Go, Diego, Go! Safari Rescue

Go, Diego, Go! Safari Rescue was the "one free" my son picked out in a "buy two, get one free" sale, so I didn't have high expectations. Thankfully, the game cleared the admittedly low bar. If you've seen the show aimed at the pre-school and kindergarten set, you have a pretty good idea of how Safari Rescue plays: Animals are in danger, lots of repetitive running around, occasional multiple-choice logic problems, encouragement to move like an animal and a few factoids about the animals as they are rescued. Fans of the show will be right at home.

The controls are basic, but effective. Tilt the Wiimote to the left and Diego runs to the left. Tilt to the right to run right. Either 1 or 2 will cause Diego to jump or manipulate objects in the environment. Along the way, obstacles arises that requires the player to perform some motion: spray water like an elephant, shake a tree, climb a ladder and so on. From time to time, the player is called on to steer some mode of transportation along a fixed pathway. At no point will the game let a player suffer more than a quick stumble, so young players won't be discouraged.

There is a basic cooperative mode, but it could really be fleshed out. Rather than taking control of Baby Jaguar, which would have been easy to implement, the second player spends most of their time watching the progress of the primary player. During certain Wiimote waggle challenges, the second player can perform the motion to slightly speed up the action. Sadly, this won't be much help since the challenges are so short and easy to begin with. At our house, the second player imitates the actions of the primary player even though they don't have any effect in the game itself. The other multi-player mode occurs outside of the main game where players can race the elephants, Jeeps, hang-gliders and so on. This mode is fairly short and uncomplicated, but does add a bit of spice to the overall package.

Now there really isn't much to the game. Playing through everything, including earning all badges, will only take an hour or two. Young children might take a bit longer to explore things since it's possible to loop back and start parts of levels over. Game play is relaxing rather than challenging after learning the basic control. I found the mud board runs entertaining for a while and jumping from one ledge to another using spring platforms was a small thrill. Other activities became repetitive, but not to an extreme. Older children will get bored fairly soon.

But younger players (no older than kindergarten) who like the show will play it over and over. For them, the experience will be much like watching the show itself. That includes good voice acting and a somewhat flimsy story. As a parent, I enjoyed helping my son and watching him get better at moving Diego around. For the right child, there's nothing wrong with picking up a copy in the bargain bin.

It saddens me to read that the sequel, Go, Diego, Go! Great Dinosaur Rescue, is identical to Safari Rescue, but that's more or less par for the course in preschool games. These games have very short shelf life at full price since consumers have come to expect very little of them. It's too bad. There are plenty of game play elements to build a fun series, but instead the publishers and developers have decided to settle on mediocrity. There is a solution: refuse to pay full price unless game makers put in a full effort. Hit 'em where it hurts.