Scooby Doo: The Scary Stone Dragon

This instalment of the Scooby Doo casebook series sees Scooby and the gang set off for China to solve the mystery of an errant dragon statue. As we've come to expect from Learning Company games this is a very polished offering. It's packed with well-disguised educational content promoting logic and deductive reasoning.

To progress through the adventure simple tasks must be completed (usually with a view to feeding Scooby his beloved snacks). We considered the 5+ age range very optimistic, as younger kids may struggle with the interface. It is not very well labelled and the pointer could afford to be larger as it is easy to miss.

The characterisation is excellent with fun, full-screen introductions throughout. But be careful, one click with the mouse skips the animation, which means click-happy kids will miss some of the action. Also, the games aren't arranged in a suitably linear fashion, which can be very confusing at times. However, there is a great deal to explore and the one-liners from the gang come thick and fast, which will guarantee the kids stay glued.

The only thing lacking from this package is a good help system. Children will be left to struggle with the tasks if they don't fully understand the objective.

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