With some video games, it’s hard to tell what kind it is by the title. But Learn Geography does what its name sets out to do. It’s like an interactive Geography textbook on your Nintendo DS.

Learn Geography is split up into different sections inside a virtual classroom. At the chalkboard you can take a practice exam or a final exam. Both are multiple choice questions with topics about continents, countries, major cities, and land formations of our world. In the practice exam, you can try each question until you get it right, but in the final exam, you only get one chance and your score is tallied at the end. I only wish you could choose to take a test with less than 50 questions, though!

On the map on the wall in the classroom, you can play a game called Geo Hunt. In this game, you’re in search of a hidden treasure and you must go to five different cities to locate it. Each city has clues to where the next destination is. You can also play mini-games to buy more clues. It’s like a scaled down version of Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? Except Geo Hunt is a lot less fun.

There are also a collection of a dozen or so geography-themed mini-games for you to try. Some of these games work rather well for kids and adults, like the word find, crossword puzzles, and the Color a Flag activity. But other challenges like putting countries together to make a continent like a jigsaw puzzle aren’t as easy to figure out.

Also included in Learn Geography is the Geopedia, where you can read up on interesting facts about the major countries and cities of the world. Of course, our world is ever-changing, so this information might be outdated in a few years. But it still makes for good reference material for any young person studying geography.

Kid Factor:

The box says for grades 2-8, but there is no way to select a difficulty level in the game. So some questions and activities may be too hard for younger players and too easy for older ones. Kids will just have to play to find out which games work best for their level. It might be a good study tool for kids in school, though. Adults who want to brush up on their geography might also have some fun with this title as well. Reading skill is obviously a must. Learn Geography is rated E for Everyone.

Tags: Game Reviews