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Game: Thomas & Friends Learning Circus Express
Distributor: Jakks Pacific
Release Date: 2007
Genre: Educational
I already gave my two bits about Thomas & Friends in the previous review, so let's skip to today's offering.
Not that there's much to say about the console, anyway. Instead of the elaborate recreation of Thomas the last Plug n Play game was housed in, we have a simple plastic console in an amorphous shape, with a Thomas and some balloons painted on it. ...Not the most exciting console design we've had, but it's still better than Elmo's World!
Especially since they bothered to give the image some ridges and details, and it's not just a painted picture or a sticker. ...Though the Thomas face has gotten even stranger! It looks like he was enjoying some tickling sensation and he looked behind him, only to discover his caboose carrying a dozen leaky crates formerly filled with tarantulas... That is a mid-transition expression that will soon become a scream that will be heard all the way to Shining Time Station!
The balloons are simply balloon shapes with "Circus Circus" written on them. ...If this turns out to be a Thomas The Tank Engine-themed casino, instant 5/5!
For the back, we have red, red, and more red. Also, another battery door without a screw, so I need to use some tape to keep the door on. ...I don't know why I'm bothering to keep the door without a screw, since that defeats the purpose, but, in case you haven't noticed yet from the last several years, I'm obsessed with completion...
This game is part of Jakks Pacific's "Sharp Cookie" sub-series of Plug n Play titles. These are games specifically meant to be edutainment for young children, based on popular cartoons anyone at any age would recognize. ...So, you're not going to be seeing a console based on Capitol Critters anytime soon...
Besides Thomas & Friends, at least three others exist in this line: Spider-Man Great Math Caper, Go Diego Go! Aztec ABC Adventure, and Scooby-Doo The Pirate's Puzzles. Unfortunately, this line is hard to come by, so Learning Circus Express is the only console I've been able to find. ...And even that one, I wasn't intentionally looking for...
This game was also brought to us as part of Jakks Pacific's "Child Guidance" division, which, again, is a part of Jakks that focuses on educational toys for young children.
The Child Guidance branch has apparently been around for over 60 years, developing toys for a multitude of companies! ...I think. Because of the generic name and lack of any actual history of the brand, any information on them has been scant. From what I could gather, Child Guidance was trademarked in 1956 by Questor Corporation(not to be confused with Questar), located in Florida. Besides other various toys, they're most famous for acquiring Tinker Toys in 1973 and holding the trademark for quite some time.
In 1978, they were acquired by CBS Toys, who used Questor's Child Guidance label to produce Sesame Street toys. This company would later be sold to View-Master Ideal, which was then acquired by Tyco in 1989.
In 1997, Mattel acquired Tyco, but the Child Guidance label ended up in separate ownership by Jakks Pacific, who continued to use it for their toys. The most recent thing I've found featuring the label was an article about Jakks Pacific signing an agreement with HiT Entertainment to produce preschool toys, including a line of Barney and Teletubbies toys in 2006. And, apparently, they also used it for a few educational Plug n Plays, such as the one we're going to look at today. There's no information I could find about if the line's still active, but, seeing as how the trademark expired in 1998, I'm guessing Jakks isn't that anxious to protect this name whether they're still using it or not. I guess all the children already received their guidance.
Instead of HotGen, this Jakks Pacific collaboration was with Pronto Games. Pronto Games is another company I can find very little about, especially since their name keeps getting mixed up with the online Pizza Pronto game... I can't even find where they're located, when they were founded, or if they're still in business! ...Though with their domain name up for purchase, I'm going to go ahead and assume they're no longer with us.
Luckily, thanks to the WayBack machine, I found a few versions of their site that answer some questions. They were founded in December 2000 in Emeryville, California. Their guiding principle was to make "small, fast, and fun games", or "SmaFF", as they called it. ...Which, as far as I can tell, they did, so it was a company loyal to their principles at least.
According to this snapshot of their games list in 2010, they were responsible for a number of smaller titles, including the GBA port of Eye of the Beholder, SPOGS Racing for the Wii, NickToon's Winner's Cup Racing for the PC, and even a number of Plug n Play games, ranging from Deal or No Deal to Spider-Man to at least 3 of the 4 Sharp Cookie Games! ...And that's the last I could find on them, since their domain was taken over by a gaming blog the following year, and is now completely defunct, so whatever happened next probably didn't do their company any favors...
I also found out that Tod Frye, the guy behind the infamous Pac-Man Atari 2600 port, worked with them briefly. ...So, at least they had a name on their team! ...A name few people want to be associated with, but it was technically not his fault, so we won't hold it against him.
This isn't even the only Thomas & Friends title Pronto Games worked on, as they're also credited with "Engineering Services" on Thomas & Friends: Thomas Saves the Day! ...Let's hope that previous experience resulted in a more competent game than the last one...
Unlike the faux open-world gameplay of the Thomas & Friends Right on Time game, this console has a simple, standard menu listing the three games it offers, all while an instrumental of the show's theme plays. ...A MUCH lower quality version than the one from Right on Time. I can't tell if it's a music file highly compressed to fit on one of these consoles, or another MIDI, or even if it's the same track from Right on Time which needed to be downgraded to fit a lower-memory system. Whatever the reason, it's noticeably much more muted here than the previous game. If the Right on Time game had SNES-quality compression, this game has Mega Drive/Genesis compression.
The games the console offers are:
Stack 'Em(Stack Up?)
Sounds of the Circus
Delivery Runs
And once again, all dialog is spoken to make it easier for young gamers. Robin Smith obviously didn't return for this game, as it's a clearly different guy with a British accent who sounds nothing like an Alec Baldwin impersonator. ...Unless it was an impersonation of Alec Baldwin if he was in The Avengers! ...The movie based on the British spy show, not Marvel's superhero franchise.
In Stack 'Em, the player is instructed to load the correct animals on Thomas & Friends' platform cars. The narrator tells them which animal to load, and the player must determine if it's the right animal by how it looks and the sound it makes. If it's correct, they press the button to load it on the car. If not, they press Down to select another animal until they find the right one.
Lather, rinse, repeat, with Thomas and James taking turns carrying the animals to the circus. ...Which the circus must not treat very well, seeing as how they're housed in simple iron bar cages with no provisions! Also, the cage for a llama is the same size as the cage for an elephant! ...This circus must be on the road often, seeing as how it's avoided the ASPCA for this long...
The goal of each game is to collect tickets. For Stack 'Em, every time you complete two deliveries, you get a ticket.
Once you get three tickets, you're given a short fanfare and you're suddenly kicked back to the Main Menu.
But if you select the game again, you get to play it for more tickets and on a slightly higher difficulty setting. ...So why kick the player out in the first place? Just keep going, or at least give the option to continue playing! If you kick the player out without warning, it just gives the impression they've completed the game! Especially if it's meant for a three-year-old who hasn't learned how to explore games yet and whose only instructions are from a disembodied narrator they've put full trust in! If I didn't realize at first that you needed to select the game again to play the next difficulty level, what chance does a toddler who got this brand new for their birthday and can't read the instructions have?
...Though I guess it is technically completed after one play. Each game only goes up to 5 tickets, and from there, it simply repeats itself at that level. If you've played it once, you've basically seen everything it has to offer.
The tickets, by the way, have the exact same value as the "Useful Tokens" from Right on Time. ...Namely, THEY DON'T DO A BLOODY THING! They're not even properly collected in a counter or carry over from game-to-game! Once the current game is over and it fades to black, that's the last you ever see of them! You never use them, and you never see the circus. ...What's with these Thomas & Friends games and lying to kids faces? What are we teaching the youth of today?! ...Or a decade ago, when these were relevant?
If the tokens from the first game had the value of game tokens from an extinct fun center, these tickets have the value of a digital lottery app. And the same chances of payout!
Sounds of the Circus is a simple matching game, where the player tries to match 2 of the same animal or instrument based on what sound they hear on the opposite side of the door. This is another game that pointlessly uses a cursor, the bane of any joystick or directional pad-based controller, but it's not as awkward as other games we've seen with this control scheme. Simply use it to match two, find all three matches, and watch the boat sail off with a cargo of opened crates filled with dangerous animals and heavy instruments! ...I think you may have gotten the process a little backwards, guys... ...Unless you were trying to recreate Jurassic Park: The Lost World...
You may have noticed by this point that the game has a vastly different art style than the previous console. While Right on Time, despite being drawn, seemed to try for a "realistic" style similar to the live-action show, with scanned-in sprites and other elements, this console's sprites and backgrounds look like illustrations from a Thomas & Friends tie-in book. They're bright and cartoony with little shading or other detail. I actually find myself really liking it! It's a vastly different style than the show, but it's well drawn, smoothly animated(what little there is), and the sprites are much bigger, so the compression doesn't make the characters as painful to look at! It's cute, it's colorful, and it's surprisingly professional for a budget game like this!
...Except for the cliffside in the background of the first game. ...Seriously, did the background artist let his first-grader make this in MS Paint while he ducked out for a sandwich?
Unlike Stack 'Em, which incorporated more animals as it went and made it less obvious which animals needed to go on the train, Sounds of the Circus has less of a difficulty curve. The only major difference is that you play longer for more tickets, which, as I stated before, are completely worthless and don't carry over. So once you've unnecessarily played to 5 tickets, you've cleared all entertainment and learning potential from this game. NEXT!
Delivery Runs, the final game on this console, is also the most "elaborate." The player controls Thomas as he's instructed to pick up animals that begin with a certain letter, then take them back to the station house. Unlike the other games on this console, this game at least has a large area to chug around, similarly to the Right on Time console(the ONLY thing that console got right!) Things are smaller and more pixelated, but you can at least drive around and admire the beauty of the landscape! ...What little there is...
The major annoyance of this game is that there's only one track, which loops around endlessly. ...Also, the train tracks go in a circle. *rimshot*. Thomas can go forwards and backwards, but there are no turns or forks to take. The player needs to grab the animals one at a time, which are assigned to random enclosures. So if he needs another horse, he needs to travel along the tracks until he finds a pen with a horse! ...Putting it that way, it's not AS annoying as I'm trying to make it sound, but it's annoying to take the same loop over and over again for each animal! It's not challenging, it's busywork!
Besides that, it's as simple as the other two games on the console. Just go around and collect the animals that begin with a certain letter(which will always be only ONE kind of animal, since the names of each animal in this game starts with a different letter.) There's no set number each time; just grab as many as the game generated and take them back to the station. Later levels increase how many different animals there are in the pens, but it's still the same gameplay each time. Grab the animals, grab the tickets, then wonder why you bothered!
And that's the console! ...Seriously. It's only three games, and you can clear them all in 5 minutes! Normally, I'd complain, but, seeing as how it took over FOUR hours for me to "complete" Right on Time with no end goal or reward, and this console only takes a few minutes and has a definite stopping point, this was a refreshing drink of water to wash down the stale taste of the other console! ...Also, it's educational, which is what a Thomas & Friends game SHOULD be! ...In fact, that should be the selling point of this console compared to the other.
Thomas & Friends Learning Circus Express! Compared with the leading brand, it's 99% more educational, with less than 1% chance of fascist party brainwashing. Side effects may include boredom, an insult to intelligence to anyone over age 4, and a growing fetish towards trains with putty faces.
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Design: The design of the console is pretty standard, with a lump of plastic molded roughly into the shape of Thomas the Tank Engine and a few balloons. I'm happy that they bothered to mold the elements into the console rather than put a sticker over the top, but, compared to most other consoles we've seen, it's annoying bland and unimpressive. If I passed this in a store, I'd just figure it was a Thomas & Friends electronic toy and ignore it.
Controls: It's a joystick and one button, like the previous console(and at least half of Plug n Play games in general), so it's the standard, near-infallible classic Atari control scheme. Because of how simple the games are, they barely require much input to complete each task. Move the crane left/right and press the button, move the pointer and press the button, push the stick in the direction of the track and press the button, it's as straightforward as it can get. My only complaint is the pointer for Sounds of the Circus. I've said it before and I'll say it again: mouse cursors for a control pad are POINTLESS! They could have just as easily used fixed selectable icons for each of the six boxes, but they went with the awkward free-roaming cursor. Still, if that's the only problem I can find to complain about, the controls are just fine. For the most part.
Graphics: While the first console tried for "realism" in trying to make the game look like the model work from the show, this console goes for a cartoony, drawn style, like you'd see in an illustrated tie-in book. It looks really nice, with bright colors, expert linework, some good animation for some of the characters, and a consistent style across all the elements, making everything look like the animated series the show eventually became if it was traditionally animated. Since there's not much to the games, there's not a lot to specifically point out, but I will give it high points for straying away from small, compressed sprites that hurt the eyes after a while(with the possible exception of Delivery Runs), and keeping everything bright and colorful. They're not the most professional graphics or the best animation I've seen, even for a Plug n Play game, but what little they added looks just fine. ...Except that cliff face. Seriously, did they run out of time to do that background?
Music & Sound: The console has a whopping TWO music tracks: a rendition of the main theme, which is VERY compressed even for a Plug n Play game, and some stock beat that plays in the background of each game. ...At least, I THINK it's the same beat for each game, since the game's so noisy, I can't make out what the background track is! I think it's also what's used for the credits, but, again, REALLY noisy sound effects! Besides the speech, which is just as good as the dialog from Right on Time, they again just use sound when appropriate. You have your standard crane noise, the chugging of the trains and the whistles of their whistles, and the noises of each animal and instrument you encounter in the game, plus some fanfare when you finish the game. The sounds and music are as simplistic as the games they score. Nothing to really complain about, but nothing to point out, either. ...Except for the spoken dialog. That's ALWAYS worth giving praise to in these games!
Gameplay: It's exactly how you'd expect an edutainment title for toddlers to play. The games are so simplistic, I can sum them up in one sentence each. Stack 'Em, you sort through animals on a boat and select the type you're asked to deliver. Sounds of the Circus, you match pairs of crates based on the sounds they make. Delivery Runs, you find each animal you're sent out to grab and take them back to the station. The goals and gameplay are super simple and would bore anyone over the age of 3. However, I will give it credit that, unlike the other Thomas & Friends game we looked at, it IS educational! It teaches sound association, spelling(or at least what each word begins with), memory tests, and animal names and sounds. Nothing major to help them in school several years down the road, but it'll get their brains ticking and teach them SOMETHING useful! I'm a little upset that this is ANOTHER game where there's no actual end goal and the collectables serve no purpose, but at least there's a clear stopping point and the game doesn't explicitly state that you're preparing for a surprise that never happens! If you let your kids play those simplistic edutainment games on your phone or tablet to keep them quiet while you're shopping, these games serve the exact same purpose.
Replay Value: Playing each game once, you'll clear the entire console in under 5 minutes! Playing each difficulty level for each game, you'll have done everything the game offers in under half an hour. Personally, I wouldn't play it again, but I'm a twenty-something adult with little patience, and these games are clearly made for a toddler who's perfectly fine with doing the same things over and over again just to see the pretty colors and hear the console talking to them. I'd give it a 0 for adults and a 10 for very young kids. ...Might as well split the difference.
Overall:
This is probably the most toddler-oriented game we've seen so far on this blog, even less complex than Elmo's World(though still more fun.) The graphics are nice, the music and sound are passable, but the gameplay is tailored to little, LITTLE kids! It's highly unlikely this console would hold any value for anyone over the age of 3, and even that's pushing it. If you see this console sitting around and you want some edutainment games for your young children, this will help them settle down for a short while. Or just get a generic edutainment game on your children's tablet, that'll work too. And not have as much risk of encountering Fuehrer Fat Hat! ...As long as you make sure it's actually for kids and it's not a deviant fetish project disguised as a kid game. Same parental supervision applies to games as they do to YouTube Kids cartoons, parents!
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