A Prehistoric Escape for ‘90s

Meet a ‘90s kind of dinosaur. Zug the Megasaurus is the hero of First Byte’s timely learning adventure game “Eco-Saurus.” Designed for 4- to 9-year-olds, the game is an ecological lesson filled with charming characters, good graphics and great sound.

Zug and his friends live on Eco Island. Zug’s extraterrestrial friend M-Kar crash-lands on Zug’s island home. His spacecraft is totaled. Aaaack! What to do? Well, there just happens to be an incredible supply of recyclable junk lying around. All the right things needed to build a brand new spaceship for M-Kar. Each piece of trash must be sorted and stored in the proper recycling bins. As each bin is filled, Zug can make a new part for the spaceship.

Several of the island inhabitants also collect certain kinds of trash and can help out. The only problem is, some of the other “saurus” characters are reluctant to give up their horde.

The game itself is very simple. The usual text interface is accompanied by synthesized speech to help along hesitant readers. Using a mouse, you point at objects and click on them. This will either generate a conversation or mark a piece of trash for disposal. As adults, we found some parts of the game repetitious and tedious, but our favorite 9-year-old was amazed by the colors and graphics and said it was much better than playing arcade games.

The challenge level was just enough to keep an older child occupied. Younger ones will need a hand identifying trash and even finding some of it.

ECO-SAURUS Rating: ****

IBM and compatibles, Tandy; 640K; DOS 3.0 or higher and hard drive required; speech accessories recommended. List: $39.95.

Computer games are rated on a five-star system, from one star for poor to five for excellent.