Activity Toy Reviews

This set of assorted short tracks is hard to avoid if you want to create a track layout of even an intermidiate size. The male-male and female-female pieces will provide a dramatic increase in the number of layouts possible as you can now overcome the problem of curves returning to the starting position.

This is a must-have for any Brio enthusiast.

Good first kit for a kid about 11 or 12yrs old.

I thought the original Furby was cute when I first got it, but it got boring fairly quickly. It doesn't do anything unless it's ordered to (and I find the fact that you have to order them to do things rather than ask kindly not very great), and it only has a maximum of five responses, usually less. The original Furby had hundreds of phrases! The new Furby is not ugreaded except for how it moves. I think that Hasbro must have put all of their money for the Furby into the voice recognition and the emoto-tronics, and not put much into the responses and had to take out the light sensor. Something like that. Also, I think that the fact that they can only understand about six phrases makes them seem less realistic than when they couldn't understand any at all. The original one seemed more lively. Oh, another thing I forgot to mention, the new Furby's voice is very flat most of the time, especially compared to the original.

I admit that it was fun for the first week or so, but after that I really haven't turned the furby on at all since then, except to try to get my Furby to talk to my friend's Furby, but somehow, one of our Furbys runs out of battery every time we try...

Okay, basically I don't recommend the new Furby. If you want a ton of huggable fun that isn't as much trouble as a real pet, I'd recommend either one of the original Furbys or Furby Babies. You could try one of the new Furby Babies, too I guess, but I don't know what they're like because I don't have one. They don't have voice recognition, though, so maybe they are more spontaneous than the big Furbys.

. . . and I have never played one on television, I have interacted enough with the breed, including Shelbies, Furbies, Baby Furbies, foreign Furbies, and this new Furby, to likely qualify for solid "amateur furbologist" status.

My credentials aside, let's proceed to the business at hand. At Christmas, my family purchased the new, bigger Furby, ostensibly for our dog, as no one will step forward to claim ownership of this toy, that is designed for children. As the dog cannot protest, it is officially hers. More on that, later.

First of all, when purchasing a new-version Furby, one will immediately note the paucity of color choices. The regular Furby that resides at our house, who names herself Godzola, and who belongs to the dog (more on that, later), is black-and-orange tiger-striped. This new big Furby is gray (I prefer that spelling to "grey" for reasons beyond my own fathoming) with a blue belly, and that was the most interesting color combination we could get. Bleh. Of course, I believe that dogs are color-blind, so the chromatic aspects are of little interest to our dog. More on that, later.

Secondly, the new Furby is big. Not homongous, but still quite largish. It is easily twice the size of Godzola, giving my dog two different-sized Furbies, plus the Baby Furby she has. More on that, later.

Thirdly, let us speak of speech quality. This new Furby speaks more Furbish than any of our dog's other Furbies (yes, you know, more on that later). It does speak English, but blends in more Furbish than the others, no matter how much our dog plays with her. Also, the sound quality of her speech is a bit tinny.

Fourthly, this Furby is no American Idol candidate, as she has one song. One. Uno. Un. "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" is a nice song, but singers don't get far being a one-trick pony (nice Paul Simon song, is "One Trick Pony," by the way, but I digress). One song ain't a repertoire. Even my dog knows that.

Fifthly, let us broach the subject of comedy. This Furby tells good knock-knock jokes, tells them well, and cutely laughs at her own jokes. Our dog does not find her humorous, but more on that, later.

Sixthly, we shall address the narrative aspect. This new Furby tells you all about her home of origin, which is surprisingly an island. Well, it surprised me, but, as you might have guessed, it didn't surprise our dog. Either way, she (the Furby, not the dog) describes life on the island fairly comprehensively. I wonder why she left.

Seventhly, as to the communication feature, we have a big plus and a fairly big minus. The plus is that this new Furby has some word-recognition software, and will respond in certain ways to certain words. The minus is that, while the new allegedly will interact with other new Furbies, it will not interact with a Shelby, an old Furby, a Baby Furby, or my dog. There will not be more on the dog-Furby communication later, as it was likely assumed by most readers anyway.

Eighthly, this new Furby has a cute game, called "Red Light, Green Light." I will not spoil the fun by detailing the game, but it involves tickling and does not involve automobiles or dogs. It also has nothing to do with the DVD called "Red Light, Go!"

Ninthly, we get to the much-touted "Emototronics" feature of this new Furby. The feature has two aspects: variety of voice-tone, facial expression. The response-variety is nice. For example, if you ask Furby for her attention, you might get "Doo?" (Furbish for "What?"), "Yeah?" (sounding amusedly curious), "Huh? (just responsive), or "What?" (clearly sounding annoyed, as in "What do you want this time?!").

Tenthly, there is The Spoon. This total waste of plastic is completely replaceable by the human finger, and petroleum products are finite.

Eleventhly, and lastly, our dog dislikes all Furby products, appears to be jealous of them, and would loudly disclaim ownership of them, if she could loudly disclaim something. Although, I do hope it would not be the first thing she said.

There will be no more on that, now, or later.

The first time i saw the Furby online i was hooked...i was like i got to have this toy. CUT TO: 2 mins later i was in the checkout line buying this toy and i took it home BAM! The toy blew my mind. The only thing is that i brought this toy at walmart for $19.98 and here on amazon it is $34.99 which, when you think about it...this is something of a big diffrence in price when you factor in the shipping and handling. anywho buy this toy if you are a fan of toys.