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John Smith " ... Jam-Packed With Fascinating Revelations" Join Jon Smith on a trip to the ancient lands of the Egyptians, Vikings and Aztecs. Let's just hope he can bring you back again ... Stumbling upon an armadillo, in the company of fearsome Aztec warriors, what would you do? Shoo it away? Take it to your bosom and cosset it like a long-lost child? Or roast the beast on an open fire and share a steak with your companions? The wrong decision will expose you as an outsider, and incur the wrath of your well-armed chums. Quick! Your hesitation is provoking suspicious glances! What are you going to do? If you'd spent a few ours with Grolier's excellent new history CD-ROM, of course, you'd have leapt instantly upon the opportunity to lunch on armadillo cutlets -- along with tapir, the animal was a delicacy of the Aztec civilization. How Would You Survive? is jam-packed with such fascinating revelations and, added together, they create an amazingly well-rounded view of life in three ancient cultures. The Egyptian and Viking civilizations come under the spotlight, along with the Aztecs, and each is treated to a similarly thorough reconstruction, covering topics such as the clothes you'd have worn, the laws you'd have obeyed, or the type of roles you could have expected to play in society as a woman. Innovatively, although the disc is basically divided into three sections (one for each time period), icons at the top of the screen allow you to jump to a related section in another era for comparison of, say, religious beliefs, or food and drink. Most of the time, though, you'll be concentrating on a single culture, once you've started exploring one civilization, it's hard not to get immersed, especially when the disc offers such a variety of navigational pathways to keep you moving. Top of the bill is the panoramic view, a scrolling window on the ancient world of your choice heavily-laden with hustle and, as is so often the case, bustle. Clicking on buildings and people reveals a question or observation; if it spurs your interest, you can jump straight to an elaboration in one of the main topic-orientated sections. Alternatively, you can choose from an illustrated overview of all the topics available for your selected era, or begin your travels by searching for a more specific aspect of ancient life using the comprehensive alphabetical index. But the most exciting guide through the mass of information is the brilliant quiz -- a slick multiple-choice trivia game. Any wrong guess offers you a link straight to the section where the answer can be found (after a bit of investigation). With a perfectly-pitched difficulty level, this is a great - even addictive - way to learn and explore. Elsewhere, professionalism, smart thinking and a keen attention to detail characterize almost every aspect of the disc. Visually, it's very well designed, and although there aren't any photographs, there's an unending array of clear, interesting and well-captioned illustrations. The text is knowledgeable and detailed, but always highly readable, and it's so refreshing to see consistently accurate spelling and punctuation. It may seem like a small point, but a shockingly large number of 'educational' CD-ROMs trip themselves up with grammatical carelessness. Overall, though, How Would You Survive? is infused with a truly infectious exuberance, along with a rare variety of surprising touches and fresh ideas. There are oodles of briskly narrated slide shows jostling for a child's brief attention span, with animated characters and neat graphical touches nicely complementing all the hard facts. Even the effect-laden soundtrack (a regular betrayer of so much shoddy multimedia) is top-notch. For me, this marvelous package is preferable even to the mighty Microsoft Ancient Lands, which covers similar ground but, despite its flawless production values and impeccable content, is nowhere near as engaging or educationally stimulating. Developers Imergy have much to be proud of - we eagerly await their next offering ...
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