Yogi Bear visits the National Parks

That Yogi Bear became the most famous bear from the Far West all the way north to the high peaks is a testament to America's knack for creating beloved characters. But Yogi Bear was American, and his adventures on computers looked completely different than in the cartoon.

This is a Point-and-Click adventure from the early nineties by a publisher that didn't shy away from putting their name on this title. The game sends you and Yogi's partner Boo-Boo through the national parks of the United States. The goal is simple: collect things, solve basic logic puzzles, and progress through a story drawn from the TV series, so the clash between the park ranger and the thieving bear is the main driving force.

There aren't many game screens. You click on objects, gather them into your inventory, and apply them where needed. The graphics are stiff, with colors that remind you of old computer paintings rather than anything that would enchant you. The movement animations are rigid, as if the character jumps between positions without any transition. The sounds are acceptable, but there aren't many — just a few bleeps and bloops with a deep background track that repeats. Playing lasts a couple of hours, and then it's done. There's no reason to replay it.

The game deserves credit for existing at all — for its time it was a modest achievement for fans of the character. But today? You click, you wait, and then you can't remember why you did it. The puzzles are primitive and boring with few exceptions, and the story isn't reason enough for anyone to spend time at the monitor.

If you're a Yogi Bear nostalgic and want to see what he looked like in digital form on 1990s computers, you can play it in an emulator. As entertainment for a long evening though, it's not. It's average interactive reading where there's more waiting than joy of discovery. In the adventure archive, it's a curiosity, not a treasure.