All aboard! Come along on this train filled ride through Budge Studios’ Chuggington: Kids Train Game. Grab your conductor’s hat and coveralls and climb into the driver’s seat of this crazy train game. Chuggington: Kids Train Game is based on the children’s tv show, Chuggington, a Disney cartoon made for preschoolers. It is set around three young chuggers named Koko, Wilson and Brewster.
First stop is the train station! Here is where players will get to choose which chugger to play with. Once the player makes a decision, the young train locomotive will come awake and begin its trek down the railroad track. Players will draw the track with their finger and the train will follow. It’s that easy. There are three different game modes for Chuggington: Kids Train Game: the build and play mode, the adventure mode, and the collectable mode.
Young engineers will take a delight in building their own train track in the build and play mode. In that mode, players will take their train around the map, stopping underneath coins that are scattered along the way. These coins will let the player unlock items such as rail cars and scenery. Each coin unlocks a specific item and there are around seventy of them to find. Once all are found this mode becomes a free-ranging game where players can lay track and go anywhere.
The adventure mode will take players on a wonder-filled trek through the game. This mode consists of various adventures where players may have to grab a railcar with their chugger and snatch rocks from the quarry to deliver somewhere else. There are also rescue missions, discovery, and speed delivery adventures. Each time the player successfully completes an adventure, they are rewarded with a firework display of awesomeness. There are also some special features such as nighttime and flying, sure to help extend the replayability of the game.
One last mode is the collectable mode. This is where players can interact and watch short videos about all the things they have collected and found. Younger players will probably spend a lot of time on this mode as it offers more interaction between the player and the trains.
The graphics are great for a mobile game. Being based on the Disney cartoon, the developer is able to capture the look and feel of these beloved characters. The game has a cartoon look that will capture the imagination of players, regardless of age, but it especially appeals to the youngest gamers.
The sounds of the game could have come straight from the cartoon. While it does suffer from being a mobile game, the game sound is really more convincing with a set of headphones. Because most small children don’t seem to like wearing earbuds when playing, parents may want to keep a watch on the volume button as the sound can become annoying to bystanders (we speak from experience).
Other than that, this game is one of the best train games on the market, even though we feel that the iTunes asking price of $6.99 is a bit steep compared to the free app for Android on Google play. But gamers should do their research as there have been reports by many users of the Android version that the game is almost unplayable, leading to a lot of one star reviews on the Google play store. The iPad version, although expensive, seems to be the better of the two options, with fewer users complaining of any problems.
The review has been donated by Train Arcade, an online gaming website specialized in train games and train simulations.
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