Sesame Street: A-B-C
System: NES
Release Date: September 1989
Developer: Zippo Games/Rare
Publisher: High Tech Expressions
Genre: Edutainment
The gang from Sesame Street is back to teach us the A-B-C’s. This is our second game from the street, after learning our 1-2-3’s earlier this year. There are two games this time around, Letter-Go-Round and Ernie’s Big Splash.
Letter-Go-Round has six different modes. In the first, you match capital letters, the second is lowercase letters, and the third is mixed letters. The fourth mode has you matching letters in a three letter word. The fifth has you filling in a missing letter from a word. The final one has you spelling a word from the letters on the wheel. Apparently “Bib” isn’t acceptable. You can speed up the wheel, but the letter on the bottom is what you’re selecting. When you get three letters correct, Big Bird or Cookie Monster and Ernie come out and dance for you.
Ernie’s Big Splash is up next. Rubber ducky is Ernie’s the One (other than Bert, but that’s a whole nother story), and you need to create a path from the starting point to Ernie in the tub. You cycle through icons that show arrows from the beginning point to the end point. I like to make long paths for funsies, because when you finish the circuit, the duck goes through a number of animations to make it to Ernie. You can then send him back to the start if you want to watch it in reverse.
Graphics: 2.0
I feel like the graphics are a bit of a downgrade, but the duck animations are fun.
Sound: 1.0
There are no songs while you’re playing, just crappy sound effects. You do get a sing-a-long on the title screen, though.
Gameplay: 0.5
I didn’t read the instruction manual at first and didn’t know where the letter-go-round would stop.
Difficulty: 0.0
I’m still an adult in my 30s, so this is no problem.
Fun Factor: 0.0
It’s an edutainment game for preschoolers, what do you think it’s going to get?
Overall Grade: 0.7
Sesame Street: A-B-C earns a D-. I think it’s a worse game than 1-2-3, which I was probably kind to thanks to nostalgia.