Cheap Nicktoons Nick Tunes Microphone and CD-ROM Game (Video Games) (Windows Me, Windows 98, Windows 95) Price

The plastic microphone that comes with this CD-ROM is not a prop: it has a 15-pin game port connector and a stereo microphone jack attached. Because setup involves crawling behind the CPU and plugging things in correctly, parents should install this program. Parents may also need to help with a simple microphone calibration process the program requires. Once setup is complete, the microphone can be used to control gameplay by pointing it directly to the screen and clicking it. Now, on to the noisemaking.

Players start in a recording studio, with Angelica, the queen Rugrat, at the soundboard, demanding that players "make jam." Jam can be made with SpongeBob Squarepants, Arnold, Eliza Thornberry, or Reggie Rocket. Or players can visit the Mix Master studio with Tommy Pickles. Here, players can practice recording with the microphone, distort a playback of their voice with special effects, or play with our favorite: the Unscamble-ator. This machine presents a nonsense word to read into the microphone, like "erp-ape-swoon." Then, the Unscramble-ator plays the recording backwards, revealing the word "newspaper"--or actually a funky variation of "newspaper" that sounds like back masking on a Beatles album.

Games with the other characters involve singing with them, either karaoke-style, with highlighted lyrics underneath, or duet-style, where players record one-word "solos" when cued. All of the songs have character-specific lyrics set to well-known tunes: Reggie Rocket sings "Sports That Make You Scream" to the tune of "You Get a Line and I'll Get a Pole." Songs can be played back and then stored within the game on a virtual CD. Unfortunately, this program doesn't record entire songs. Wail your heart out during karaoke, and when you play it back, you'll only hear the character singing.

Each character also hosts a "challenge" game. All of the challenge games involve using the microphone to point and click at action on the screen, and some demand that players shout things like "Kick it!" (the Snowboarding Challenge) and "Bust a move!" (the Rappin' Dance Challenge) into the mic when cued. An informal poll of kids revealed that they felt kind of stupid being required to shout these phrases into the mic. The best of the challenge games is Eliza Thornberry's. As Eliza sings a song about animals in hiding, they pop out from behind bushes, and when the mike is pointed at them, they warble, grunt, or harmonize along to Eliza's tune. This CD-ROM gets points for creativity, sneaking in a lot of reading, and liberal use of that Nickelodeon wit. But we were disappointed that we didn't actually get to record more than one short phrase at a time with our cool plastic mic, and no matter how clearly we tried to enunciate "snore" during the duet with SpongeBob, it always sounded like "kor" when the tune played back. (Ages 6 and older) --Anne Erickson