Thomas The Tank Engine And Friends "Hero of the Rails" for the Wii - a Review

Baby Boy is two years old and loves to play on the Wii, unfortunately for him, most of the games are just a little too complicated for him to play with any great success. When Ubisoft asked if I would be interested in reviewing a new Thomas The Tank Engine and Friends Game titled "Hero of the Rails" I knew that Thomas mad Baby Boy would adore the game.

The first screen gives you two options, you can either go to a "Story" section or a "Game" section. On our first play Daddy went to the Game section and we chose a random game which was a race between two engines, one of which is controlled by your hand movements on the Wii controller. The game started before explaining how you were to use the controller to make your engine move and Daddy found himself working very hard to catch up (and then overtake) the engine he was racing.

Baby Boy, Top Ender and I played the other games taking turns as they are all one player games and I was thinking that this might not be a good game as it was rather boring and didn't seem to be as great as I was expecting for something associated with Thomas the Tank Engine brand.

After doing all the games, we decided to listen to the story. I was sitting on the floor when suddenly I realised that the story needs input in order to progress. All the games that we had just been playing in the Games Section are in the story! This put a new spin on things and even Top Ender (who says that she doesn't like Thomas the Tank Engine) was enjoying helping Thomas and friends help save a long forgotten steam engine called Hiro (Yes like in Heroes) get fixed up all whilst keeping it secret from Spencer.

Baby Boy found the game easier for him to complete than other games that we have and it took thirty minutes to listen to the story and do the games within the story. Daddy was a bit worried that Baby Boy would get bored after he had completed the game, but he has asked to play it again on a couple of occasions and has played along with little or no help from me.

The game has an RRP of £19.99 and is rated PEGI 3 and I think that this is a great game to get for younger Wii users, as they will get to grips with what they need to do quite quickly and it uses characters that they are familiar with, as I don't think I know any children who don't know of Thomas the Tank Engine!