Others say...

"Mixed feelings about "Tonka Town""
I have very mixed feelings about the Tonka Trucks program. I use it at a shelter for abused and neglected children age six and under. I have not had any of the technical problems that other people have mentioned. We run this program on an old, donated computer with Windows 98, and it does just fine (except for jerky graphics in an introductory sequence about an airplane). In fact, it has the most impressive graphics that I have ever seen in a children's program. The children who are at least three-and-a-half years old enjoy it; for some of the more aggressive boys it is by far their favorite program. Even adults get a kick out of playing it for a while. The problems are these: (1) it does not seem educational at all. I think I have a broad view of what is "educational"; I'm not one of these people who think "educational" only means learning letters and numbers. I like educational programs that let children play, such as Reader Rabbit Toddler. However, although the Tonka Trucks claims to be educational, I just don't see any educational value. It only teaches children to play video games, which they learn all too soon anyway. (2) It encourages aggressiveness and bad behavior. There is a big emphasis on "bad guys." One of the activities is to intentionally crash the police car into "bad guys." After they get done playing on the computer, the children want to crash their tricycles into other tricycles, and generally push and act aggressive. (3) Some children (especially girls) find this program boring. (4) On the other hand, some children enjoy this program too much. It gets them all worked up. Of course, the children I use this with are extra susceptible to getting worked up, but there have been problems with children crying and kicking the computer when they use this program, either because they had trouble winning the races, or because they were angry when their time on the computer had to get over. (5) Finally, this is the least important, but the program is much too slow to get started. It goes through way too many title screens and introductions. Whoever designed this program never waited for this program to get started while sitting next to a couple of hyperactive four-year-olds while the program loaded on a old computer. However, having said all of these complaints, I would still have to say that this program is a real technological marvel, and many children enjoy it immensely.

"Does not work!"
Tonka Town is a buggy mess of software. It does not load correctly. It does not load drivers correctly. We've never seen a single screen. I've got a new Del so this is not an isolated problem.

Atari software support has been unable to correct my problem for 5 months and has been unwilling to send me replacement software.

"Download the demo, seems to have graphical issues"
Before buying this game I went to the infogrames website and downloaded a demo, I suggest you do the same. Now this really isn't a big issue and since I am not 2, and won't be playing this game it probably doesn't matter to much but the game has graphical problems. For instance, in the demo the truck sometimes appears in front of object that it should appear behind (ie. the crane). It worries me that if the demo has such an obvious flaw then maybe the real game is only worse.

"Great Fun for Little Kids"
My 2-1/2 year old son loves this game. You can switch between four vehicles and do different activities by driving around Tonka Town. My son especially likes chasing and bumping the bad guys out of town as a police car, putting out the fires as Hook and Ladder fire engine and the race game. There are different levels of the game you can progress through and you can get a certificate everytime you finish a task. I only wish that the game allows you to stay at or adjust to a difficulty level instead of automatically bumping you to a harder level when you finish a task. Although this game may be too easy for kids over 6, I think it's great for pre-schoolers.