Vitsie Visits Space

At Least She’s Not Purple!

A Review of Vitsie Visits Space

Joel Comm

With orange hair, mutated green eyes, and a yellow body suit reminiscent of Space Family Robinson, Vitsie has come to the home PC. GTE has released a new line of “Interactive Toys … Toys that never get put away.” These ‘toys’ include the Vitsie series, where Vitsie the . . . whatever she is. . . is supposedly going to take your children to visit dinosaurs, go under the ocean, and travel deep into space. The latter is the subject of this review, though all three follow the same design.

Vitsie may as well be a cocker spaniel, because this program is a dog! What we really have here is one very long quicktime movie, which offers little interaction of any kind, save for a matching game which is about as challenging as walking. Vitsie lectures your child in the basics of outer space and even does a little singing. Naturally, the movie size is small, and the resolution is kind of fuzzy. So where’s the interactive part? Well, there are buttons that allow your child to jump to different parts of the movie (oooooh, we’re smokin’ now. . . ). For instance, the music button scans through the available songs (probably the best part of the program), the light bulb scans through different scenes, and the pencil cup will treat your child to various activities he can do using household objects. In face, your child will probably have more fun doing these activities then playing with Vitsie.

My three-year-old is accustomed to clicking on things and manipulating objects such as in Thinkin’ Things or Busytown. However, there ain’t nothin’ to click here, and why should he sit still to watch a mediocre TV program on the computer when there’s an incredibly annoying purple dinosaur on the big TV? If your idea of interactive is yawning at your monitor, this title will suit you fine. Oh, there is one bit of interactivity in the interface which actually does effect gameplay. . . the volume control. Gee. No, GTE.

Screen Shots

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System Requirements:

Windows 3.1
486/25 or better
4 MB RAM
CD-ROM drive
256 Color VGA
Mouse
Sounddevice

Breakdown:

Ease of Use 3
Learning Value 2
Entertainment Value 1
Graphics 1
Sound 1

Overall Score: