0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Blue's Clues Blue's Big Musical

         

Blue's Clues Blue's Big Musical is an action adventure game with puzzle elements, the game has an educational theme and is aimed at early childhood gamers. The game was developed by TerraGlyph Interactive Studios and published by THQ.

The game is a licensed game based on the popular and long running American tv show Blue’s Clues, as well as being heavily influenced by the VHS movie of the same name. The game released in the 24^th of August 2001 in North America, as well as receiving a PAL release in Australia.

Blue the dog and her friend Steve want to put on a music show, but they’ll need the help of Playstation gamers aged three and older to pull it off in style. Based on the popular Nick,Jr  television show, children will play an interactive version of Blue’s Clues to find three paw printed clues related to the game’s story.

 

Once you have discovered the clues players will need to figure out what it all means and pick the correct solution from the three choices on offer, when the player solves the mystery they will be able to choose an opening act for the show. Many other things will be needed to get the show on the road including getting instruments to play, practice songs, getting props for the stage and inviting guests to the show.

The game will see the player take control of Blue and guide her around the house and neighbourhood, while trying to finish the preparations for the show. The main part of the game is broken up into six separate acts, with each act seeing Blue and the player searching for three different blue clues.

 

Some areas that the player searches will have interactive items in the background, when the player selects one of these interactive elements usually a small animation will happen, the player also has the ability to hold  an item in their inventory, these items can then be used to interact with other characters, some of the games locations also include Skidoo minigames.

Some of the Skidoo minigames include Sprinkler Skipping, Cupcake Color Matching, The Birdsong sing along, a red light green light game and a rhythm based drum game. In total there are eleven different games and activates to play, the game also contains a sing along section with songs from the Blue’s Big Musical Movie.

 

This being a game that is aimed at young children the controls for the game are very basic and simple, movement in the game is handled by the D-Pad, all actions in the game from picking up items, talking to other characters, activate things, skidoo and discover clues are all controlled with the X button.

Critic reviews for this quite late in the Playstation lifecycle release are very limited, with just the one available, this review comes from All Game Guide, with the reviewer rating Blue's Clues lue's Big Musical at an above average 60.

The reviewer found the game is not intended for children who have outgrown their love for Blue and her friends, but for preschoolers it provides amiable age appropriate entertainment and a different ways of playing that beloved game of Blue’s Clues.

They continued by saying. For Parents, it can provide gentle side-by-side game time with their children. Movement and music can be simultaneously introduced with the title and the only way it could have been done better is if Ray Charles had lent his voice and musical talent to the game, like he did with the movie.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I've heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, where the game is listed as Blue’s Big Musical, if you are looking to trade in your copy of this game you will only get 25 cents from Gamedude. If on the other hand you are in the market for a copy you will be looking at an outlay of just $3.

 

Heading over to Retrogames.co.uk we find that the game is not available or even listed, so we will quickly head over to eStarland.com. Here we find one copy of the game currently on offer, this copy is complete and can be picked up for $6.36. Also on offer is a trade in for the game with up to $3 paid for a complete copy of the game.

 

Moving on to Amazon.com we find an abundant supply of the game available,  we find the first copy on offer is a complete one and is priced at $2.85 and comes with free shipping. However this copy is shipped by Amazon, so the free shipping only applies to Prime members and those spending over $25.

We find a couple of acceptable condition copy that are complete as well, these are priced up at $5.46 and $5.51. not much more expensive than these two copies we find a good condition copy in complete condition for $6.19.

Another good condition copy and complete for $6.83, again however this is shipped by Amazon, so the free shipping only applies to Prime Users and those spending $25. but there are a good number of good or better condition copies for not much more money. While the price of a used copy does increase, it does so only gradually with a peak price of around the $15 mark.

As we as an abundant supply of used copies there are also a handful of new copies of the game available, the cheapest of these is priced at $20.59 with most copies peaking at around the $26 mark, one copy is priced beyond this point coming in at around the $40 mark.

Written by

P J Gibbon