Join Calhoun, Dr. Brad Scott and a whole lotta Cy-bugs in this Wreck-It Ralph prequel comic.
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Dig into the backstory that propels the stellar new Disney title Wreck-It Ralph with this prequel comic book app, Hero’s Duty Interactive Comic. This app is appropriate for your older kids and is recommended for those ages 9 and up due to some mild cartoon violence against some ugly Cy-bugs.
The app features:
- 22 interactive comic book pages
- Panel by panel manual reading mode
- Autoplay reading mode (warning, this is a bit too fast in my opinion!)
- Special sound effects and music for each individual panel that put you right in the action
- The real story behind the Hero’s Duty game in Wreck-It Ralph
As with most Disney titles, quality is not an issue with this interactive comic book app. The graphics are crisp and engaging, the storyline is smart and fast-paced, and the app itself is easy to navigate and enjoy.
I was a bit disappointed by the app’s apparent inability to go back pages. While you tap on the right side of the page to progress through sides in manual panel by panel mode, and tap on the left side to go back through panels, no matter how much left side tapping you do you will not be able to go back to the previous page.
Correction: you can go back, but it involves opening the menu, entering page mode and manually selecting the page then starting from the beginning of it again. I watched our neighbor’s 11 year old fuss with this for a few moments, grumbling in frustration every time she wanted to go back.
I’m also not sure if “interactive” is an appropriate designation for this app. Sure, you can manually tap to bring up each panel, but there aren’t other interactive features in the book. Slightly animated is a more accurate designation.
There are plenty of reading opportunities for kids to practice reading with this app. It is, after all, a book. However, due to the violent nature of the story, it will not be appropriate for children of all ages, which seriously limit’s the app’s educational firepower in my opinion.
Entertainment-wise, this app is right on the money. I personally found the comic book format, moving panels, sound effects, and cool graphics all highly entertaining.
Not to mention, the story’s just plain good. Again, not entirely appropriate for children of younger ages, but enjoyable for older kids and kids at heart. It has all the hallmarks of what we’ve come to expect from mobile comic book style story telling.
If you, like me, really loved Wreck-It Ralph, or your family thought it was fun, or even if you have a kid obsessed with games like Call of Duty, this app is definitely a must-have.
The price isn’t half bad either. Coming in at just $1.99, this polished, highly amusing, universal movie tie-in app is a solid deal.
In case it didn’t sink in the first five times I said it, I’ll say it again – this app is NOT appropriate for little children. Too much gun fire and green explosions in my opinion.
However, the app itself is made in a very child-friendly way. There are no outside links in the app proper. The only way any type of outside content could be accessed is in the credits area. In that space, there is an area to sign up for email alerts and a rotating banner advertisement at the top that leads to iTunes sales pages.
Despite that, these links are out of the way enough for me to still consider the app as a whole kid-friendly.