Scooby and the gang are back for their fourth adventure from Riverdeep (formerly The Learning Company), but their first entry in a new series of mysteries titled the Scooby-Doo Case Files.

The Glowing Bug Man is a fun romp through a Museum of Natural History. A half-man, half-insect figure has been wandering the corridors damaging the exhibits and now Mystery, Inc. must piece together the clues to in order to uncover the culprit and discover the truth behind the disarray.

The first two Scooby games, Showdown in Ghost Town and Phantom of the Knight, were classic -and excellent – traditional point-and-click, inventory based adventure games. With Glowing Bug Man and the previous Jinx at the Sphinx, the focus has shifted to problem solving and critical thinking. Puzzles that previously advanced the plot are now presented as learning tools. Not that there is anything wrong with that, just be prepared for a different style of gameplay.

The game has three levels of difficulty to choose from – Spooky, Spookier and Spooktacular. The game itself does not change, but the puzzles become larger and more difficult. A sliding tile puzzle that has nine pieces on the Spooky level will have sixteen pieces at the Spooktacular level. After solving one of these puzzles, you receive a clue that will help identify the main suspect.

Probably the biggest improvement between Bug Man and the previous Scooby games is a procedure that allows you to eliminate the suspects one-by-one. As you find more evidence a grid system is filled in until only one suspect remains. As always, there is much replay value as the culprit’s identity changes from game to game.

The museum atmosphere is used to good effect as the gang can examine six different themed exhibits and care has been taken to ensure that the puzzles include actual objects that would be found in a real museum. Players can navigate between the Hall of Dinosaurs, the Archeology Room, the Excavation Pit and a Rock and Minerals room. Care has been taken for the puzzles to be indicative of the room in which they are found so, for example, in the Hall of Dinosaurs the player must maneuver a fossil exhibit from the back storage room.

Recommended for ages 5 – 10 you can probably bump the recommended age up a few years as the Scooby games, due to their high recognition factor, are immediately approachable as even my teenage boys stopped by to check out the graphics and gameplay. Don’t let the educational factor scare your children away as the recognizable personalities of the characters and their inherent humor help to maintain a lightness that never lets the game become too frustrating for the younger crowd.

Final Grade: C

System Requirements:

• 166Mhz processor or faster
• Windows 95/98/00/ME/XP
• 32MB RAM
• 50MB HD Space
• 16-bit Color Monitor
• Soundblaster Compatible Card
• Direct X 8.0
• Speakers
• Mouse