Crayola Colorful Journey
Ages: Everyone

A very unusual side-scroller which, in spite of the title, is more about strategy than coloring. Took me a while to get the hang of it. I recommend looking at the attract screen to quickly see how to play.

As the screen scrolls, you do not control your character - she just keeps moving forward at a steady pace. What you do have is a way of drawing bridges, steps, ramps to get her past pits and rivers or to pick up refueling pots of colors and more crayons. The strategy is to draw walls to block or trap your character so that you have time to draw these simple objects, while at the same time coloring in the uncolored objects.

Any color crayon you use (you get the four primaries plus green), will color in the right color. However objects drawn with different colors have different properties: red can suspend in mid air, green is very slippery, yellow is light and floats and blue is very heavy. These properties become more useful in later stages. Completing the level gets you pages in a coloring book and the colored crayons you have picked up. Crayola has 100 colored crayons but there are only 64 to find in the game.

There are four colorful areas to explore; forest, boardwalk (with roller coaster ride) toy store and factory. Each level introduces other options of moving past challenges - operating keys or switches and grabbing and moving objects. The grabbing and moving part is hard to control. In fact, it is the Wii's wavering controls that takes the edge off this game.

At the beginning level, your character will wait for you, giving you time to do the construction. At the more advanced levels she will just march off the cliff or drown in the river resulting in a quick "Game Over". Located at the Main Hub is the Playground, a free play area for you after you have completed the four areas and the Coloring Book (which is the only misstep in the game). Coloring in the Coloring Book is not done with the fill technique, but with the wavering remote, which makes it impossible to stay within the lines and is extremely frustrating. Better still - just play the game and leave with a satisfied feeling.

Fun Factor: Suggested for women because of its novel game-play
Female Factor: You can play as a boy or girl. Dog's gender is unknown
Player Friendly: Good beginning level.

Reviewed by: Editor - 05/09