Toy Review - Dino Tracker CD Rom
April 2nd, 2009
This turned out to be some pretty cool software. It’s not so much a general science toy as there aren’t really any ‘games’ on it. It’s much more of an educational-type encyclopedia of dinosaurs. There are several sections of the software that would be of interest to any budding dinosaur enthusiast. What I liked best was the dinosaur “family tree” which gave a pretty clear explanation of what led to what on the evolutaionary time scale. The extinction theories were also interesting. The dinosaur “mix and match” was the closest thing to a game this software offered but it was still mostly just an exercise that lets kids put different heads and body parts on different dinosaurs. Not too educational, but kind of fun.
The kit does come with a small Triceratops model but if you’re buying this, you’re buying it for the Dino Tracker CD Rom. For about $19 U.S., it’s a pretty good value. It says it’s for ages 5 and up, but I’d put it in the range of maybe 5-9 years old with it being about perfect for a kid about 6-8. Much younger than that and they won’t really learn too much, and much older than 9 and they might be a little bored with it.
