Toyology review: Lego Cargo Heliplane

There's really no competition for the best toy of all time. Without a doubt it's Lego, who've been producing bricks since 1949 and, despite the current trend of looking down on plastic toys, is a firm favourite with everyone across the world.

With the abundance of 'themed' Lego sets - you can get everything from Star Wars to Lord of the Rings to The Simpsons in Lego form now, not to mention Chima, Friends, Castle etc - it's rare that we buy a 'basic' Lego City set so it was a nice change to receive this one for review from Toys R Us.

Plus it comes with a Lego chainsaw!

Hello, Boys! I'm Baaacccck!

...so said a semi-intoxicated gentleman, shortly before he flew an aeroplane into a big alien gun. But I'm not here to talk about that.

No, I'm here to let everyone know that I am, once again, a Toys R Us Toyologist. I have the shiny badge to prove it. Look -

Cool, eh?

I'd post my (successful) application review, but since it's the post immediately prior to this one (I've been away!) doing that seems slightly pointless.

I'm in Green Group, which means I'll be receiving toys 'suitable' for 4-6 year olds. In the short term, this means I spend a lot of time studying boxes in shops to see what sort of thing is recommended for 4-6 year olds. In the mid-term, this means I'll be getting a big box with toys suitable for 4-6 year olds very soon. And in the slightly-longer-term, this means that soon there will be slightly unique (would you expect anything else from me?) toy reviews for these 4-6 year old toys appearing on the web.

In 3 different places, no less.

There's an official Toys R Us blog, located here.

All reviews will also be on the main Toys R Us site.
And I will, of course, stick everything here on my blog too.

That's it for now. I guess I'd better get on with writing my profile for the TRU blog...

Toys R Us Toyology 2012

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, Toys R Us are once again recruiting toyologists. The application brief is to review a 'must have toy or product for your child's age'. Despite setbacks such as smashed cameras and children being away at their grandparents, my application is finally complete. Officially it's for the 4-6 age group, but unofficially I think you'll agree it's a 'must have' for everyone, young and old.

Toyology 2011: A Look Back

6 boxes. 6 months. 42 toys. 42 reviews, ranging from the barely-sane to the outright crazy.

For a number of years I ran the weekly quiz at the University of Birmingham Guild of Students. Our quizzes were never exactly what you'd call 'normal'. They were more about trying to get people to have fun than testing people's knowledge. You only have to look at the Loser's Round & it's tenuous links, the Design A Care Bear/My Little Pony/Guild President rounds, or the end of term specials where, despite protesting otherwise, bribes were commonplace and people ended up on scores in the millions...both positive and negative.

With the End Of Terms especially, you either got into the spirit of them, or you left in protest after Round 1.

The same goes with my toyology reviews over the past 6 months. It's been rare that I've done a 'normal' review. Whenever possible, I've done slightly off the wall reviews, which I hope readers have found interesting and drawn more attention to the products for toy vendors that might have been achieved with a 'normal' review (I could be wrong, of course - I may had inadvertently turned people away from all the toys & upset all toy manufacturers across the country). From the start I've aimed to make the reviews interesting even if you had no interest in the product. I have no idea whether I've achieved this, but if nothing else they've kept me entertained.

Toyologist Review: B.I.G. Power Hand

BIG Hand Kombat

Toyologist Review: Fast Wheels RC

Fast Wheels RC: The Musical

It seemed like such a good idea when I thought there was no chance of ever getting the music...

Toyologist Review: GX Buggy

£34.99 from Toys R Us.

BBC2 at 6pm used to be home to all the good stuff. Yes, it was annoying if you worked and got home too late, but I was at high school (or university) so this wasn't a problem (except for lab days). Star Trek, Buffy, The Simpsons, Malcolm in the Middle, Quantum Leap, Sliders, the Fresh Prince (actually, I hated the Fresh Prince and its endless repeats), ...

Everyone would rush home and ensure evening meals were cooked & ready for a sit down at 6pm, where you would remain (on a good night) for 90 minutes watching quality television.

I don't know where it all started to go wrong. Maybe it was when BBC2 stuck Voyager on Sunday instead of a weekday slot. Or possibly when Channel 4 got Angel and the term 'Channel 4 edit' was coined. Angel would walk into a room full of bad guys. Instantly - as though someone had hacked at the film reel with a machete - Angel would leave the room, bad guys all on the floor.

Some shows just weren't meant for 6pm.

Of course then the BBC lost the Simpsons and it was all downhill from there. No more Buffy, no more Trek. Even Robot Wars disappeared, off to Channel 5.

Remember when Jeremy Clarkson hosted it? Yeah, that series was terrible. All the good robots, the highly weaponised fighting machines, were knocked out by the maneuverability challenges early on, so when it got to the Big Fight at the end all that were left were... Well, not good ones.

Then Craig Charles took over. We had Philipa Forrester in a corset, the early rounds were thrown out in favour of pure battles, and robots like Razer and Hypno-Disc came to the fore.

In the event of a tie, the battles were judged on damage, control, style and aggression. Control was very important when facing some of the big guns. Once they had hold of you, you were in serious trouble. The amount of people who, at the start of the battle, drove straight forward into the waiting pincer of Razer... Idiots.

Speaking of control...

The latest item out of the Toyology box is the GX Buggy from Tomy. First thing you have to do after extracting the car from its packaging is sit and wait for 20 minutes while it charges (from which you get 10 minutes driving time) from the box it comes with, which drove my sons insane. You know how annoying it is when you buy a new mobile phone and have to sit and watch it charge for hours before you can use it? Imagine that, but with the patience (or lack of) of two young brothers. I don't think it would have added much to the weight of the car to simply stick a battery into the car to allow for instant play.

Toyologist Review: Count N Crunch Cookie Monster

£29.99 from Toys R Us.

A little while ago we tried out the new Elmo. The general conclusion was that it was ridiculously overpriced for what you got (thankfully the price has plummeted almost everywhere since). We've now received Count N Crunch Cookie Monster, a simpler toy which is priced much, much lower. What did we think of this one?

Well...

Toyologist Review: Chuggington Championship Deluxe

£29.99 from Toys R Us.


The Trial of Chuggington Championship Deluxe

The Chuggington Championship Deluxe is accused of raising hopes, dashing dreams and generally being a not very good toy. It is hereby sentenced to--

Defence: Hang on a minute, we haven't had the trial part yet! Chuggington Champ... Can we just call it CCD? The full name is a bit of a moutful.

Prosecution: Agreed. It'd be impossible to fit the full title on a letter to Santa. Yet another crime it is guilty of!

D: Well, if we're going to get that petty...

P: Hey, I was perfectly happy to sit back and skip straight to the sentencing. If you're going to insist I do work... Look, I don't need to 'get that petty' to ensure this toy remains on the shop shelves of Toys R Us and not in the trolleys of the good hard-working people of this land. CCD's crimes are numerous and severe. Is it really necessary to highlight them all?

D: That would generally be what trials are for. That way the defendant gets a chance to, you know, defend himself.

Toyologist Review: Lightning McQueen Feature Plush

£24.99 from Toys R Us.


Lightning McQueen Feature Plush Review Crossword!

Across
7. The manufacturer of this toy.
10. Noises are activated when you place a ____ key on Lightning McQueen.
11. The length of the car in cm (6,4).
14. Lightning is recommended for ages ___ and up.
15. One of the directors of Cars 2 (4, 8).
16. Lightning has a 'walking' action, which it does very, very ___
17. Lightning McQueen's catchphrase in the film and said by the toy!

Down
1. The sound is extremely ___
2. Batteries are ___ !
3. The number of AA batteries Lightning takes.
4. Lightning has problems walking on this.
5. One of the production companies that made Cars 2.
6. Lightning's nickname in the films.
8. The other director of Cars 2 (4,5).
9. The voice of Lightning in the film, and probably the toy, but it's a bit hard to tell for sure (4,6).
12. The fictional make of tyres Lightning uses.
13. The other production company that made Cars 2.
15. The month Cars 2 was released in cinemas in the UK.

Toyologist Review: Moshi Monsters Mosh N Chat

£21.99 from Toys R Us.

For the past 6 boxes (aka '6 months' - we toyologists measure time in boxes), James Spence has been doing his reviews in the form of comics. For the final box, and my continuing series of 'experimental' format reviews, I thought I'd have a go too. The toy in question: the caramel-coloured Moshi Monster Katsuma!

I have just read on the Toys R Us product page that there's a manufacturer warning about this: 'Warning. Contains fragrances that may cause allergies', which is strange since Katsuma doesn't appear to be in any way fragrant.

If your child loves Moshi Monsters, or just slightly evil-looking toys (I notice he's been made a lot more evil-looking since the photos were taken for the box - check out the difference between the one I took for the comic & those on the TRU page), then this would be a great buy.

Other Toyology reviews can by found in the Toys R Us Toy Box on Facebook.

Toyologist Review: Playmobil Agents Car

£17.99 from Toys R Us

Choose Your Own Review

Reviews usually flow logically from A to B, but sometimes it's fun to shake things up a little. What if the reader controlled where the review went? What if instead of going from A to B, it went from A to H via G S D and M? Welcome to Choose Your Own Review: Playmobil Agents Car. Read it once, read it twice, read it many times to get the full review!

Hopefully I've got everything set correctly and a wonderful adventure awaits you. If not then, um, this isn't entirely expected and you'll have to try and make the best of it!

1

You are the newest recruit to the Top Agents, an organisation determined to bring down the sinister Robo Gangsters and their nefarious schemes.

In their latest sinister plot the Gangsters have been hard at work in their secret laboratories, creating an army of robots to TAKE OVER THE WORLD! It’s your mission to locate the factory and destroy the robots. If you could bring down the whole Gangster organisation too, that’d be great, though we would lack a plot were there ever to be a sequel.

Agent codename M.U.M., your superior and head of the Top Agents, has offered you a choice between two modes of transport for the mission.  Which do you choose?

7 – Playmobil agents car

18 – Panthor

Other Toyology reviews can by found in the Toys R Us Toy Box on Facebook. I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to stick this review in there! 

Toyologist Review: Chou Chou Magic Pacifier

£44.99 from Toys R Us

Granted, they're not aimed at me but I've always wondered about dolls.  Specifically, how many does one child need?  One, I understand.  Little girl wants to play 'mummy' (yes, I'm generalising with the genders, forgive me!), put baby in pushchair, take her for a walk etc etc.

But does a little girl want 2 dolls?  Gets harder to transport then.  What about 3?  You're a bit stuffed then, right?  Normally by the time an adult has 3 children the first is one is big enough to do a bunch of stuff (like walking) by himself (okay, on rare occasions there are triplets etc).

But, like dads, dolls never grow up.

What I'm getting at is if you're going to only have one you need to make make sure it's a good one.

Do you go for a straight-forward static doll? Or something that takes a handful of AAs and does something? And then does what in particular? None of them can do everything, after all a doll is a model of a baby, not a real one. As George Box said, 'all models are wrong, but some are useful.'

Chou Chou does perform a baby function. Bizarrely, it's actually an improvement on real babies; an evolutionary jump. It hasn't sprouted wings, or able to fire optic blasts from its eyes but it does something every parent desires more than anything. More, even, than getting a good night's sleep. This baby tells you what's wrong when it cries.

More than once in my parenting career I've been faced with a screaming baby and no idea what's wrong with it. Hungry? No, just been fed.  Nappy? Clean. Wind?  Nope.  Then what?  What's wrong, Baby?  It's 3am and you've woken me and won't stop screaming and I'm tired and irritable and... WHY WON'T YOU TELL ME???!!!!!!

And breathe.

Chou Chou comes with a dummy (definitely not a pacifier, despite what the box says), a Magic Dummy, for indeed only magic could reveal the inner workings of a child's mind! Place the dummy in Chou Chou's mouth and her desire is revealed!

Toyologist Review: Handz-On Creativity Table

Available in store at Toys R Us.

Before Mister Maker there was Neil Bucannon. Before Neil there was Tony Hart. My old art teacher once said that she didn't agree with some of the things Tony put in his shows, but she did think he was one of the greatest ambassadors for art in the country. In his time Tony Hart must have encouraged thousands and thousands of kids to pick up a pencil and draw something, so I guess my teacher was right (for once).

It was a tragedy that two strokes left him with the inability to draw. In a weird way, I was kind of happy when he died, as he no longer had to suffer being deprived of his greatest love.

Which is all a little depressing, so we'll move swiftly on to the table review.

Toyologist Review: Leapfrog Learning Table

£34.99 from Toys R Us.

For the purpose of this review (for reasons that will become clear shortly) I attempted to think up the most famous Frenchperson I could.

Obviously, this was Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise.

Now I know he doesn't sound very French, but this is probably because he's spent a lot of time warping about the galaxy, having his body upgraded and asked about room illumination.

I'm almost certain that for when he was a young Picard, his parents, Maurice and Yvette, almost certainly bought him something along the lines of the Leapfrog Learning Table. Why? Well, every Starfleet captain needs to begin his learning somewhere and it will certainly help to know both your native French language and also - since Starfleet Academy is in San Francisco - English.

Toyologist Review: Secret Agent Torpedo diver

As we learned from previous sets (here and here), there's always a 'gadget' in the Playmobil Agent sets. So, what is it with this one? Well, it'll be the little big propeller at the back of the boat-thing which spins and powers the boat-thing along in water.

Toyologist Review: Snazaroo Face Painting Sticks

Marmite. Jedward. Let's Rock Elmo.

There are no in-between opinions on any of these. You either love them or hate them with a fiery vengeance. There's another thing that can be added to the list: face painting.

Some kids love face painting. They form large queues at fairs to be transformed into tigers or butterflies. Others, however, run in fear when someone approaches them with a paintbrush in a way someone might from a man wearing a William Shatner mask.

My children, well, they never like to make my life easy and thus have decided that face-painting is one step above 'having hair washed' on the Hate Scale. This made reviewing these face painting sticks potentially a little difficult.

Maybe it's my fault. Maybe I shouldn't have scribbled a little Tony Stark goatee on my youngest son's face when he was tiny. How was I supposed to know permanent ink would be so difficult to remove?

So, in the end, it was down to me and me alone to test. Applying paint to my own face in front of a mirror proved a little problematic, but the results...  Well, they weren't too bad.

Toyologist Review: Follow Me Thomas

Currently £39.99 from Toys R Us

"What can be dreamed can be achieved," Scully once said on the X-Files. I think (it's been a while since I saw it) she was referring to the moon landings, but it applies equally to the imaginations of toy designers.

There's nothing more annoying (apart from those things that are) about a toy being advertised as doing something clever and then, when you get it home from the shop - or even worse, unwrap it on Christmas day - only to discover that it's not all it seemed to be on the advert. At least on a regular day there's the option of taking it straight back to the shop, but on Christmas day? When you've pinned all your hopes on it entertaining you through to at least Boxing day? You're stuffed.

Thankfully, there are times when this isn't the case. When a toy claims to do something clever and, well, it does.

So which category does Follow Me Thomas fall into? Success or failure? Was Granddad awestruck as he watched the demonstration or not?

News: The full length TRU advert for 2011

In response, I assume to the 'uproar' by (crazy) people on the Facebook page, TRU have unveiled the full-length Christmas advert on FB.

I know there are a couple of hundred people on Facebook who might lynch me for this (compared to the 30,000 other people in the FB group who don't seem to care either way), but I kind of like it. The visuals are a vast improvement (time had taken its toll on the old cartoon), despite what people are claiming Geoffrey is definitely still in the ad, and neither new nor old song is really very Christmassy.

The real question is, is there anyone who's really bothered about the change? Since these days commercial breaks between shows are easily skipable, how many people are actually going to watch it? Kids, maybe? Well, I think they're all going to fall 100% in favour of the new ad.

Toyologist Review: Batcave

Boots are big at the moment. Wellingtons, UGGs, Waders, and Reboots.

No, not the fantastic 90s animated series, but taking a franchise and starting it over fresh.

Bond's had a go. Star Trek sort of did it...while also not (it's technically still in continuity with the previous things). Spider-Man. Planet of the Apes. Superman...

It all began (more or less) with Batman Begins, which (almost) made up for the travesty that was Batman & Robin.

shudder

And last month the entire DC Comics universe has rebooted.

(Batman is part of the DC universe, for you poor non-comic fans out there).

While I read a lot of comics ('how much did you spent on comics this week, Mr Johnson?!' 'Um, not too much, Mrs Johnson. Quick, must hide the receipt...'), I don't read a lot of DC ones. Obviously I've read all of Sandman and (most of) Preacher, but they're probably not a great basis for a child's toyline (but then there was an Aliens line). Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run was a favourite, but that's the closest I've gotten to mainstream DC Universe.

The idea of rebooting is to refresh something old and bring in a new audience(/readers). DC's reboot has kinda worked, as I'm now buying Swamp Thing and Animal Man.

And so we come, via a semi-relevant route, to the rebooted Batcave.

 

Okay, so it's not a 'reboot' in the technical sense, it's simply a new version of the Imaginex Batcave.