Talking Ben the Dog is Cute & Must-have for Kiddies
by Paul Wilks
Jan 26, 2012 1:02 PM –
Install
Talking Ben the Dog is a spin-off of the hugely popular Talking Tom Cat app by Outfit7. In a nutshell, Ben listens and repeats your words back to you in a funny voice. Instantly a hit with children, Ben also has other tricks to perform. The most fun of which includes a new laboratory setting where the brave (possibly foolish) Ben plays with dangerous chemicals. Highly interactive, it’s lots of fun and brilliant for children and adults with a juvenile sense of humour!
Price: Free, $0.99
Tested on: HTC Desire HD
Content Rating: Everyone
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Sharp graphics!
- Lots of primary activities!
- Very interactive!
- Bonus laboratory setting!
- Record feature!
Cons
- Ben doesn’t seem to be quite as good at listening as Tom!
Features:
If you have played around with the mobile hit Talking Tom Cat, you’ll be kind of familiar with the concept here. Ben is an anthropomorphic dog who will listen to you, and repeat back what you said, albeit in a silly voice. It’s highly amusing and anyone who has taken a lungful of Helium in order to emit a high-pitched squeaky voice will automatically know what I’m talking about.
Outfit7 have created a slew of these kinds of characters, from Santa and a Fairy to a Hippo, a Dinosaur and a cool Hedgehog. The added features separate these characters from being too similar. You essentially press tabs around the edge of the screen to invoke a variety of activities. With Talking Ben you can give him a drink, get him to eat some food, speak on the telephone, read a newspaper, make him burp or you could even break his graduation picture on the wall behind his chair. 
You can also poke him to cause various reactions.
Finally, you can enter a laboratory setting with Ben where he tests and has fun with a range of exotically coloured chemicals. Here you get to choose the combinations and watch what occurs when these are combined. I won’t give anything away, but Ben is quite daring and not particularly conscious of Health & Safety! This is all brilliant fun and pumped with humour and interactivity.
I did notice Ben didn’t seem quite as keen as Tom at listening to you and repeating back what you said, but this aside there is real polish in the app and always plenty to do. Kids utterly adore this kind of app and I have to wrestle it back from my children whenever they play with it. There’s sadly no free version of Talking Ben the Dog, but if you enjoyed Talking Tom Cat, or even the recently reviewed Talking Tom Cat 2, I would suggest this is even better.
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Talking Ben the Dog – Sitting, expecting…
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Talking Ben the Dog – Reading newspaper
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Talking Ben the Dog – Answering the phone
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Talking Ben the Dog – Food
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Talking Ben the Dog – Drink
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Talking Ben the Dog – In the lab
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Talking Ben the Dog – Exploding chemicals
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Talking Ben the Dog – Drinking chemicals
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Talking Ben the Dog – Fire
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Talking Ben the Dog – How to play
Usefulness:
For simple amusement purposes you might argue these kind of apps are unrivalled in the Android Market. Pure silliness and interactivity, Talking Ben the Dog is loads of fun and will amuse children for some time.
Ease of Use:
Bearing in mind that it can be used by children, the app is incredibly simple to use. Tabs around Ben are clear and the whole screen is touchable and interactive.
Frequently Used:
You’d treat this app more like a game than a functional application, so usage would probably be very casual. Ideal for a group of friends to play with or for the occupying of children for long periods (thank you Ben the babysitter.) 
Interface:
The graphics are incredibly detailed and the whole app has a high level of polish. Obviously it is a model Outfit7 have used a great deal and as such these apps always perform very well and the interfaces are always highly responsive.