Vikings, horses and Sesame Street: New games for kids

By Cordula Dernbach Oct 2, 2011, 3:06 GMT

Berlin - This season's children's computer games cover a wide array of interests, with one unifying factor being that they are all trying to make more use of motion sensor controls.

So, there's a new Vicky and the Vikings story of the Nintendo DS from Intenium. Vicky is full of good ideas, which he needs to get through the game to help his friend, Yivi, who is suffering from a terrible toothache.

The four ingredients to help the pain have to be gathered across four worlds in this jump-and-run game. Players take on the role of Vicky, who has to keep an eye out both for the necessary ingredients, as well as life-prolonging coins and small sacks of money.

Various creatures keep popping up during the game. They can be driven off with a slingshot or avoided with some fancy footwork. Touching one means losing one of Vicky's five lives.

Younger children might have some problems controlling the game, since gameplay is visible on both the device's monitors. It would be more helpful to have an overview on the second monitor, since many children will need several tries to get through all 32 levels. This optically appealing game requires fast fingers and costs 27 euros (36 dollars).

Gameplay is a little easier in Little Horses 3D for the Nintendo 3DS from dtp. The first horse care simulator for the Nintendo 3DS is on sale from October.

Junior horse groomers can pick their foal from a choice of 25 breeds, colours, markings and manes. Every horse has its own characteristics that have to be considered. Some are always hungry, constantly looking for the next sugar cube. Others prefer to play in the sand, which means owners are constantly grooming them until their coat once again gleams and shines.

Thanks to the console's 3D effects, the animals can seem astoundingly lifelike. Players sometimes have to recreate the animals' movements, for example when promenading the horse on an axis. If it's done too fast, the player gets dizzy and the horse loses its pace and quits.

With an included augmented reality card, the horses seem to be in their natural surroundings. The game is for children 7 years and up and costs about 40 euros.

Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster from Warner Interactive is also a full-body game. That's because it was designed for the XBox's Kinect controllers, which means characters on the screen are controlled by body movements exclusively, all picked up by optical sensors.

That means it just takes a little hand-waving, hopping and jumping to bring the electronic monsters to life. The game, for adults and children, starts with a picture book, where people can learn about the different monsters, such as Grover from Sesame Street.

Inside the pages of the book are the individual games. Over and over again, the friendly monsters need some help, which might involve waving hands to a melody or pulling together some teamwork. Games can be played solo or with another person. Designed for all ages, it recently won the Best Family Game award at Gamescom. It is expected to go on sale in mid-October for about 40 euros.

Budding singers will be most excited about We Sing UK Hits from Nordic Games for the Wii. Up to four singers can compete as they perform 40 hits from Britain, including Speed of Sound by Coldplay or Kids in America by Kim Wilde.

The songs are divided into three levels of difficulty, which means first-time karaoke performers will have a chance. Singers get extra points for especially difficult passages. Points are awarded both to individuals and teams. There are also tips on improving one's performance in the integrated singing lesson, making it easy to soon score more points.

If you don't want to sing, you can just put together your own playlist and listen. Packaged with two microphones, the games sells for 60 euros, or 40 euros without the microphones.