Winnie the Pooh is an obvious choice
for a game aimed for younger children. Pooh and friends are gentle, unassuming
characters who are always ready to help each other. In Winnie the Pooh:
Rumbly Tumbly Adventure kids will get the opportunity to play as Pooh as
they help the various characters get ready for their respective birthday
parties.
The main mode of the game is the
Adventure Mode, which has five birthday adventures. Each birthday adventure
requires players to find and deliver an object to help various characters get
ready for their birthday parties. For instance, in Tigger’s birthday adventure,
players have to find all the Tigger costumes, so his friends can dress up as
Tigger and have their picture made.
The necessary objects are found by
traveling around the many areas of the 100 Acre Woods. Each of these areas is
small, but as players will have to pass through many of them back and forth to
find objects, traveling can become tedious, especially because of the long load
times between each area. There’s not much to do in each area, besides find honey
pots and musical notes, so players will spend most of their time waiting for the
next area to load.
The honey pots are used to scare
away bees at different points in the game, and the musical notes are used to
unlock new tunes in the Music Hall. Finding them just requires Pooh to go up to
a flashing object and use his tummy to knock the hidden items out. From time to
time, Heffalumps and Woozles appear, and in order for Pooh to scare them away,
he will need to pop a balloon before they can catch him.
At certain times during Pooh’s
adventures, he will need help from either Tigger, Piglet or Eeyore to get
certain objects. Playing as these other characters adds a little variety to the
game, but not a whole lot, as these side quests don’t take very long to finish.
Besides the Adventure mode, there is
also a collection of five mini-games, and a Junior Mode. The mini-games are
pretty bland, but can be difficult at the same time, as in the Find the Cookies
game, which requires kids to run up and bump a glowing chest, to make cookies
come out. The cookies then have to be chased. The difficulty lies in the timer
aspect, which often runs out before Pooh can catch all the cookies. Many times
Pooh will run up to a glowing chest, try to bump it, and nothing happens. Or,
he’ll run up to a chest and the glowing will stop, and then resume at a
different chest. This can be frustrating for young children.
The Junior Mode is an open-ended
play area for very young children, and mostly resembles a fancy "hot-click"
mode, where clicking on various items elicits a short animation.
The game is very pretty to look at,
and the graphical affects are quite charming. Everything is brightly colored in
pastel tones, which is pleasing to the eyes. The graphics are easily the best
feature of this game, and the designers avoided the visual "busyness" that too
many games for children are guilty of committing.
Winnie the Pooh: Rumbly Tumbly
Adventures is a decently fun adventure for young children, but could have
been better. By better, I don’t mean more difficult, or longer. It’s more a
question of involvement for the players during the game. The adventures could
have been designed a bit better in terms of having more things to explore closer
together, and the mini-games could have been more exciting, without being
difficult. Very young children will enjoy this game the first few times, but the
longevity may be in question.
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Gameplay: 6.0
The game delivers an average gaming experience, with nothing that stands out in
terms of engaging gameplay.
Graphics: 8.0
The graphics are easily the best part of this game, with delightfully rendered
characters and backgrounds. The inhabitants of the 100 Acre Woods all look just
as they should, and the soft, yet vivid colors are eye-catching. At the same
time, it’s not too bright or jarring, which is too often the case in kids’
games.
Sound: 7.0
The tunes are good and kids will enjoy listening to them.
Difficulty: Easy
Very easy to play.
Concept: 6.0
There’s nothing really creative or new offered in this game.
Multiplayer: 6.0
The mini-games offer a two-player mode, but it’s not very interesting to play.
Overall: 6.5
While kids will enjoy playing the first few times, there’s not enough here to
hold their interest for very long. If parents don’t already have Piglet’s Big
Game, they may want to look at that instead.
