Cosmic Family is the first early-learning game on the Wii.
Targeted at player’s ages 4-8 years old, the game introduces young players to a variety of funny characters -the Cosmic Family, and their “Rocket House”. The game offers direct access to 20 mini-games, or alternatively players can choose “The Adventure”, where theyMore… explore all floors of the Cosmic’s blue rocket home, guided by Fernand – a rather silly, but age appropriate Elephant.
All mini-games encountered in Adventure mode are identical to those found in the mini-game selection menu. However, the Adventure mode features additional music pieces, video clips and slideshows, ranging from entertaining and funny to bizarre and boring. The mini-games offer a mix of puzzles, association of objects, sound memory, logic, shapes and reflex skills. The targeted age group will also improve fine motor skills by operating the Wii-Remote. Cosmic Family also includes a small coloring book.

We welcome the idea of using the Wii as edutainment platform. However, Cosmic Family ultimately fails do to poor sound editing. The background music makes almost impossible to understand the instructions given in Adventure Mode. To confirm, we tested Cosmic Family on two different TV’s sets, including a high quality Dolby Surround Speaker Set. Personally, I think that $49 for a collection of very short mini-games is a rather steep price, even if they are “educational”. But then again, “short and overpriced” is the sad reality for the majority of Wii mini-game collections. Considering that your kids may plow through the game in less then 4 hours and probably not going to play the game again; I suggest to rent Cosmic Family at Gamefly or wait a couple of month and pick up a used copy at Gamestop/EB Games or Amazon.