Explore the Fascinating Animal Kingdom
A Review of Wide World of Animals
by Judy Pozar
If you are fascinated by the wonderful variety of animal life on this planet, you will want to add Wide World of Animals to your CD-ROM collection. This title is a splendid example of how multimedia can enhance a reference work. Wide World of Animals skillfully uses audio, video and interactive graphics to encourage investigation of animals and their habitats.
Data cards for over 700 species of vertebrate animals provide information on each animal's physical characteristics, habitat, eating, sleeping, and mating habits, and migration patterns. All are accompanied by one or more beautiful color photographs. Many also include audio and video clips demonstrating the animal's vocalizations and behavior. Wide World of Animals provides many ways to search for information about an animal or group of animals. You can search for animals by biome (an environmental community based on the prevailing plant life and climate), country, taxonomy (genus, family or order), or keyword. You can search for mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians or fish; you can even search for "threatened animals."
In Wide World of Animals, you can view and explore any of four globes: the animal world, biome world, physical world or political world. You can zoom in on and rotate each of these globes. The search facility allows you to locate cities, countries, mountains, volcanoes and rivers. One fascinating feature of Wide World of Animals is its bioramas -- 360-degree panoramic environments. You can select from several biomes, such as desert, rainforest, or freshwater, and explore the sights and sounds found there. Clicking on an animal in a biorama will take you to its data card.
Videos illustrate interesting phenomena such as how animals survive in extreme climates, and the many ways in which they communicate with each other. Time-lapse exhibits graphically portray topics like migration patterns, evolution, and changes to the planet caused by ice ages and continental drift.
A taxonomy tree shows how all the animals in the title are related to one another. This chart includes class, order, family, genus and species names, in Latin and English. Trivia buffs will enjoy the statistics tables. Discover not only which animals are the biggest or fastest; also find out that the sloth is not the laziest animal (it sleeps 20 hours per day, but a koala sleeps 22 hours). In "Country Statistics," you will find a wide variety of statistical data relevant to the animal kingdom. These charts depict which nations are experiencing loss of forest habitat, which produce the most waste, and which export and import the most reptile skins. After exploring awhile, you can test your knowledge with a game of Stampede!, a trivia game for one to three players. For each correct answer, you rack up miles as you try to be the first to circumnavigate the globe. A game takes 10 to 20 minutes to finish, and you cannot save games. Certain questions occur repeatedly, also. However, these are minor flaws in an otherwise enjoyable diversion.
Wide World of Animals is one of the finest multimedia reference works I have had the pleasure of using. I highly recommend it for schools, libraries and anyone who has an interest in exploring the animal kingdom.
Multimedia Cafe Scorecard
| Product: |
Wide World of Animals |
| Company: |
Creative Wonders
|
| Cost: |
$39.95 |
System Requirements:
IBM or compatible PC:
486 or faster, Microsoft Windows 3.1 or later,
MS-DOS 5.0 or higher, 8 MB RAM, 2MB free hard disk space,
SVGA (256-color), Double Speed CD-ROM drive,
Windows compatible sound card, mouse.
Macintosh:
System 7.0 or greater, 4 MB free RAM on 68030 or 68040 computers,
more RAM on Power Macs, 4 MB free hard disk space,
Double Speed CD-ROM drive, 256-colors.
Breakdown:
Entertainment Value 4
Educational Value 5
Concept 5
Depth 5
Interface 5
Overall Score:
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