Dora and Boots travel into a storybook to help their new friend Allie save the Crystal Kingdom. And they need your help. A greedy king has hidden the crystals that make Crystal Kingdom colourful. Help Dora and her friends find them and bring colour back to the world. Fly with Butterfly Wings, perform tricks with a magical wand, soar over giant flowers and bounce off sparkling crystals. You can even play as Boots for the very first time...

Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom is a platform adventure game aimed at the very young gamer. Because of this it's only fair to review the game based on it's target market.

You start the game and have to travel to three different kingdoms to find different coloured crystals. You start each level having to find enough pictures from your story book to allow you to then enter that kingdom. The basic game play is pretty much the same the whole way through the game, making it simple for the very young to pick up and play. New interactive objects are included in each level in order to keep the interest up in the gamer. So in one level you might have to shake a bush to see if there are coins inside, while in another it might be a mushroom.

Very occasionally you'll find an area that is too small for Dora to venture into. At which point you get to play as Boots for a brief time.

This is the sort of game parents and children can play together - there's a lot of physical activity that has to be done to shake trees, check underneath giant mushrooms or colour in items that have lost their colour. In order to unlock chests you have to hold and twist the Wii controller like a giant key, and to move lifts up and down you must turn the controller like you are winding a crank). The characters also encourage you to shout at the screen to bring up the backpack and map (although this is not really interactive, it will still feel as though it is to a young gamer).

If you've played a platform game before, then you'll probably finish this game in an afternoon - there's not that much to it. However, for the younger gamer this is a game that once completed can be played over and over again.

As a game for very young Dora fans, this is almost a dream come true.

8

Darren Rea