Richard Scarry Busytown 2000

Give your child the thrill of learning by doing, across a wide range of early-cognitive skills. Busytown meets the guidelines set by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, guidelines that emphasize learning through play.

We bought Busytown 2000 because the older child still wanted to play it and we had a second child that we wanted to have the game also. We bought it because it was advertised as Win 95/98 compatible, and we figured that, at worst, it would be the same game with Win 9x compatibility added. Big Mistake. The game animation is nowhere near as good as the original. Gameplay is uneven at best, and at least one area we had to reboot the computer to exit. Another area rebooted the computer for us 1 out of 3 times the kids went there.

Busytown is a great franchise, particularly if you have a 486 still running DOS to play the older games on. They didn't like Win 3.1, and they really don't get along with Win 9x. Busytown 2000 does not apply the quality of the older games to the Win 9x platform. It's cheap animation matched with poor gameplay. If Amazon let me return software, it would be in the mail tomorrow.


Tech problems   February 11, 2000
38 out of 38 found this review helpful

We ordered this software twice, and each time there was a problem when we tried to enter the gas station section. Amazon was very helpful in dealing with this, however they obviously cannot solve the tech defect. Very disappointing, son loves Busytown videos.


Great if you can get it to work   July 10, 2000
Lily Kapp (Tampa, FL USA)
18 out of 19 found this review helpful

I understand the complaints of the previous reviewers. I could not get this program to run on the PowerMac and it also had a lot of problems when I ran it on the iMac while networked to the PowerMac. But once the iMac stood alone, I only had minor problems with this program. It is a big memory hog.

It's a really super program if you can get it to run. I'd pay special attention to the system requirements before buying.

There are 12 different activities which teach your child all kinds of things. It's great for pretend role play also. Pump gas, serve customers in a deli, build a house, get a ship ready for sea, etc.

It's too bad this title has compatibility problems with so many systems, because it really is a beautifully done program.


disappointing   July 16, 2001
Rosanne (nz)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

I brought this because I loved richard scary as a child but was totally disappointed with the game. There is no replayabilty with the only variation in the game being in the gas station and the parcel delivery. But the children soon got bored. The best part is playing with the wind. The mouse control is very poor ending up with frustrated children. The only way to get into the gas station was to put the whole game onto the hard drive.


Great Idea But Full of Programming Bugs   July 25, 2001
J K Genser (Scotch Plains, New Jersey United States)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

My three yr old loves Richard Scarry's Busytown so it was a natural choice for him. However, he was very disapointed to find one of the games (the garage) did not work at all and several of the others have programming quirks. If the cursor isn't positioned just right the game doesn't work. My advice is to select something else or wait for another imporved version.