I was totally one of those you evoked something in. I played this so much on my old mac when I was young. Great nostalgia flashback, and video. As usual :)
I gotta say, your videos deserve so much more popularity than they get, if not for your content, then your extremely professional approach to making these videos! You inspire my inner nerd so thank you man!
I remember getting this as a prize from a cereal box in Canada, and man, I spent hours on this since I didn't have internet readily available except for AOL. Not to mention that later on when we got dial-up, no game was fun the minute a phone call would come in. Thus, this "game" kept me entertained for hours when I was young.
Ah I remember these games well. My dad worked on them, and my brother and I sometimes got to beta test them (the one I remember the most was the Superman activity center, we ended up getting them to make one of the games harder, it was way too easy).
theacp127 it is always something dirty about Aladdin. Subliminal messages on disney movies videos. In Aladdin it was saying good kids undress. Another transgered weird Jew representing dirt to us.
Man that was one of the most enjoyable reviews yet! I love the quick cuts you made and I'm a sucker for quick referential cutaways. Keep up the good work!
Ah. I remember this thing. It was the very first software I owned on a CD. My parents bought it to me so that I could try out our new Windows 95 computer which came with a CD drive. Talk about good memories. I had a lot of those back then. Mostly the animated storybooks. Now, all that I have left is the Timon and Pumbaa Jungle Games (which is actually a game). I spent hours on them. This was before I discovered gaming, or even DOS gaming (our previous computer was an XT, so it couldn't handle most DOS games of the time). Mine was in French (since I am French-Canadian, or Quebecer). The genie's voice was the exact same as the movie. And the box was identical (except that the CD was in a jewel case). Thanks for that trip down memory lane.
Omg this brought back so many memories!! As an Aladdin fan and as a previous faithful user of this Activity Center (matching and the connect the dots was my jam. I went to a youth center that had this, Ant Sim and other cool games in the computer lab collection.), this makes me almost want to try and find a copy for old times sake. Thanks again LGR for a stellar review and trip down memory lane.
MAN OH MAN, I remember playing this EXACT SAME activity center (well, a Brazilian Portuguese version of it) on my junior english course's PCs ALL the time, and I was going to ask you to review it after the LEGO Island episode reminded me of it! Great move there, Clint - I'm a long-time fan of your channel and still a relative n00b at retro PC stuff, but this video in particular hit me right in the nostalgia! :D
most of the stuff you cover I've never encountered because computers never were a gaming device in my early childhood but this was one of the only games for PC that I ever played played I don't remember when but all of this is familiar and I completely forgot about it until just now. thank you so much for the memories =D
I remember have fun with some of these activity center games when I was a kid like Lion King and Tarzan. I also remember storybook type games which basically tells the story of the movie with interactive backgrounds and a few mini games, I remember having ones for little mermaid, lion king, and Hercules. Land before time had few of theses as well and one for American tale.
Ouch man! Ouch... Right in the nostalgia... My grand father had this on his computer and I hadn't played it/seen any footage of it in 16 years... The memories...
Wow! I don't think I had this particular one growing up, but I definitely remember screwing around with a Little Mermaid activity center in my day. I really love you're reviews/coverage of 90s kid games because I'm such a sucker for nostalgia.
As a child I was so upset by the way the Genie told you to "hurry back" when you quit the game that every time I did, I would run out of the computer room, scared that the Genie would be upset with me.
When I was a kid, my mom bought me "The Addams Family" print and activity center. Unfortunately, our 386 couldn't run it and to this day I have never actually played it or even know what it's like. If you ever come across it, OMG please review it!! Keep up the excellent work my friend!!
It's crazy to remember all the activity center and interactive read-a-long games... I loved them so much! I remember the read-a-long Hercules game had a checkers minigame, and I thought it was basically the best thing ever...
All this keeps reminding me of is Aladdin's Math Quest: a math based linear point-and-click type game using the wonderful charm of pre-rendered 3D graphics and surprisingly robust sets of challenges for the intended age group in environments and situations that evoke the fondest of memories even some 15 years later despite being up against the irresistible charm of the Nintendo 64 with the likes of Banjo-Kazooie and it's sequel, among others.
How interesting. Only an hour ago, I just finished a book I recently stumbled across about an alternative-universe twisted take on Disney's Aladdin called "A Whole New World" which asks the question "What if Jaffar *succeeded* in getting the lamp from the Cave of Wonders?" Funny that this should come out same day while my mind is reeling from that story, awesome timing! (I very much recommend trying the book, too, if you can)!
I had that one too. It did help that the PC version was offered as a bonus on some General Mills cereal boxes. The SNES version is a bit rarer though. _(It lacks that Puyo Puyo game too.)_
ah Clint I just cant stop laughing when you talk about these old pc stuff even though im simultaneously listening to all the great info you're providing
Speaking of interactive CDs: Encarta -94 baby. That thing blew my mind. I still remember the music section with Bowies "Changes" that I used to listen to over and over again.
CaveManta Is it chinese? I thought it was japanese(or is it both?). I first saw it tattooed on Gaara's (a character from naruto) forehead and I liked it xD I think it looks cool, that's the only reason I'm using it.
Oh, I thought you would be talking about another Aladdin software, which was something like "Aladdin's Math and Logic Center". It was another Aladdin-related PC software where kids had to solve various mathematic puzzles. Oh the memories. Anyway, I didn't own this one Aladdin Activity Center but I do remember I had something about Mulan, it was a similar piece of software. I also have blurry memories of some kind of "center" about the Lion King. I guess those were popular for kids back then. Thanks for that nostalgic review.
we got this game as demo in a cereal box, back when they used to put CD-ROM games in Kellogg's cereals. we also got Timon and Pumba and Tarzan, which was actually more a coloring game. So many memories :)
The activity center,if you can call it that, I remember from when I was a kid was Packard Bell's Navigators "Kid Space". It was pretty much just a silly backdrop with little animations if you clicked on stuff, and it just linked to the Entertainment pack games, but I enjoyed it.
Holy shit, that entire shelf is my childhood right there. Magic Artist Studio?! Activity centers?! ANIMATED STORYBOOKS?! They just don't make 'em like that anymore. Also, I had no idea that that Tarzan game was released for the PC. I used to rent it from the local video store for the N64 and remember having great fun with it. I have spent good time trying to get an emulated Playstation version of it to run and all this time it had a PC release. There was just something magic about these programs. I had quite a few of them, and probably still have them kicking around somewhere at my parent's house. My favorite of these little games probably had to be either the Magic Artist Studio or My Disney Kitchen.
This game brought back memories of another Aladdin PC game I used to play the crap out of as a kid (but this one isn't as good lol) called Disney's Math Quest with Aladdin. It was one of my favorite games from my childhood. I would love to see you do a video on it one day.
Oh my god I LOVED this game so much. Only bad thing I remember about it is how horrible I felt when I made Abu or Genie sad. Force quitting was better than hearing the sobbing as you pressed quit.
The Activity Center did unleash some dormant memories, I thought "Hey, this reminds me of that Lion King thing I used to have", and I think I spotted it right next to Aladdin!
I think the same activity center was packed into Kellogg's cereal in Canada along with other titles such as roller coaster tycoon 1&2, an Atari compilation, board games on cd (for some reason) to name a few some time around 2000
Now Putt-Putt and Fatty Bear's activity center :) Kids Activity games we're the bomb back in the day. Although I'd trade this one in for the Disney's Aladdin game by Virgin in 1992 in a heartbeat.
My favorite one was the Lion King activity center that came some time later one. The games in it were pretty sweet, and it came free in a cereal box, wee!
Back in the ol' 90's, I took the audio tracks from this game and set them as default sounds for my computer. With 'do you really have to go' for shutting down, and exc! It was the best!
I played a lot of the Toy Story 2 Activity Center as a kid. I especially enjoyed the Toy Shelf Showdown minigame, which I would later discover appears to be heavily based on an arcade game called "Mappy".
At this point, Dan Castellaneta has voiced Genie in so many different places that I accept him. outside of this, he did the animated series, and reprised the Genie role for various subsiquent video games involving everyone's favorite Djinn, such as in the Kingom Hearts titles.
Damn, anything Disney Interactive is super nostalgic for me. I remember having a Toy Story Disney game on the PC, running on an old beige Windows ME computer.
I remember playing this back in our school. Grade school memories. Same as Typing Tutor 7 and Mario Teaches Typing. Hope you get to review the other Disney Activity Centers like Lion King and Pooh Print Center XD
I had this disc as a kid! My cousin and I have this inside joke 'The red man with the yellow teeth' and it came from me screwing around and painting Aladdin entirely red and giving him yellow teeth for a laugh.
I just remembered there was a kids activity center game based on Dragonheart. My little sister used to play the hell out of it. The Aladdin one has very similar activities in it.
Oh my god, the nostalgia. Jesus I owned so many of these as a kid: Aladdin, Pocahontas, Toy Story, Lion King... *Sniffles. I wanna go back to the 90s...
