Product Description

Get in the game with Creative Game Star! See yourself on the screen fighting ninjas in the Karate game, testing your free throw skills in Super Shoop, and popping bubbles in Bubble Trouble.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #65303 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Creative Labs
• Model: 73VF004000008
• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Platforms: Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Home Edition
• Format: CD-ROM
• Dimensions: 2.50 pounds

Features

• Play 10 awesome games from Eye Games on your PC (games included with GameStar)
• Get into the game and control the game with your body movement
• Add video to your instant messaging using the Creative webcam
• Capture live video at up to 30 frames per second
• Works with flat panel displays, notebooks, and on any flat surface

Customer Reviews

Silly goofy interactive fun for the family - especially youngsters!
Basically, you're buying a budget webcam with some fun interactive games for your kids to play with. Don't expect anything like Wii, X-box, or PS2. There is no serious gaming going on here. Just fun goofy activities that add up to lots of laughter and silliness.

The Creative webcam itself is decent. It's a well-built budget model (Creative Labs VF0040 WebCam Instant) that works for most home applications like Gamestar, AIM video chat, etc. Creative drivers are included for use with many different systems, but you can only use the Gamestar on Windows 2000/XP systems. (Don't know about Vista.) I like how it's built so you can use in different positions - either on a table top, on top of a PC, or safely propped on an LCD laptop screen. You do need some decent lighting, but I've gotten good results with a small 25 watt table lamp I keep by my PC. The nice thing is that this webcam is usable with other programs, it's not locked to just using Gamestar. (Don't expect razor sharp quality of a video camera - you'll be sorely disappointed.)

The Gamestar programs are silly fun. There are two sections to Gamestar - Games and Activities. The Games section is geared for older kids under 13 and the Activities section is more geared for pre-schoolers and younger kids; although I don't doubt everyone of all ages will want to try this and have fun with it - we adults have had a giggling good time with the games ourselves.

One of my favorite is the picture gallery. There's a couple of dozen photos where you can have your face superimposed on either another person, animal, or flower. You can then take a snapshot that is save on the PC and can be printed. While this is not new game technology, it's still fun to play with.

Then there's the fish music, karate matches, dancing, and more. All simple fun - nothing hugely sophisticated, just a lot of eye candy for kids to add up to lots of movement and giggles. My four-year-old son has had a great time playing with Gamestar - he jumps, moves, and laughs at himself being silly and seeing silly things happen on the computer screen.

The best way to look at this setup is that your buying an attractive budget webcam with some extra software to add a lot of fun to your webcam. Young kids, webcam newbies, and even adults of all ages will likely find something fun with this - even if they don't want to admit it.