This Is No Ordinary 'Kid' Site

Summer Fun For Kids And Parents

J. Scott Wilson , Staff Writer

So, here we are at the beginning of summer and the kids are already starting the chorus of "I'm bored!" and "There's nothing to do!" Well, this week's selected site will keep kids of all ages occupied, once they get Mom or Dad to stop playing!

Well into its fourth year of operation now, Neopets has developed into much more than just a "virtual pet" playground. Once your child "adopts" a Neopet, he or she can play kid-friendly games, run a shop and learn the basics of things like price comparison and inventory, learn to build a Web page, send Neogreetings and hundreds of other activities. The site is split up into several "worlds," with themes from dinosaurs to a pirate island complete with shipwrecks.

Like their handheld electronic cousins, the Tamagotchis, Neopets DO need to be fed and played with. However, UNlike Tamagotchis, they never "die." They'll get hungry, and very unhappy, if ignored and not fed, but you'll never have to deal with a youngster whose pet has just gone to that big electronic graveyard.

Kids can build their pets a Neohome, complete with a dizzying array of furniture and even plants to landscape a garden and yard. They can dress it, groom it, feed it an array of truly humorous foods, and read to it. That's where Neopets sets itself apart from similar sites, in fact. There are dozens of "books" available for purchase with Neopoints (the site's currency), and players are encouraged to read as many of them as possible to their pets.

As I mentioned earlier, pets need to be played with. However, there are no annoying "beep" games here. The games are split into three categories: puzzle (from kindergarten-easy to adult-confounding), action (mostly race-type games, very little in the way of anything approaching violence) and luck/chance (all the basics: solitaire, blackjack, poker, and some unique games).

It's that last section of games that will have Mom and Dad elbowing Junior off the keyboard. The solitaire and pyramid solitaire games are particularly well-done.

Movie and TV tie-ins abound here, with games based on "Lilo and Stitch," "Powerpuff Girls," "Snow Dogs," "Max Keeble," and even a Harry Potter-themed sliding puzzle.

The one section some parents might have a problem with the youngest kids taking part in is the Battledome. Here, Neopets can face off against one another using a variety of weapons, from conventional swords to oddities like the Attack Chive and Radioactive Muffin. Again, losing pets do not "die," but the adversarial aspect might not be to some parents' liking.

There are plenty of other activities to keep the kids entertained, though. Just setting up a shop and Web page can be a week's worth of fun.

While Neopets, like most sites these days, is most entertaining over a high-speed connection, the plethora of non-arcade games and activities makes it plenty of fun for even the pokiest of dial-up connections.

You will need the Flash 5 plugin to use much of the site, and you can get it by clicking here.

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