If you're not a girl from about 5 to 8 years old or shopping for a gift for one, I'm going to make this very easy for you. Avoid this game at all costs. There you have it; move on to another review, there's nothing to see here.

Still with me? If you are then I'm going to give you a completely different recommendation. Build-A-Bear has a certain amount of charm to it that a young girl will find appealing. Parts of it may feel repetitive before too long even for a young girl, but it has enough going for it and is so coated in sugary cuteness that it can hold the attention of its intended audience for a little while at least.

Not too surprisingly you begin the game by visiting a Build-A-Bear shop and going through the steps that you would in a real store. You can select from a few animals besides a bear when you begin including a monkey or cat, so you should be able to find a critter to your liking. You then go through a number of very simple interactions on the touch screen to do things like stuff your bear, sew it up, and give it a loving heart (I'm not sure if they do this step in the real store or not). There's not a lot of customization available at this point, but there are plenty of little outfits for your bear that will become available later in the game. Once you have your bear you move it into its new house and the game itself begins.

Well, it's not so much a game as it is a collection of mini games and activities. You can teach your bear a series of tricks and dance moves by tracing out patterns on the touch screen for one, or visit the house's kitchen and cook up some treats in a simplified version of Cooking Mama. Mini games include musical chairs and another in which you much catch dripping honey in a honey pot. All of the games are pretty simple and the challenge level is definitely set low for its audience, but there's an awful lot of text to be read in the game and the interface is not always all that intuitive. This means that you should probably walk your youngster through each game once or twice or they may become frustrated before they can even get into the game.

The main attractions of the game are the ability to collect outfits and dress up the bear and teaching it tricks and dance moves. Even bear-loving young boys will find it hard to get too excited about this and would probably be more enthusiastic about teddy bear monster truck races. However, this definitely has its appeal to young girls, and if that appeal is strong enough they may not notice that there's not a whole heck of a lot to do in the game.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 68%. Just right for little girls, but not for anyone else.