1001 Hikes in North America
Spy Kids Adventure
Hear The Music

July 7, 2004

1,001 Hikes in North America (*** out of four) is a very useful guide to hiking, covering 18 of North America’s scenic regions. The program is a compilation of more than 10 of The Mountaineers Books and features extensive information on each of the more than 1,000 (actually 1,042) included trails. Some of the trails featured include the 12,947 foot high Vasquez Peak along the continental divide in central Colorado, Deadman’s Hill in the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Poet’s Walk in the scenic Hudson Valley of New York. You’ll find these and many other hikes in the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Washington, Arizona, California, Utah, New Mexico and Oregon. As well as New York, Colorado and Michigan.

The program is easy to use: just select your region of interest in the United States, from either a listing or a map of the United States, choose the trail you’re interested in, and you see a map of that trail. In addition to the trail map, there is specific information about each hike, including complete directions, distance, level of difficulty, time needed for the hike, times of year you can hike the trail, areas of special interest and more. Each map can be enlarged to show more detail and printed to bring with you or study ahead of time. Along with the map, there’s a written description of the area and of the specific trail, each written by professional hikers. The directions and comments can be printed as well. The style and content of these descriptions varies with the individual writer, but each is from someone who has hiked the trail, and the descriptions are an invaluable resource for what you’ll find on your hike.

The program contains information on trails suitable for all levels of hikers, including those for people who want to bring children along. Whether you’re a beginner looking for a short family trail to hike, a novice who wants to tackle an 8 to 10 mile hike, or a back packer looking for a 20-mile trek, you’ll find useful information here. The addition of photos and voice narration would have enhanced this program, but the information that is included will be helpful to any outdoor enthusiast.

Help The Spy Kids (ages 7-10)

Spy Kids Adventures (*** out of four) takes children on two missions as they help Carmen and Juni (based on the characters from the Spy Kids movies) foil evil plots and save the world. In both the Underground Affair mission and Man in the Moon mission, the Spy Kids will have to use their wits and gadgets to be successful. As children follow the cartoon book-like story line, there are many puzzles and challenges along the way. For each one, children will have to refer to the two 32-page printed Official Spy Codebooks where there are word, math and logic puzzles. Solving these puzzles produces the needed code to continue the story on the computer and successfully complete the mission. Children will learn planning, decision-making, and also develop thinking skills and problem-solving while undertaking the missions.

The game looks much like a comic book, with 2D cartoon panels and narration. After each panel and narration you’ll have to click on an arrow to move on to the next one until you get stopped by a challenge needing the code from the codebook. This occasionally gets confusing (knowing when to click to advance or when to wait for more narration) and tends to make following the storyline somewhat erratic. Animated segments are few, and animation is rudimentary.

Included are two cards of a set of eight exclusive Spy Kids trading cards.

Hear the Music (ages 8 and up)

Hearing Music (***) helps children learn to identify different parts of music and to hear the nuances in a melody, changes in a rhythm and other subtleties found in music. This Morton Subotnick program offers a series of animated games where youngsters choose from four areas of learning: matching, ordering, comparing, reading. The easiest one is comparing, where children listen to a few bars of two or more pieces of music and then decide whether the music is the same or different; in the comparing game, children have to figure out how the pieces are different; in the matching game, they listen to music that is similar but not the same as the key melody; in reading they match musical notation with what they hear. Completing a game brings out a success animation, complete with a chorus of Handel’s Messiah.

In the About Music section, children can read a "book" that explains sound and talks about the importance of music. A Games Completed screen shows a child’s progress. The program can be used by a single child or multiple users and there are Parent’s and Teacher’s Notes for guidance in various parts of the program.

The program is colorful and lively and offers a nice way to help children explore the word of music. Younger children may have trouble following some of the more advanced sections of some of the games. A help screen and gentle "try again" reminders are available to guide children through the program.

From Viva Media, Windows 95+ and Mac OS X/9/8, $29.99.

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