Pet Rescue by JumpStart - A Wii-rific Game

The kids and I had the pleasure of test driving JumpStart's Pet Rescue game for the Nintendo Wii the other day. It's one of the first Wii games with an ESRB rating of "Early Childhood", which is perfect for my brood. If you're searching for a fun, violence-free, creativity inspiring, adorable animal finding game this is definitely the one.

The object of the game is to find, or rescue, the animals that are lost and bring them back safely. I confess that after two solid hours of playing we found not one, but it's probably because the kids were enthralled with designing their own homes, changing clothes and playing the hide-and-seek game. Honestly, they could have played all day just with those features alone!

I was immediately drawn to the lack of violence and gentle nature of the game. I'm a big fan of all things JumpStart, because of that very reason. My boys are very familiar with the JumpStart characters, so they quickly took to the familiar "faces"
and style of the game. Although they didn't find the pets, the game had them talking about color combinations, strategy and problem-solving. Those are the types of interactions I want them to have when playing video games, especially at the ages of 7 and 5. My youngest (23m) didn't play, but loved watching the characters and encouraging her brothers to look around at other parts of the game. I'm sure as she gets a little bit older she'll be playing right alongside them.

Pet Rescue is a great game for the young children in your home and definitely comes with my rating of two thumbs up with a wiggle!

UPDATE FROM JUMPSTART!

Cherie Marino, a wonderful JumpStart representative, read my review and offered this advice for finding the adorable pets:

"In order to find the lost pets, you have to complete the learning games. Once the learning games are completed, you read the completed storybook, and then a pet will come out of hiding on its own. In order to find all the lost pets, you have to repeat this process (play learning games, read storybook, pets will come out of hiding)."

Thanks so much for your help, Cherie! We can't wait to play again today!