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What is Thomas & Friends: Steaming Around Sodor?
Thomas & Friends: Steaming Around Sodor is a collection of nine mini-games that feature the titular tank engine and friends, as they hurry to get the island ready for the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Boxford. From tidying up the station, to taking the VIPs on a helicopter tour of the island, and playing them a farewell tune on their whistles, it's a nice little compilation of simply mini-games, tied together with a short story mode narrated by the same voice as the TV show.
How do you play Thomas & Friends: Steaming Around Sodor?
The mini-games themselves are short touch-screen-based or simple button controlled games that tend towards the familiar. With a Thomas themed take on connect four, pairs and a simplistic match three game on offer, many of the games should be fairly easy to pick-up-and-play for young kids. Other more unusual games include one that turns your train into a makeshift trampoline, as you try to position yourself underneath a falling ball to bounce it from one side of the screen to another, and a pipe-mania-esque rotate-the-track-pieces game that asks you to make a path for Thomas to chug along from his shed to the bridge at the bottom of the screen. Each mini-game can be played on one of three different difficulties, from the pedestrian easy to the more fast-paced and frantic hard, making it do-able for players of all ages and abilities - and with no way to get a game over and die, this is great for the younger players too.
How easy is Thomas & Friends: Steaming Around Sodor to pick up and play?
While the story is narrated for the benefit of youngsters who can't yet read (which is great), the instructions for the mini-games themselves are purely text-based. Luckily, most of the mini-games are fairly self-explanatory, or pretty easy to work out what to do, but the odd one may pose a bit more of a problem. For example, one game, which asks you to tap on the trains as they peek out of their tunnels to send them back to whence they came may not be all that immediately obvious if you can't read the instructions. With a bit of parental guidance the first few times, though, most kids should be fine from there on in.
Based on the incredibly popular kids TV series and books, Thomas & Friends: Steaming Around Sodor has no mature content in it whatsoever.
Age Ratings
Format Reviewed: Nintendo 3DS
