WELCO METOT HENEX TLEVEL - Kids on Site

Publisher: Sega Developer: Digital Pictures Release: 1994

Sega spent many marketing dollars convincing all of us that Nintendo was for babies, that the Genesis was for the cool kids. And they did it with great success, obviously. But that doesn't mean that the baby gamer market was completely abandoned. At some point in 1993 or 1994, Sega of America decided to add a kid game brand to their library, and the Sega Club label was born.

Sega Club was short lived – only late 1994 through 1995 – but it saw a fair amount of releases. Crystal's Pony Tale, Ecco Jr., Math Blaster, The Magic Schoolbus and more all found their way to the Genesis in that time period. All in all, the Genesis got nine Sega Club games, the Game Gear three, the Master System one. Kids on Site is the single Sega Club game for the Sega CD.

The game was created by prolific Sega CD developer Digital Pictures under their rare Digital Kids label. Digital Pictures also published the game to the PC and Mac. As far as I know, this is one of only two times the Digital Kids brand was used, the other being a Macintosh-only title called What's My Story?

The point of the game is basically to put the player at the controls of four different heavy machines you'd normally find at a big construction site. You'll spend time driving an excavator, a wrecking ball, a bulldozer and a steamroller. The game is, of course, comprised entirely of full-motion video.

As this is a kids' game, there's not a whole lot of challenge to be found. Each machine comes with a goal – roll over the fresh asphalt three times with the steamroller, level the building with the wrecking ball – which can be completed very quickly and comes with a small reward in the form of a medal on the menu screen.

But if you choose to drive away from your set tasks, there's a whole lot more you can do. You can find a fruit stand and use the steamroller to make juice. Or use the wrecking ball to destroy the worksite port-a-potty, much to the chagrin of the perpetually-on-break construction workers that act as background players.

The game is hosted by Bertha, a construction worker who generally offers up real information about each machine before handing off hosting duties to her cohorts, Dizzy and Nuts. Yeah...Dizzy and Nuts. The main purpose of these two is to deliver your tasks and act as comic relief. Remember, this game is for kids, and so the amount of slapstick humor here is overwhelming. Each level generally ends with Nuts getting hurt in some stupid way.

It sounds stupid, and it is kind of stupid. But it's also the sort of thing a young boy or girl eats up. My four-year old son is absolutely crazy about this game, as he's fascinated by the heavy machinery featured, and he thinks the slapstick on display is the absolute height of comedy.

So yeah, the merit of creating a game for small children on a system as niche as the Sega CD is very debatable. But I have to say that Digital Pictures did a pretty good job here, which is not something you can say very often.