Club Penguin Elite Penguin Force: Kid friendly point-and-click mystery

We've been kinda tough -- not undeservedly, of course -- on some recent Disney videogame releases, but there's a turnabout of sorts from a somewhat surprising outlet: the new "Club Penguin" game for the DS.

It's the first major spin-off Disney has done for the uber-popular kids virtual world since purchasing it last year in a deal worth up to $700 million. As Variety critic Chris Dahlen reports, it's a fun collection of mini-games and mysteries that fits smoothly into the "Club Penguin" landscape:

"Club Penguin's" simple cartoony style loses little in the move to the smallscreen. The island's layout remains essentially the same, but players now explore it from a first-person perspective -- which makes it easier to comb each space for hidden coins and clues.

The missions challenge players with object-manipulation puzzles, simple decoding tasks and plain old hunting and rummaging for clues. Any kid who reads well, follows directions and doesn't mind scouring the island once in a while for new leads should have no trouble. Unfortunately, the gameplay will occasionally frustrate their best efforts: A lack of negative feedback can make it difficult to figure out why penguins don't always move where the player points, for instance, and some design mistakes in the final action sequence makes it difficult to trigger the right action and complete the game.

There's also a smart, if rather simple, tie-in to the virtual world. Kids can't import their "Club Penguin" character to the DS, which would probably be the ultimate tie-in, but coins earned on the new game can be transferred to the virtual world, and content like newsletters and polls from "Club Penguin" can be downloaded onto the DS. Which is probably a smart move by Disney to ensure that "Elite Penguin Force" will only reinforce kids' online "Club Penguin" interest/addiction, rather than replace it.

Full review: Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force