Math Heads Download (1996 Puzzle Game)

If Math Heads isn't the best educational math program of all time, it certainly has to be up there among the best. If there is any better, I haven't seen them.

The game starts by having the players pick a head, headgear and body that they like from among the group given in the program. Once they've assembled a body and given their names and what they like best, click on a channel on the channel changer and get to it.

The program has three games that teach math. "Go Mental" is played a lot like Hollywood Squares. Nine TVs of Celebrity Math Heads are before you. Pick one to hear a question and see them solve it. You must decide if they answered correctly or incorrectly. If you guess right, you get a certain number of dollars. Higher dollar amounts are earned for harder questions. The dollar amounts can be set via the Point-ometer. If you manage to get three heads in a row, you win!

"Dance 'Til You Drop" sets your representation dancing on a Disco floor. You will be asked a question and have a limited amount of time to answer it. Answer correctly and win points. Wrong answers or running out of time drop your character through the floor. Luckily, you don't have to get an exact correct answer, just a range.

Finally, there is "Face the Music". You will be asked to make matches based on a challenge. You might be asked to make matches based on a value over 50%. A series of pictures will come up, each with a part of them colored red. The player must choose those with more than 50% colored red. Correct answers gain points. Wrong answers lose points. After five rounds, players get to make a music video, picking the background, type of music and rate at which the video plays.

Now that the players have money points, they can spend them and "Go Shopping". Players can purchase math problems or games, new heads, bodies and headgear and more.

Finally, there is the Infomercial Channel. This gives math hints and help and is non-interactive.

This is an excellent Cd-Rom and I highly recommend it if your 10 to 14 year old is having trouble in math. Even if they aren't, it can even serve as a fun refresher for older kids. Who knows? Even Mom and Dad might use it.

Graphics: Graphics are fun, with the enjoyment of paper cut-outs but extremely realistic ones.

Sound: Sound is crisp and clear and easy to listen to.

Enjoyment: Though targeted for teens and older kids, everyone in the family will enjoy this game.

Replay Value: With different questions every time, replay is endless.

This game, like its companion Strategy Heads, uses the colorful, fast-paced, irony-laden look and sound of MTV to teach math problem-solving strategies. You can design a surrogate character for yourself from a menu of heads, bodies and accessories. To play the game, choose from a menu of seven TV stations using a remote control icon. Three of the stations feature math games. Go Mental is a math quiz show in which the player must evaluate the reasoning and accuracy of solutions given by other characters in response to word problems. Dance 'Til You Drop asks you to estimate the answer to a series of number problems by sliding a platform (on which you are standing) along a number line so that its width spans a number range which includes the correct answer. The platform shrinks with time requiring greater precision in estimation. The game ends when the platform vanishes and you fall. In Face the Music you try to beat the clock, matching percentages to equivalent fractions and pictures. As a reward you get to design a music video. Other stations feature infomercials, demonstrations of shortcut solutions to multiplication and division problems, and a shopping channel where players can purchase math games, among other items, with their accrued score credit.

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

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