Everybody knows that the Walt Disney Company is inherently evil. Between their crappy movies, The Disney Channel, and ABC, they're not only making zero contributions to society, they're actually making matters worse. So it should come as no surprise to anybody that they licensed not one, but TWO educational games on NES (not to mention Mickey Mousecapades, a game that, while not exactly educational, wasn't very fun either). Both games were produced by Hi-Tech Expressions... yes, the same Hi-Tech expressions that produced Win, Lose, or Draw, one of the dumbest ideas ever for a video game (especially for a system that lacked a mouse). Each of these games were intended to teach the player a fundamental skill: Spelling or counting. The first game, Mickey's Adventures in Numberland, focused on the latter.

The story of the game is as follows: That darn Pete stole all the letter plates from the Numberland town hall! The game never specifies what the plates are for, or why they're held at the town hall, but you can be sure they're important because Sheriff Donald Duck hires Mickey Mouse to find them. Mickey must search in the city, a factory, a space station, and a museum. Here's what I don't understand: Why would this Pete fellow steal these plates, only to scatter them around in museums and space stations? By the way, if you think I'm being an anal retentive jerk by analyzing educational video game storylines, you're absolutely correct.

There are three difficulty settings: Normal, Advanced, and Super Advanced. Normal seems to follow the basic rules of educational video games; that is, you can never die or get injured in any way, shape, or form. There are enemies in the levels, but all they do is make you do a flip. If that sounds ridiculous, please remember that in Mario's Time Machine, getting hit by an enemy causes you to duck. All of a sudden a flip doesn't seem so odd, does it? The Super Advanced mode makes the game a bit more fun, giving Mickey a health counter (and thus the ability to die). But no amount of mortality can make this game difficult enough to be all that fun. Unless you're the type of person who enjoyed Donkey Kong Jr. Math, stay away from this game. If you did enjoy Donkey Kong Jr. Math, consider yourself a virgin for life.

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