Well, the game resulted in a fun afternoon, for this playmobil® fan, even if I had to endure Alex's annoying voice and laughter. Even with the game being way off my age, it's nice to see the playmobil® world moving, and become a part of it, though the graphics are sometimes poor (the characters feet are very bad).

The dialog is repeated too much, and sometimes it isn't adequate, like when we go back in the barn and see mom again. She says the same things she did when we first went there, and that makes no sense.

There are at least german, english, french and portuguese versions of this game. (I own the english one.)

The controls are quite easy, and Alex keeps reminding us (sometimes too often) which keys to use to perform certain actions. I think the colored stickers are probably a good way to help the younger players to understand them, since they are always mentioned too.

Help is also readily available throughout the game, so it really is impossible to get lost (well, except in the maze).

During the game, it exited with no apparent reason when I was about to finish catching the chicken. However, going back to it (there is an autosave feature, fortunately), I had no further problems.

The game has a short lifespan, since it has a (very) limited world to explore. A real shame we can't download new spaces over the internet - I'd love to explore new worlds with Alex - of course, then it wouldn't just be Alex Builds His Farm, but I doubt anyone would mind...

To really finish the game we need to accomplish all the tasks in all three levels (the ones that have them, anyway), which is quite boring.

When we first choose the levels, we don't get beginner/normal/expert ranking, like most games - it starts with champion!

And in the end (and with a printing option), we get a Certificate!!

Queen Tahra, December 2001

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