'Freddy bears pic-nic, an adventure for 4 to 7 year olds'states the label well, more of an electronic story book really. The purpose of this is to help Freddy Bear arrange a picnic. The story starts with an instantly forgettable tune, obviously the music to Teddy bears picnic'is not yet out of copyright. A series of questions are asked; who should come to the picnic?, what should they eat? etc. The required answer is fairly obvious and if the 'wrong' answer is given you have to start again from the beginning. At this point you start to realise that the turgid tune is a punishment, and not a reward. The program was converted from the SHARP MZ-700 computer, and has not travelled well. The 'animated graphics'promised on the front sleeve turn out to be block graphics of the type that used to be acceptable 5 or 6 years ago, but looks rather dated today. When my eldest daughter started school, able to write quite well having made the transition from my computer keyboard to paper, I was not held in high regard by the teachers because she could only write in upper case. This mistake is repeated here as all the text is in capitals. The child/machine interface is very simple, just using three keys or the joystick, but for some reason the input is very haphazard. The required key has to be held down for at least half a second before anything happens, and then auto repeat sets in. This makes it difficult for children to select the 'right' option, and usually results in them having to re-start from the begining. All in all, the program could be considered quite good if it came free with a packet of corn flakes or was less than £2, but as it is, it can only be considered below average to average. ACU #8509 | 
