TONKA Construction 2: When you first launch the game, you'll start with signing in, something little ones will need help with the first time. What's great about this is that after that first time, my son is starting to recognize his own name compared to others in the list. After you sign in, you come to an overview of all of TONKA Land. Here TONKA Joe talks you though what you can do in each of the 4 areas. In TONKA City you can build, tear down, and redesign the city one block at a time. It is here that my son has spent most of his time. The controls seem to be easiest here, and he gets a real feeling of accomplishment. You use the spacebar to start and stop your truck's engine, but after that the controls are all mouse-driven. The trucks follow the mouse pointer around, and clicking the mouse puts the truck in action. "Scooper" trucks raise and lower their scoop, dump trucks raise and lower their "dumper," and crane trucks turn toward pre-shaped steel boxes all with the click of a mouse. Of course, what is good about the game is that the TONKA helpers on each construction site use the proper names for each truck, so my son is learning what an excavator does compared to the flatbed truck.

When you enter TONKA City to build, you start automatically with an excavator truck and have to dig out your job site. It was easy for my son to see where the excavator would dig, because the area was highlighted by a yellow box, but sometimes getting the truck to move to where he wanted it was frustrating. It was much easier to navigate the cement mixer truck to fill in the excavated area with cement, and then use the crane to lift and place steel frames into place on the construction site. He had a lot of fun picking different styles of walls, doors and windows off of the flatbed truck, and it was easy to cycle through options with the click of a mouse. He figured out for himself that you could decorate around the newly constructed building by picking different landscape elements or playground pieces. He had so much fun playing in TONKA City, in fact, that I had a hard time convincing him to try the other areas of the game.

Next we checked out the TONKA Quarry. Here is where my son started to find some frustration with the game. The goal in this area is to find buried treasure. Here it was hard for him to control the bulldozer well enough to smash where he needed to in order to find the treasure pieces. Once we figured out that we could use the cell phone to call in a dynamite crew and just blow everything in the area up, though, this area became a lot more fun. In fact, it was great to hear him giggling when he put dynamite in funny places and watched what happened. He didn't really ever find the treasure pieces as he was supposed to do in this area, but he sure had a lot of fun blowing things up.

There are two other areas: the TONKA Desert and TONKA Mountain, which we haven't explored much because he keeps wanting to go back to the city. In the desert, you create roads, clearing the path first and then going through different steps to make a road, putting up road signs and such. He has had more fun on TONKA Mountain creating a ski resort and ski slopes, especially when he figured out that you can put obstacles in the way of the skiers and watch them crash.

TONKA Power Tools: The second game - only because it was listed second when reading left to right - is the Power Tools game and has actually turned out to be even more fun for him than the Construction game. Here there are 6 different areas to pick from: three workshop areas or 3 games. In the Vehicle Engineering Center you design and make all sorts of vehicles. He had fun making some airplanes crossed with car wheels, and other crazy contraptions, as well as just designing and painting his own car. It was very easy for him to figure out how to print out the projects, as well, so that he can proudly display his creations for all to see. In the Tech Lab you create toys, and in the Wood Shop you create your own playhouse. He's had a blast making funny creations, figuring out what tools do what, and just being creative in these areas. I think a big part of why he has so much fun in these workshops is that it makes him feel "like a big boy just like daddy" to know when to use a screwdriver and when to use a wrench.

The Power Tools also comes with 3 separate mini-games perfect for little builders-in-training. Each one comes with 3 difficulty levels where the main change between levels is how often you have to reach the goal of the game in the time allowed. The Raceway Pit Stop game is the one he likes best. Here you have to repair a racecar in the middle of the race. On difficulty 1, for example, you only have to make one repair, where on difficulty 3 you have three things to repair. You have to pick the right tool for the job, but it wasn't too hard for him to figure that out after we went over what each tool might do. The Safe Game was a little harder for him, because of the types of tools offered. Here he had some trouble with picking the wire cutter at the right time, for example. But again, with some help from mom, he was able to play this one on his own just fine after a bit. The TONKA Towers game was simply frustrating for both of us. Neither of us is quite sure what the point of this game is, other than to maybe try to match the blocks as they float across the screen with types of siding tile already on the building. Beyond that, there didn't seem to be much point to the game, so he gave up playing it quickly.

The Play Pack in general: I have to say that I applaud these games for how easy they are for my son to play. Most games, even if they are supposed to be designed for preschoolers, are difficult to play without a parent's help. Don't get me wrong, there are times when I have to step in and help him figure out why a truck is "stuck" in a corner, or what a tool does, or which tool to use. And I had to sit with him for a while just teaching him how to move around the game world and do different things. But it wasn't long before he was pushing me away from the mouse and keyboard, expressing his own independence as "a big boy" who can do it himself.

I like that the graphics are simple without being real cartoony, too. They simply fit in the TONKA world, is the best way to describe them. And best of all, the sounds aren't often annoying and repetitive. The worst you should encounter is when a truck has to back up and you hear the constant beeping sound or the grinding of a wrench as a bolt is put in place. In other words, the TONKA Construction Play Pack is two great games in one, and well worth the investment of both money and time for this mom of a preschooler.