.

Wired: Familiar characters and voices from the popular show; well-conceived story; dead-simple gameplay for young children or novice gameplayers.

Tired: Surprisingly little actual information about the traditions, or even related language, is conveyed in the game. (The Amazon listing for the game claims you can learn Mandarin from it, which would take a miracle.)

Other Ni Hao, Kai-Lan posts at GeekDad, all by Jonathan Liu:

• “Learning Chinese with Ni Hao, Kai-Lan“
• “Ni Hao, Jade-Lianna: GeekDad Interviews the Voice of Kai-Lan“
• “Have a Super Game Day with Kai-Lan for the Wii“

Cover Image: THQ

THQ sent over a copy of the Wii version for review. Developed by Blue Fang, the same studio behind Zoo Tycoon, there was obviously more than a little knowledge available in terms of what works, what doesn’t and what’s been done before. While many kids obviously enjoyed the Zoo Tycoon experience, there was always a desire from many of them to get more interactive with the animals and that’s what World of Zoo delivers. The Wii is the perfect platform for this (it’s also available for the DS and PC), with the remotes allowing you to virtually “pet” the animals. Players can also give the animals various treats or toys or build a playground for them with a variety of tools, all the while gaining in rank and earning star tokens to unlock additional creatures. You do have some responsibilities -it’s important to make sure the animals are fed and happy (they have thought balloons that give you a pretty good idea of what they want) and the exhibits are kept clean- but that’s about as far as you’re required to go in terms of managing things.

Screenshot: THQ

The animals really react to the stimulation of toys and the play equipment and it can be entertaining to sit back and watch what they get up to; my boys would literally spend hours goofing around with the monkey exhibit. And the Poop Vac feature got a lot of laughs- they are seven, after all. There’s a nursery where the cuteness quotient can be ratcheted up and a camera to snap photos of those special moments. There’s also an option to customize animals via the Animal Creator, letting you unleash your own versions of existing animals, or create hybrids by combining bits and pieces of various different species. My daughter spends much of her time experimenting here, turning out animals that are artistically shaded. While the game sounds a tad unrealistic at times, the animals and their behaviors are reasonably representative of what they’re supposed to be and there are over 90 species available. There are also animal fact cards from National Geographic to add a few more points in favor of an educational experience.

My kids are probably squarely in the target demographic for this game (they’re 7-9 years of age and love animals) and to say that World of Zoo went over well is an understatement. Despite the substantial library of Wii games they have, guess which one they chose to take to Grandma’s after Christmas to demonstrate what her new Wii could do?

World of Zoo for Wii from THQ
Rated E for Everyone
MSRP: $39.99

Wired: Animal animations strike a nice balance between realism and cartoon, interacting with animals is fun while turning them loose on a playground is even better, Animal Creator tool lets kids use their imagination.

Tired: If you’re looking for a realistic zoo sim (one where a Tiger would maul you if you tried to pet it instead of purring), this probably isn’t the game for you.

Image: Southpeak Games

When I first received this unsolicited but free review copy of My Baby: First Steps, I thought, oh great, it’s going to be another cutesy game that even the kids wouldn’t like. I was wrong, for a variety of reasons. This game is pretty authentic. Right down to the dirty diapers, bath time, monotonous feeding regimen, doting grandmother and cute toddler. The only thing that seems to be missing is any kind of misbehavior on the part of the baby (though it’s possible that comes later, since I didn’t make it to the end of the game).

When you start the game, you can choose your baby’s gender, or get a surprise. If you choose boy or girl, you can also choose the ethnicity of the child. I chose to get a surprise and ended up with an Indian girl and named her Nola, after my great great aunt. All of the babies that I’ve seen are adorable. You’re only able to have one baby going at a time, though, which is frustrating when you want to share the game with other family members. But when you’re done raising one baby, you can raise another.

The goal of the game is to raise your baby from 15 months old to 30 months old. It is a sequel to My Baby Girl and My Baby Boy, which deal with younger babies. The game is broken down into months, and each month you are given two teaching goals and some new extra tasks and activities. As time goes on, some of the things that you teach her are walking, talking, running, climbing stairs, jumping and variations on those skills. You also get new challenges with feeding, diaper changing, bath time, outdoor play, bedtime reading and so on. She also has toys to play with. Some of the tasks can be really tricky to get just right. It gets frustrating to not make progress, since you can’t move on to the next month until you’ve taught your baby what she needs to know for the current month.

As your baby gets older, the game expects you to be paying close attention to her noises and gestures, as there are fewer and fewer clues as to what your baby needs. If you’re paying attention, this isn’t too difficult, however. You can also go shopping and buy her clothes, and take pictures of her at just about any time. As time goes on, your baby’s hair grows, she matures and she can do more on her own. There is a also pediatrician who checks in on you from time to time to make sure you’re caring for the child well enough.

Since it is a pretty authentic game, I found it fairly boring since I’ve already done all of that with my own kids. In real life, you have more personal triumphs. In the game, it’s less personal. It’s too much like real life for me to want to play it all the way through, though I did get about halfway. But then again, I’m not in the age demographic for which it is designed. It is an excellent tool to teach patience to children looking to babysit or to have their own kids one day. My kids are very much drawn to the game. My daughter is very nurturing, and my son just loves babies.

Game play can be frustrating at times because you get so focused on teaching the tasks to your baby and then the game interrupts you to do things like change a diaper or have mealtime. Of course, that’s like real life as well, since once you have a child, it’s impossible to get anything done in one sitting.

The retail price of $29.99 (for DS or Wii versions) is a bit more than I would pay, unless I had a child who was really interested in learning how to care for a baby. I’m not sure if the Wii version is exactly the same as the DS version that I tried, but it seems to me that it would be harder to be exact with diaper changing and bath time with a Wiimote than with a DS stylus.

Wired: Good variety in tasks to complete, cute babies, game progresses as you take care of your baby, you may develop a small connection with your virtual child.

Tired: Game is a bit too authentic at times, and it can be frustrating to have to do the baby-raising tasks without as many of the real life joys that usually come along with it.

Cover Image From Disney Interactive

Let’s start with the more positive note. A Christmas Carol really isn’t that bad a game, but it suffers from the limitations of its source material. While playing a Christmas-themed game right about now feels almost festive, I can’t imagine it having all that much appeal in July. Aside from that, it’s an adventure game that follows the plot of the movie (which Jason reviewed in November), and like he said of the movie, the game is much better than I expected.  Moving objects around with the stylus was sometimes frustrating for the kids- the controls aren’t always laser sharp, and a sliding tile mini game was the source of some exasperation, but overall it was well received. The inclusion of an Advent Calendar was a neat idea, there is plenty of Christmas music and the original Dickens novel is available for reading on completion. The graphics, particularly the Victorian elements, were quite well done, although given the limitations of the DS it isn’t surprising that the developers had to go for a more cartoony look than the movie.

Disney’s A Christmas Carol from Disney Interactive
Rated: E for Everyone
MSRP: $29.99

Wired: Something to get young gamers in the holiday spirit.

Tired: Christmas theme limits post-holiday appeal, sometime balky controls, very little replay value.

Cover Image From Disney Interactive

On to JONAS. My daughter is in that key tween demographic, seems physically attached to her DS and follows all the Disney musical licenses (right down to her Hannah Montana iPod dock) and even she couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for this one. From what I could tell before everyone lost interest, the game involves either dressing up the Jonas Brothers, avoiding hazards that might harm the Jonas Brothers’ clothes, changing the Jonas Brothers’ outfits and, at the end of each mission, playing a concert performance, music rhythm game that’s something like a very watered down Rock Band. Of course, the rhythm game also means you have to listen to a Jonas Brothers tune, complete with DS compression to make it even better. Die-hard Jonas Brothers fans might like it, but it’s definitely not a game you would ever inflict on someone for casual play.

JONAS from Disney Interactive
Rated: E for Everyone
MSRP: $29.99

Wired: Jonas Brother fans can dress the cartoonish avatars of all three in various goofy outfits, music rhythm game has some replay value

Tired: Too. Much. Jonas.