Star Wars: Jar Jar's Journey

reviewed by Julie Richer, from US

"Jar Jar's Journey" is a new software program from Lucas Learning that includes an interactive story plus games and an interactive coloring book. It was easy to install and use the software.

The story is based on the characters in the movie, "Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace." The plot of the story is similar to the movie. Jar Jar and his friends help Queen Amidala, and in the process meet up with young Anakin Skywalker. As in the movie, Anakin enters a pod race and is able to help Queen Amidala repair her spaceship. As in the movie, the art is what makes the story so attractive--the scenes and characters are fun to see.

Parts of the story are narrated while the text appears at the bottom of the screen. When you click on an underlined word, you hear and see the lyrics to a song about the word. For instance, clicking on "planet" results in a hearing and seeing a song about planets. The songs were short and sweet. Some were based on familiar tunes. When you click on a word enclosed in a rectangle, the word changes to other words that mean the same thing. In addition to the ability to change some of the words and hear songs, the art for each page in the story included some clickable objects, which generally result in a character saying and doing something.

In various parts of the story, a game icon appears related to the story. For instance, when Queen Amidala's spaceship needs its energy restored, there is a game where you help the robot R2D2 restore the memory by repeating a sequence of flashing lights in the correct order. You can also go directly to the game you wish to play by clicking on the games icon when you first start "Jar Jar's Journey." The games include an interactive maze, a "Concentration"-style picture match game, Gragra's Food Finder, and the flashing lights game mentioned above. In addition, there is a game similar to "Alien Assembly" (in the Cyberkids Games area), in which you are able to vary the heads, bodies and legs of various aliens. The interactive coloring book has a variety of black and white pictures to be colored in and printed.

Despite the opportunity to read along with the story, I don't think it's particularly useful in boosting reading comprehension, because the vocabulary is so specialized (including fictional place names like Tattooine, for instance). However, the story is entertaining, and the memory games are a lot of fun. You can choose an easy, medium, or hard difficlty level for these. As an adult, I found the flashing lights and the picture match games challenging on the "hard" setting. The package describes the product for ages 4 and up. I would recommend it for ages 4 to about 8 or 9, depending on the child's interest in Star Wars.

Available from Lucas Learning

Requirements

Macintosh CD-ROM
Mac OS version 7.6 or higher
G3 233 MHz or faster processor
32 MB RAM
640x480 display with thousands of colors
Minimum 5MB free hard disk space

PC CD-ROM
Pentium-class 133 MHz or faster
32 MB RAM recommended
100% DirectX compatible PCI or AGP graphics card
100% DirectX compatible 16-bit sound card
Windows 95 or Windows 98
Minimum 5MB free hard disk space