• Sticky's Ice Cream: (pictured right) Be sure to visit the tent and help build sundaes with just the right ingredients to fill orders in a timely manner. The food ingredients look so appealing, after seeing the picture of this activity on the box, my daughter couldn't wait to play Sticky's Ice Cream first.
• Ping Pong Pow: Shoot ping pong balls at targets according to the spoken clues (for example, "hit all things that are skinny"). The targets are moving pictures, and some help you get bonus ping pong balls.
• Mystery Match is a game of Concentration. See if you can match all the objects in the shortest period of time. If you watch carefully as the cards are placed on the "board", you get a chance to quickly see the cards. On the Easy level, there are 16 cards, and on Medium it's up to 24. The Hard level also contains 24 cards, but pairs are slowly added so you have to be quick.
• Pony Race: Answer questions correctly and watch your pony advance. For example, kids might be asked "Which one has feathers?" and must click on one of 3 pictures as fast as they can. This is great fun, and a 5 year old tester was so happy that even though she came in third (last), she still got a trophy.
• At Rainbow Stage, listen to, and watch, Geoffrey and his friends play 5 original songs (such as Life on the Farm, Dreaming, etc.). The lyrics are shown one sentence at a time, and words are highlighted one by one.
• The Haunted Castle is a fantastic maze game that has elements of planning ahead and a bit of strategy involved. In a wonderful twist to a traditional maze activity, kids have to collect objects that will allow them to pass various obstacles (such as a green key to unlock a part of the maze, or even a hotdog for a starving but friendly monster).
• Bumper Thumper: The objective is to bump the cars with yellow flags as you navigate your bumper car around, and to try to get as many as you can in the given time. On the Hard level, you have to dodge cars with pirate flags on them.
• Choo Choo Switcheroo: You'll have to help Geoffrey pick up his friends onto his train and then drop them off at different stations, but you need to switch tracks to do so. The tracks become trickier with each difficulty level. You can control the speed of the train and add some sound effects too.
• Noodles' Amazing Balloons: A creative activity has kids choosing parts of their own balloon creations. Noodles the Clown has fun things to say about the choices made. Once the balloon creations are complete, kids can choose to save them and view them any time they like.

Every child will choose some favorites, and my own kids were no exception — although they all enjoy each and every activity (which is saying a lot), the Haunted Castle is a favorite. Kids navigate the maze and pick up handy objects that they need in order to advance past some obstacles. They stumble upon a baby Mummy who is looking for his "mommy mummy", if you will. Once he is delivered to the mummy, she allows Geoffrey to pass through the part of the maze she is guarding. There are "monsters" and witches in this game, but have no fear — they're silly ones. For example, kids collect a bone in the maze and use it to give to the skeleton. It's his arm, and he's delighted to have it back so he can play the banjo again!

The opening scene is spectacular looking. We see Geoffrey the Giraffe waking up and getting out of bed as he sings about going to the fair. He and his friends (an elephant, a pig, and more) hop onto their bikes, except for the lion who is riding in his wheelchair, and they're off to the fair. I showed my children the option to cut through this intro by pressing the Escape button on the keyboard. You'd think that after the umpteenth time they saw this cute little movie sequence, they'd want to skip it, but they watch it each and every time.

The 3D graphics are exceptional and the program contains 50+ 3D-rendered movie sequences featuring these awesome graphics. Geoffrey and his friends not only look good, their personalities are fun and polite. From Sheldon the intellectual turtle to Bonnie the daydreaming Bunny, the characters are cute and well-developed.

Click on the trophy button at the bottom of the screen to see any trophies or balloons that have been collected. There are different trophies for each of the 3 difficulty levels and for the different activities. If kids got a high score in an activity, there will be a ribbon attached to their trophy. Most activities have timing features, and kids try to beat their previous times.

Geoffrey Goes to the Fair is an exceptionally fun program full of activities that are sure kid-pleasers. I had originally expected that the title would be a form of advertising for Toys R Us since it features the Toys R Us mascot, Geoffrey the Giraffe. Not so! I couldn't find one reference to the popular toy store chain. Still, it is totally befitting that this program is made for Toys R Us because its level of entertainment rivals that of a really good toy.

Technically Speaking
Minimum requirements are Windows 95/98, a 486 DX (Pentium recommended), 16 Mb RAM, 4X CD ROM (8X recommended), and 25 Mb of hard drive space available. During setup, there is an option to install Direct X 6.0 which should be chosen for Windows 95 users only — not Win 98.

Skills Covered
Memory, planning, listening skills, following directions, classifying, hand-eye coordination, music, creativity.

Educational Value
This game is (almost) pure entertainment for the kids. Still, there's always some educational value to be found in children's play.

Entertainment Value
The activities are totally absorbing and seem to be appealing to a wide range of kids.

Design
Difficulty levels can be clearly chosen and are divided roughly into categories by age (Easy for 3-5 year olds, Medium for 6-8, and Hard for 9-10 year olds). Pressing the F1 button brings up a handy Options screen. Navigation is simple and scenes can be skipped by pressing the Escape key, if need be. The amount of work and care that went into the program is evident in the nice design and superb finished product.

Replayability
Replay value for this game should be comparatively high. There not only is a whole lot of content, but the huge range of challenge levels provided allows it to grow with younger children and to be enjoyed by a family of kids.

Dollar Value
The suggested retail price is $29.99 US. We consider this one of the best kids' entertainment software titles we've played.