That being said, she loves Pogo. She plays Poppit for hours, along with their other games. I have been trying to find ways to help her learn more about the computer. In the meantime, she has gained wondrous mouse skills from playing all of those games. Recently, we were approached by EA Games about trying out Club Pogo, the paid monthly subscription service that EA/Pogo offers. To put it mildly, mom was ecstatic.

Actually, at first she wanted to know what the catch was (mom can be a bit of a skeptic). I told her there was no catch. She’d get one month of Club Pogo and all we would have to do is review the experience. She was excited about this, because she can be fairly hard to please. She thought (and I agreed) that she would be the perfect judge for this sort of thing.

The first thing she noticed was one of the things that make the added small monthly fee worth paying for, in my opinion. Club Pogo removes all of the ads that crop up on Pogo.com. For example, when you are waiting for the game window to load there are no advertisement banners. This is by far the best part of Club Pogo.

When mom used the non-paid Pogo she would often call me in asking if she really won $10,000 or a new vacuum or if this item or that could really do what it claimed. It reminds me of that scene in 12 Monkeys where Kathryn Railly has to remind suspected mental patient, James Cole that the commercial playing on the car radio isn’t actually a personal message to him. Not to say my mom is a mental patient, of course, but sometimes she reads too much of her screen for her own good.

There are several other features beyond the ability to block ads. A mini-mall is available to dress up your avatar. In the mall there is everything from backgrounds to outfits that you can choose to enhance your virtual character. Rather than actual money you can use gems to pay for the purchases in the mall. When you sign up for a paid membership you are given a certain amount of gems and then have to purchase more. You might be able to win more, though I am not positive about that. If you have to pay for more I don’t think this feature is even worth considering when it comes to buying a Club Pogo membership. However, if you can win the gems to enhance your avatar then I don’t see a problem with it.

Game Badge Challenges allow you to compete with friends and other users to win new game badges and you have a chance to win double the jackpots (something mom finds particularly worthwhile). The biggest draw beyond the ads though has to be the additional Club-Only games that are offered. We have included a list for you below:

Card Games: (Tri-Peaks Solitaire, World Class Solitaire, Canasta, Jungle Gin, Pogo Addiction Solitaire, Pinochle, Aces Up, Thousand Island Solitaire, Perfect Pair Solitaire)

Casino Games: (Monopoly Slots, Hog Heaven Slots, Lottso, Everyone Wins Bingo, Dice City Roller, Texas Hold’em Poker, KenoPop, Fortune Bingo, Casino Island Blackjack, Greenback Bayou)

Puzzle Games: (Phlinx, Mahjong Garden, Jigsaw Detective, Squelchies, Pop Fu, Penguin Blocks, Quick Quack, Makeover Madness, Stellar Sweeper, Crazy Cakes, Battle Phlinx, Harvest Mania, Wonderland Memories, PoppaZoppa, Beaker Creatures)

Word Games: (Word Whomp Whackdown, Qwerty, Word Search Daily, WordJong, Word Craft)

Board Games: (Super Dominoes, Blooop)

Arcade and Sports: (Shuffle Bump, Boardwalk Sea Ball)

If you sign up to Pogo as a new gamer you can get 14 days of Club Pogo free with 25,000 tokens. Whether or not you need Club Pogo will ultimately depend on how much you use Pogo and how much time you spend online gaming each week. If you find yourself playing a lot of games, Pogo gives you a good chance to play plenty of games, be part of a community, and maybe even win some pretty cool prizes. The cost of a membership is less than $10 per month and around $40 a year. All in all, if you spend a lot of time gaming and you’re sick of weeding through all the usual ads you see, this could be well worth the price you’ll pay to get rid of them.

Technorati Tags: Club Pogo, Games, Casual Games, Community, Arcade, Sports, Board Games, Cards, EA, Gems

Feel free to check out a video of our reviewer, Lil B, playing this Jump Start PC Game by Clicking Here.

From the moment we were approached by JumpStart to do a review of My First Adventure, I knew who would be handling the review. Four year old Lil B, is relatively new to computers. His parents both have one, so he knows what they are, but they generally do not allow him to play with them. I suppose one of greatest parts of being an Aunt is letting your nieces and nephews do things that mom and dad never let them do.

One of the reasons I was willing to do the review with Lil B is that I am pretty familiar with the JumpStart name. When my son was growing up I would buy him little computer games with various other Jump Start characters. As he has grown, it was a name that I didn’t pay as much attention to because I had no use for the games, but once Lil B got to the right age, it made sense to begin paying attention again.

It’s no surprise for me to say that it only took him a minute to gain interest in the game. He asked me what we were doing when I put the game in the player. I told him we were going to play a game and of course that caused the questions to begin flowing.

“What game are we going to play?” (My First Adventure)
“When is it going to start?” (As soon as I install it)
“Is it ready yet?!” (Almost)

As soon as the almost came into play the music for the game started up and Lil B quit paying attention to me and began watching the screen. The bright colors and colorfully animated characters will catch young children from the beginning.

From the start, I think one of the most fun things for Lil B was picking out his look for the character that he would play. He ended up going with blue hair and braces, and even though that isn’t really how he looks he seems to like it anyway.

Enjoyment/Fun Factor:
Lil B is just the right age for this game. I recommended it for kids between the ages of 3-5. He’s only played it twice so far, but when he comes over he points to the icon on my desktop and proclaims “I want to play the fireman game.” The reason that he says this is because the icon on the desktop has a child wearing a fireman’s cap. Even though it had been a few days since he had been over to play with it the first time, he immediately went to the computer asking for it again the second time.

He enjoyed the slide most of all. You see, the game is an animated world and town where the character gets to play games, interact with other characters and have plenty of fun. Part of the first area includes a huge lake and an even bigger slide.

I think Lil B has made his guy go down the slide about 50 times or more, so far. Sure, there is plenty to do, but he always goes for the slide first and then when he is stumped he goes back. He dances to the music and laughs as the guy goes down. If you tell him you like the slide, he proudly proclaims, “Me Too!”

Though it took him a few minutes and tries to understand some of the concepts, he really had a lot of fun and I never noticed him wanting to give up or getting overly frustrated. The music and the bright colors and fun activities will keep him busy for hours. Even with the game being small in some ways, it works out because parents can go online and subscribe to JumpStart in order to get other game worlds for the kids to explore.

Enjoyment/Fun Factor: 5 out of 5 stars

Ease of Use:
The majority of the game can be played using the mouse. In order to go most places you follow the alphabet letters to your destination. Directions are given before each objective and there is a question mark at the bottom of the screen should any help be necessary. Of course, not much help was needed because everything is more or less pretty clear.

Occasionally, Lil B would have to try things once or twice, but generally he was up and moving within a few seconds after being told what to do and how to do it. Part of the reason that I think he liked the game so much was that he was able to play on the computer without needing help from an adult. Lil B is a highly independent child so when he is able to do something on his own he likes it even more.

Ease of Use: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Visual/Audio Quality: Both the audio and video qualities looked great. Tons of bright colors, crisp scenery, and a happy looking pre-school world is available for your kids to enjoy. The quality of the art will initially get the kids interested, but the challenging and fun nature of the games is what will keep them wanting to play.

Like the colors and scenery, the audio sounds fabulous. Kids will love the friendly voices of the characters that are unique to each person in the game. Everything looked and sounded like something you would expect from a popular game series like JumpStart and it was certainly suitable and pleasing to the children for whom it was made. Just a word of warning to parents, some of the songs are incredibly catchy and will get caught in your head, so be forewarned.

Visual: 5 out of 5 stars
Audio: 5 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: I’ve been a fan of JumpStart for years and though I have not had to purchase these PC Games in years I will definitely be keeping an eye out for the new titles for Lil B. My First Adventure is a title that he truly enjoys. He has a great time playing it and I have great fun watching him play.

If you have a child or are looking for a children’s gift for someone three or four years old I cannot recommend this highly enough. Not only is this a great way to introduce computer games to younger kids, it’s educational enough that you do not have to feel guilty about letting them have some fun on the computer.

Overall Rating: 4.88 out of 5 stars

Technorati Tags: Jump Start, Knowledge Adventure, Game, Educational, Pre-school, Kids, PC, Family, My First Adventure

Check out the action in this awesome CD game from JumpStart and enjoy watching Lil B, as he plays this game. As he said, when asked if he liked this game. “Yeah. It’s good!”

Check out this video: ON YOUTUBE.

Stay tuned for our upcoming review of Jumpstart 3D Virtual Wolrd: My First Adventure. You can pick up a copy of this CD Learning Game at Amazon for $11.

Technorati Tags: Jumpstart, 3D Virtual World, Video, My First Adventure, LI Kids, Lil B, review, CD Game, Learning Game