Explorers of the New World
New World Disorder
A Review of Explorers of the New World
John Butterfield
Explorers of the New World, a feature-laden if one-sided exploration of the European journeys through North and South America, promises a multimedia investigation of the travels, findings and impact of age of discovery.
It’s said that history is written by the winners. So is this CD-ROM. That’s its biggest problem. Because in this case the winners annihilated cultures while they amassed credits in the history books. Explorers of the New World makes a token effort to acknowledge the devastation, but effort is so timid and shallow that it ends up more insulting than illuminating. A more balanced portrayal not only would have been more historically accurate; it also would have added drama and intensity to what should be a sweeping tale of adventure, tragedy, greed, envy and courage. Instead, we get short, shallow McNuggets of information, gussied up with technological bells and whistles.
Technically impressive bells and whistles, though. Future Vision Multimedia incorporates a well-thought-out, well-illustrated interface to introduce viewers to the adventurers who ransacked and reconnoitered the Americas from 1492 to the early 1600s.
After an introduction touting the excitement and adventure to follow (mercifully skippable on return visits), the viewer finds a landscape peopled with costumed figures, and a few standard navigation tools: a compass (onscreen through all scenes) to jump from section to section; a timeline; a searchable database of explorers; a guided tour(nicely done) to explain maneuvering through the disk; and “Impact” — a look at how items from Europe (cattle, smallpox) affected the Americas and (coffee, turkeys) vice versa.
Explorers uses videotaped live actors (with uniformly cheesy accents) to portray Ferdinand Magellan (first expedition to circle the Earth), Hernando Cortes (conqueror of the Aztecs), and Christopher Columbus (1492, sailed the ocean blue, etc.). Their expeditions are traced in depth; just click on hot spots along their mapped-out routes for narration and animated sequences that highlight the voyages. In addition, some spots on the route (an Aztec temple, for instance) open up into illustrated screens with dozens of hot spots detailing the lives and habits of the sailors, soldiers and indigenous people encountered along the way. A fourth live actor offers a lowly sailor’s deck-level view of life (generally nasty, brutish and short) for the grunts who peopled the expeditions, and access to a database of 60 additional explorer biographies, route maps and a handful of period portraits. The explorers’ bios are serviceable, nothing more, suffering from the standard cyberwisdom that information on CD-ROMs has to dwell at the intellectual level of 8th-grade book reports to hold on to click-happy readers. Given the unimaginative terseness of the writing, 8th-grade book reports are liable to be where this information ends up.
You can find the information easily, though, through Explorer’s well-crafted searchable index. Type in “Cuba” and you’ll get a list of all articles with that word, organized by explorer — useful as a tool to discover which spot was trampled by the most brigands over the years.
The “Impact” section sums up Explorer’s virtues and vices. Handsomely illustrated, loaded with hot spots, smoothly moving from screen to screen, it economically describes how items from one world affected the other. Click on the tattooed native, and the caption “smallpox” appears. This nasty culture-killer arrived with the explorers; estimates are that half the native population may have died after exposure to it. “This greatly reduced their ability to resist the European conquerors,” the narrator burbles. He sounds like he’s describing an NFL injury report.
Explorer’s promotional material promises that viewers will “learn the true stories behind history’s greatest explorers.” If only Explorers of the New World delivered on that promise.
School House Scorecard
| Product: |
Explorers of the New World |
| Company: |
SoftKey Customer Service
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| Cost: |
Not Available |
System Requirements:
Windows: Microsoft Windows 3.1 or later; IBM 486SX/25MHz or better; 4MB RAM (8MB recommended); SVGA graphics card with compatible monitor; ; double-speed CD-ROM drive; MSCDEX CD-ROM extensions; mouse or other Windows pointing device; Windows-compatible sound card. Macintosh: 68030/25MHz processor or better; System 7.1 or later; 3.5MB free RAM; 13-inch color monitor with 256 colors or better; double-speed CD-ROM drive; mouse or other pointing device.
Breakdown:
Ease of Use 4
Learning Value 2
Entertainment Value 3
Graphics 4
Sound 4
Overall Score:
(* 0 rating, 0 votes)
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