Widget Workshop - PC, 6/9/95

Widget Workshop - PC

Broadcast review

If only Mr Biffo could have confined his activities to a Widget Workshop, he might be a free man today.

Which is stupid, because Widget Workshop is an Incredible Machine-type maths-you-up kids program.

It's also, as you might expect from Nanny Maxis, vibrantly SVGA and painfully polished.

And you get free straws and a compass.

Widget Workshop is frighteningly similar to The Incredible Machine.

The build-funny-machine-out-of-funny-parts concept is "borrowed", right down to the novelty animal. In TIM the aim was often to scare a cat; here it is to make a doggy die (bark).

But WW is more brazenly scientific: the "tools" are more likely to be random number generators and logic switches than baseballs and mice. But you do get a rabbit's heart!

Without sounding like a total softy, it's true that Widget Workshop offers a genuinely entertaining means to learn stuff about maths.

Flow-charts, probability and other things we don't know are presented in a fun sort of way, we suppose.

Look, you have to build machines with loads of switches and bulbs and stuff to prove that pendulums emit X-rays.

Science is like a lewd furnace: proud.

Widget Workshop - PC CD-ROM - by Maxis

Req: 8Mb Win SVGA
Graphix: 83%
Sonix: 75%
Gameplay: 84%
Lifespan: 84%
Originality: 58%
Uppers: Genuine edutainment at last
Downers: Incredible Machine rip-off
Overall: 86% - Jack Dee joke

Original review

If only Mr Biffo could have confined his activities to a Widget Workshop, he might be a free man today.

Which is stupid, because Widget Workshop is an Incredible Machine-type maths-u-up kids program.

It's also, as you might expect from Nanny Maxis, vibrantly SVGA and painfully polished.

And you get free straws and a compass.

Widget Workshop is almost illegally similar to The Incredible Machine.

The build-funny-machine-out-of-funny-parts concept is "borrowed", right down to the novelty animal. In TIM the aim was often to scare a cat; here it is to make a doggy die (bark).

But WW is more brazenly scientific: the "tools" are more likely to be random number generators and logic switches than baseballs and mice. But you do get a rabbit's heart!

Without sounding a total ponce, it's true that Widget Workshop offers a genuinely entertaining means to learn stuff about maths.

Flow-charts, probability and other things we don't know are presented in a fun sort of way, we suppose.

Look, you have to build machines with loads of switches and bulbs and stuff to prove that pendulums emit X-rays.

Science is like a lewd furnace: proud.

Widget Workshop - PC CD-ROM - by Maxis

Req: 8Mb Win SVGA
Graphix: 83%
Sonix: 75%
Gameplay: 84%
Lifespan: 84%
Originality: 58%
Uppers: Genuine edutainment at last
Downers: Incredible Machine rip-off
Overall: 86% - Jack Dee joke