Developer and Distributor: Virtual Vtech Recommended System Requirements: Windows 95 running on a 486DX2-66 or higher 8megs ram with 1 meg available hard drive space 4x CD ROM 8 bit Sound Blaster compatible sound card 256 colors/SVGA or better and a mouse Tested on a 486DX2-66, a 166 Pentium and a 450 Pentium Number of Players: You can have two players racing each other to get the answers or single players progressing through levels and types of questions. The software can track up to 50 different names or game ID's. This is less a game or teaching tool and more a series of drills to re-enforce basic skills. As such, a space station background complete with spacemen to prompt and aid the player is used to add some fun and interest to what is basically a set of timed drills. Graphics: Non-demanding graphics allows for use on older computers (486) without any really noticeable degradation in the overall quality. Graphics load reasonably well on any speed computer. An easily understood method of play is presented where the user clicks on any of 32 different types of drills or play. An accompanying written summary of the item chosen pops up whenever the pointer moves across a selection. Audio: This software utilizes standard, non-demanding audio with background music and crisp easy to understand speech from the main characters. Installation: Effortless on all PC's, a grade 4 student could easily handle this installation. Play: To begin, the user needs to enter his name and choose a variety of facial add-ons to create his own character. It must be a sign of the times, all my testers insisted that their characters wear the sunglasses for that special look. There are two main methods of play. The first involves going to the space station and choosing one of the 32 activities the user wishes to work on. These range from standard math problems to word games and puzzles, spelling corrections, events drills, history and about eight facts (almost trivia) sections. In each of these areas the user is then given a question and a choice of three answers to choose from or is asked to key in the answer. The questions do not follow an easier to harder format to any great extent. There are levels to move up to as the user gets a few right; yet, the original questions varied greatly in their difficulty. I found my testers of all ages looking askance at me when questions like "In what Country was Arnold Schwarzeneger born?" popped up on level one. A second person can also be playing under another player ID competing with the first user against the clock. Keyboards don't really seem to have enough room to get 2 people playing at the same time for any length of time. The second method of play involves saving the station from viruses. The user clicks on a virus and then must answer three or more questions drawn from a topic chosen (seemingly) at random. If the user gets the questions right the virus is destroyed and they move on to the next one. The user can continue to kill viruses until he or she gets to the "Big Virus". Kill the BV and the multi level game is won. Six additional programs are included on the CD. A small word processor, animation creator, music maker, etc. None were so good as to sublimate the use of programs already present on the average PC. Conclusions: I could not get any of my testers to stick with this software for more than about 10 minutes at a time. There is nothing to point your finger at that is "wrong" with this software, only that it does not provide enough interest or excitement to draw the user on to more and more. As it is a series of drills, repetition is required and the software itself has to be the motivator for continued use. In this area this product doesn't stand up. In GameBoyz terms, I would award this product only three joysticks out of 5. Galactic Whiz kid was reviewed by GameBoyz contributor, Pete "Dad" Roan.