Winnie the Pooh and the other denizens of the 100 Acre Wood are ideal companions for guiding your baby through his or her first software experience. Their gentle silliness and not particularly linear behavior provide a perfect match for the vagaries of baby reasoning. Babies can help Pooh pull everything from bubbles to birds out of his honey pots. Use spoons to bang out rhythms on pans with Baby Roo. Point to body parts with Piglet. Paint with Eeyore, who glumly uses his tail as a brush ("Green. Like the grass. Except when it's brown. Sigh. "). [+]

The evil empire has built a secret droid factory somewhere on the planet Tatooine. They are building an army of assassin droids and unless they are stopped, these dangerous machines will terrorise the galaxy. Your job is to become a master droid builder by designing and building druids that help you complete important missions. Ultimately you must find the secret location of the assassin factory and reprogram the assassin droids to outsmart the evil empire. But can they cut it?! Everything you need to construct the perfect droid is in the workshop. You can choose from 87 unique parts and build from a possible 25 million variations. You can even paint them to your own specification. Droids are tested in the training facility where you learn how to overcome obstacles that lie ahead in the perilous 3D environments. Aimed at anyone from 10 years up, the BAFTA award-winning Star Wars Droidworks is an engrossing and highly entertaining game. It might sound complex but there are four tutorials which clearly show you how to build and operate droids and deploy them on missions. [+]

Parent assisted learning at its best, these CDs are fantastically simple, encouraging pre-schoolers to think for themselves through play. Windows 95/98/XP, Mac. The superb, interactive My First Dictionary from Dorling Kindersley has been purposely designed so that very young children can use it to learn along with their parents, or alternatively, older children can use it alone. The age range therefore is quite broad, but it is aimed primarily at 3-7 year olds. Older children can use it to great benefit to practice specific areas which may need extra work. It's been proven that a child's learning becomes fun when it is presented in an entertaining, instructive and structured way (so they often learn without them even realising). My First Dictionary CD-ROM follow these rules. The easy-to-use games and activities, with more than 1,000 word definitions, are accompanied and supported by brightly coloured and appealing animations and narrations that will engage and interest children who are just learning to read, as well as those who have more advanced reading skills. Using this CD-ROM will help your child to learn the meaning of words, to practice spelling, to develop an awareness of relationships between words, to build vocabulary, to learn and extend PC skills (particularly mouse control), to acquire knowledge and practice alphabetical order, to recognise phonetic sounds, and to gain good, solid foundations in reading and spelling. There are four easy-to-use word and sound games: "Spell It", "Alphabet Scramble", "Guess What?" and "What's That Noise?", all accessible via the menu. [+]

Famous Five Silver Tower is another interactive adventure inspired by the classic Enid Blyton books. Here is a second opportunity to join the Famous Five, namely Julian, Dick, Ann, George (really Georgina) and Timmy the dog, in an exciting mystery adventure. Julian, Dick and Anne are holidaying once again with their Uncle and Aunt and cousin George at Kirrin Cottage, and following their previous adventures on Treasure Island, are eager to visit Kirrin Island once again. However, Uncle Quentin has put a stop to their plans because he is conducting scientific experiments on the island and he has built a mysterious Silver Tower. The children are not allowed to visit the island, much to George's disgust. Strange happenings occur, and Uncle Quentin goes missing. Is there an intruder? Now it's your task to help the children to get to Kirrin Island and assist the Famous Five in unravelling the mystery. Look for clues, then solve them, search the Fisherman's cottage, negotiate treacherous rocks, and take part in all the various adventures the game has to offer. The installation process is comparatively simple and is adequately explained in the accompanying information booklet. In the main, it is easy to follow and should definitely be read before commencing the game. [+]

Dorling Kindersley has produced an excellent series of interactive parent-assisted learning packages designed for young children, of which My First Number is one. The CD-ROM is aimed at children aged 3-5 years and is especially useful for pre-school children or those needing more practice in early learning number skills. The package has been specifically designed to give youngsters an introduction to counting and sorting, and to help them gain confidence in using a computer. The games have been developed to allow children to play them on their own, but help may be needed initially, until youngsters get used the format. Make the sessions happy and relaxed, helping your child to learn with lots of fun. When playing alone, the fun will continue as they make decisions for themselves, and so their learning carries on without them even knowing. Game speeds and levels of difficulty can be altered, progress can be tracked and measured and help is automatically adjusted according to a child's responses. There are five easy games to play and they have been designed to be played in order. Meet Little Penguin and White Bear, appealing and humorous characters who use lots of songs, rhymes and animations to give practice in counting, number recognition, colour, and recognition of 2-D shapes, ordering numbers to create correct counting sequences, and practice in developing problem-solving skills. The CD-ROM is easy to install (instructions are on the disc, and there are comprehensive support notes for parents with full explanations about the games and activities that are accessed from the parent icon on the tool bar). [+]

A great introduction to directed learning for toddlers, this is full of exciting sounds, shapes, colours, and beloved characters that are sure to delight any young fan of the Hundred Acre Wood. There are eight different areas for learning, all presented in a fun format of games and exploration. With 16 different skills to master, even the most precocious kids will find something to keep them busy. Especially entertaining are the parts of the program that deal with letters and numbers: children pop balloons to raise the characters higher, helping Pooh along the way. Another pleasant addition: the colouring book can be printed on regular paper, and there are Avery stickers and flashcards included. From sing-alongs to opposites, all the activities are easy for toddlers to decipher, as icons are big enough to handle even for those just learning mouse skills. There are Pooh's house to explore, guessing games to play, and musical instruments to play-more than enough for a rainy afternoon or two. Kids will love it, and what they learn will please you too. -Jill Lightner.

Nancy Drew has always been a great heroine, but she seemed kind of, well, stuffy. No more: Nancy gets down to the dirty work of crime-solving in the excellent and engaging Nancy Drew: Stay Tuned for Danger. Nancy's job is to investigate death threats coming to Rick Arlen, a hunky TV soap star. The plot is straightforward enough; what the software does really well is ambience: the first-person perspective puts you in the centre of the crime scenes and the inventive game design lets you pick up objects for investigation and keep notes on things you've found. Occasionally you come across another person, and it can often be surprising. In the style of Choose Your Own Adventure, you're given a choice of questions to ask and what you choose affects what you learn. The people seem a little stiff in conversation (and, to be honest, in the graphics), but in a strange way, it helps increase the creepiness factor-an uptight verbal response makes sense, considering subjects are being interviewed about a serious crime. There's real excitement in finding key elements and extracting just the right piece of information from an unwitting witness. Nancy Drew, first created as a female version of the Hardy Boys in 1929, has weathered fashion and tastes well through the work of Her Interactive. Girls who are too old for "kids' stuff" will find that Nancy Drew: Stay Tuned for Danger can help fulfil their need for adventure. [+]

Travel has never been more popular. Yet no matter how many footloose gap-year students stream to the corners of the globe, armchair travel probably remains almost as popular. Dorling Kindersley's 3D World Atlas is a new CD-ROM package firmly in the armchair bracket, giving in-depth coverage of every country in the world-from maps, through demographic statistics to information on geographical phenomena. Why move from the sofa when you can (virtually) experience the world in your living room? 3D World Atlas includes the range of features you would expect from a printed atlas and more. The general world maps are set to an optimal scale, allowing different levels of focus, and there are also the physical maps to view. However, the most striking aspect of this package is its unusual features, particularly those that come from space. The two satellite image-projections of the earth are revealing. First comes the ordinary view of the earth's physical features from the heavens-yes, you really can pick out the Great Wall of China-and then an image of the earth by night, showing all the lights around the world: it's a sparkly and revealing picture of the spread of economic development across the planet. Add to this brilliant photography of deserts, mountains and jungles in the bio-climate zones and the package transcends the limitations of traditional atlases. -Toby Green.