Vtech - V.Smile - Ratatouille
From V Tech

Don't rat them out! Help Remy and Linguine create a new dish with a surprise secret ingredient. Travel the streets of Paris with Remy to root out just the right fixings and heaps of learning. Be the big cheese and lend Remy a hand when he discovers an unexpected mousetrap which will lead your gourmet rat pack underground.

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15335 in Toys & Games
• Brand: VTech
• Model: 80-092880
• Released on: 2007-07-01
• Dimensions: 8.50" h x 5.50" w x 1.00" l, .30 pounds

Don't rat them out! Help Remy and Linguine create a new dish with a surprise secret ingredient! Travel the streets of Paris with Remy to root out just the right fixings and heaps of learning! Be the big cheese and lend Remy a hand when he discovers an unexpected mousetrap which will lead your gourmet rat pack underground! Chocked full of learning, Ratatouille V.Smile Smartridge teaches food categories and recognition, counting, number order, colors, puzzles, map reading, cooking methods, motor/drawing skills, directions, plus, logical thinking and patterns! For use with V.Smile Learning Systems.

Ratatouille...Not as fun as it looked...
Our Experience
I purchased this for my 4yr old daughter who has nine other V.Smile Smartridges in her library. My daughter had been asking for this game because she had enjoyed to movie so much. We put the Smartridge in her V.Smile and started the game. Right from the beginning, I knew we were in trouble with this game. In my opinion, its geared for a slightly older crowd. I played along with my daughter and it became clear that she was getting frustrated quickly. She finally gave up and told me she didn't want to play anymore. Normally, the directions are clearly spelled out for the user but, that's not the case with this game. We learned to play the games by trial and error. The final reason that caused my daughter to give up was when she attempted to play the, "Anyone Can Cook", game. She decided to play the game on her V.Smile Pocket and the game would not respond to the joystick controllers and repeatedly told her she was out of time. Even I tried to play to no avail. It was quite frustrating to me so, I can only imagine how frustrating it was for my 4yr old.

Smartridge Activities

Learning Adventure

The Maze to the Market - Guide Remy through the town back to the Market. Help him avoid obstacles (obstacles are not very clear) along the way.
Choosing Ingredients - You are prompted to find a food item of a particular color but, only one with steam coming from it. After finding each item, you are prompted to label it as a fruit, veggie, etc. Because the items can be very small, its hard to tell what some are and therefore you can often guess the wrong category.
Into the Sewers - Guide Remy through the Sewer trying to find torn pieces of a puzzle that you will put together later. You have to avoid obstacles which, again, can be confusing. We went through the entire sewer unaware of what the torn pieces of the list looked like. They weren't easily recognizable. We had to restart the game and try picking up what we thought was more obstacles to see what the torn puzzle pieces actually looked like. Even the manual doesn't show a picture of them.
The Puzzling List - This is actually an easy game. It is just as its name suggests...a puzzle that needs to be put back together.
Back to the Kitchen - This game is similar to the Maze to the Market game. The only addition to the game is that you have to collect missing letters along the way to complete listed words.
Anyone Can Cook - Linguini picks up pieces of food and tells you that you need to cut specific amounts of it. You are supposed to use your joystick to simulate the cutting motion but our V.Smile Pocket joystick didn't respond to the commands. Regardless, it was a pretty boring game.

Learning Zone

Please Be Seated - Use your joystick to put name cards on the table back in alphabetical order.
Finishing Touches - Help Remy put garnishes on the dishes by picking the correct color or category of each food he asks for.
Stacking the Dishes - This game is similar to the old ring stacking games. You have to stack the dishes in order from biggest to smallest.
Sniffing Out the Cheese - This game is all about Math. You help Emile find the cheese at the end of each pipe. First, you sold the math equation and then lead Emile to that pipe to collect the cheese.

Microphone Section

Fun with French - You can use your microphone to learn to say different French expressions. You can use the book on the screen to pick and choose what words you want to learn.

Compatibility
The Microphone section only works with the V.Smile TV Learning System Plus, and V.Smile Pocket.

our favorite new vsmile game
I got this for my soon-to-be six year old daughter and she loves it. every game holds her attention. no game is boring for her... they all seem to challenge her just enough to keep her interested but not enough to frustrate her. there are some interesting variations in the games... one where you move the joystick in a circle to mix something. one where you have to press two color buttons in order to mix colors to get the correct color answer. those are just some examples. highly recommend this game for ages 5 and up.