Review: Ghostbusters 2 action figure set

6" action figure set by Mattel.  $60 from Toys R Us (USA exclusive). Everywhere else in the world = ebay.

Review: Soundwave & Blaster

Transformers.  Reissue Blaster £60 from Kapow Toys. Reissue Soundwave £55 from Toyz and Gamez. Original 80s Soundwave and Blaster...well, it's going to be ebay for those.

Soundwave & Blaster

Some people have been asking (well, actually they haven't asked directly, but there's a distinct possibility it's going through the minds of someone out there) whether the toys I review are actually played with by my children. 'Are they really interested in that 80s rubbish?'

News: I almost have what it takes be a 'Toyologist'

Toys R Us recently ran a 'Do you have what it takes to be a Toyologist' competition on their Facebook page. For those (I guess most people) who haven't got a clue what a 'toyologist' is, it's a group of people who are sent toy parcels from TRU who then stick reviews of what they've been sent on the internet.

It's a bit like how this site works, except I have to walk to TRU and hand over money to get hold of toys.

Anyway, as the deadline loomed on Sunday night I decided to give it a go and within a few minutes had this knocked up -

(Shortly after entering I decided to have a nosey at what the existing toyologist reviews were like, only to find out they were all by mums! I looked further and every toy review blog I could find (that wasn't mentioning sloppy paint jobs, bent weapons, or 'I hate Matty!') was by women too! This blog was started a few minutes later. But I'm getting off the point...)

Anyway, the winners were announced today and I am happy to say that the boys and I are runners up. Yay us.

Review: Vtech Baby Laptop

£15.99, Mothercare amongst other places

Review: Madballs, Sick Series

£6.99, Argos amongst other places.

Maballs Sick Series 1&2

There are some things that girls will never understand. The importance of rear speakers...the offside rule...and Madballs!

Review: Francesco the Vampire

Doctor Who 5 inch action figure, £8.99 from Character Online, amongst other places.

Review: Transformers Sky Lynx

This is the Encore reissue of the toy that came out in the 1987 - except (wikipedia informs me) due to licensing issues, it wasn't actually released as a Transformers toy by Takara in Japan until 2008. As fate would have it, Tomy had the rights so when Takara and Tomy merged in 2007 they were finally able to release Sky Lynx and Omega Supreme (what? Japan never had Omega? Shocking!)

What's it all about?

My (admittedly limited) search of the internet has led me to discover two things about toy review sites:

1. Men write reviews about toys they collect.
2. Women write reviews about toys their kids play with.

It seems to be that there aren't any (or at the very least, not many) toy review sites/blogs written by dads about their children's toys.  I thought about addressing that balance, but then I decided I'd go one step further and just review everything toy-related instead.

The reviews will cover two general areas:

1. How much fun the toy is to play with if you're a child.
2. How much fun the toy is to play with if you're a dad (or mum, but my wife doesn't really play with toys much so I won't be asking for her opinion on things very often).

I'll be covering old toys, new toys, old toys that I've newly freed from the box - everything. Some will be easily available in the shops (and I'll try to mention a couple of places where), others you might have to resort to ebay to get hold of.

A lot of the time the toy choice will probably be made by whatever the boys have been playing with that day and subsequently left lying in the middle of the floor when they went to bed.