Description:
Pajama Sam: Games to Play on Any Day has no 3-D graphics, no special effects, and no gimmicks. It's excellent. This refreshing program puts a clever Humongous Entertainment spin on remakes of classic games. Remember when kids pulled checkers and Parcheesi out of the closet on a rainy day instead of powering up the Game Boy? This CD-ROM evokes that feeling so completely, it's easy to forget these board games are taking place onscreen instead of on the living-room floor. The first treat is that no installation is necessary, since these games run directly from disc. After an animated sequence that features Pajama Sam rummaging through that game closet on a drearily wet day, players arrive at a simple screen where there are nine different games to choose from. Here players can also pick one of three levels of difficulty, and whether they want to play the computer or a fellow human being. There's even a demo mode for folks who have been playing so much Super Mario they've forgotten how to play checkers. The games have names like Jumping Beans, Fans and Teleporters, and 4 Cheese Pizza, but don't be fooled. You'll be playing checkers, Chutes and Ladders, and something similar to Aggravation, yet not so close as to inspire a lawsuit from Milton Bradley. This program also contains versions of Concentration (Concentrate!), and tic-tac-toe (Cheese and Crackers). Our favorite was a familiar-feeling game called Happy Fun Squares where we linked dots with lines, eventually building squares, against a character named Darkness. Even on the easy level, Darkness managed to be an enjoyable opponent, amass squares with frightening efficiency, and whup us thoroughly. Humongous Entertainment deserves kudos for going back to the basics and creating a simple program with staying power. It's no accident that these games are classics: most of them require strategic thinking and logic to win. Well, except for Cheese and Crackers (a.k.a. tic-tac-toe), where a well-played game always ends in a tie. (Rated for Everyone, we recommend ages 5 and older.) --Anne Erickson
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