Games Reviews

Great educational toy. I have 2 kids with special needs and this is a great way for them to learn to read. I am having a hard time finding more DVD Books for the system. Found some here. Hope they continue to make them.

This Read with Me DVD helps kids with letter recognition, matching lower and upper case letters together! It also emphasizes rhyming, which is an important pre-reading awareness. My daughters and I found out about Chicka Chicka Boom Boom from Blue's Clues, so when this showed up Christmas morning, they were so excited. My almost four-year-old daughter understood how to use this toy with only minimal instruction from me. She watched the dvd "read" the book to her, and then she chose to play games based on the book she had just read. It is very interactive, educational, mesmerizing and entertaining. She will play with this for 30 min-1 hour, asking me questions every now and then. She likes that she controls what happens, whether it's just reading or playing the games. She asks to play this when she wants to be a "big" kid. She thinks she's playing video games, just like Dad!

This plane only flys about 80 Feet from the Remote control before out of range. This does not give enough time or distance to do what the instructions say to do to manuver in flight. This was a total waste of time and money

If you are a picky mom like me...i.e you DO NOT let your child watch "sponge bob" or "Scooby Doo" and you maybe even read Mothering Magazine, DO NOT get this book.
I didn't feel the jokes were appropriate, I guess I am a bit of a nerd about these things. It isn't funny to have a headless man poor beer/ale down the "hole" in his neck. They discussed murdering Shrek (hey leap pad, not age appropriate!!!!), and I didn't like to see "human" Shrek in chains fighting to get free (nor did my son).
They have "ugly" phrases that could have been more kid friendly, my son pointed out the ugly phrases, and snarled his nose at them saying "Mom, that was UGLY!".
I was dissappointed with this book, and I am taking mine back to the store.
I really like the leap frog system, even though I don't normally buy toys that require batteries...i.e the toys do something for the kid, instead I normally buy "old fashioned" natural toys where my son has to make the toys do stuff (blocks, leggos etc) BUT I REALLY love this system. It is a treat for my son to have an electronic toy so he really gets into Playing it and of course "accidently" learning.
I also didn't like the Hop on Pop leap book for similar reasons, even though the Dr. Suess part was great, the leap pad people added unneeded "ugly" phrases again that were just NOT age appropriate. Although I did like the minimal writing on most of the Dr. Suess pages.
I do like the regular "Leap" ones...moss lake etc, and the honey pot one with pooh bear.
Sorry to be so picky, if you are not picky you will probly like this book.

The Shrek 2 was an excellent addition to our Library. For Boy's it's great as well as girls

I purchased this cartridge for the Leap Pad and gave it to my son age 3 1/2 and he loves this book! He plays with the Shrek 2 book for an hour at a time, that is the first Leap pad book he has ever took that much interest in before. All the voices are exactly the same as the movie its a must have if your little one likes Shrek 2.
A+

This is a great toy. And with the new reduced price - it's a steal. This was a piece of cake to assemble - yes, I had to follow the directions, but I had it up and playing in about 45 minutes - and No, I am not very techno and handy. The lair has a lot of cool things, like a zip line, and an elevator with an escape hatch, a plunger shooter and a sofa the can tilt over to get rid of the bad guys. So much fun and very imaginative for young minds. I love it!

This was a lot of work to put together (I thought so, my husband thought it was easy) but my 3 and a half year old son LOVES IT. He has spent days playing with it and he loves all the little things you can do with it. I think the original price is a little high, but if your kid loves Ninja turtles, they will probably like this too.

I was nervous about this after reading a few reviews on this and some other toys simular to this one. My son has had alot of fun with his other figurines ( Star Wars, Batman, Dinosaurs, etc) hanging out with the Turtles in the lair! Dora has even made a visit. My son gets frustrated easily so I was concerned about the durability. It' just fine! We dont close it up, it stays open in his room and it travels all over the house. It has been alot of fun for my son! I am glad that I chose this Lair over the Batman cave.

Our 2 year old enjoys playing games with us to guess who is hiding underneath the different parts of the farm. Without the hidden animals and people it would not be nearly as much fun and would be just another puzzle.

We gave this puzzle to our two year old nephew and he spent alot of time playing with it and loved surprising us with the pictures beneath the puzzle pieces.
this product is very well made, and the price is right.

Our 3 year old son LOVES this puzzle and never gets tired of it. Every single day, he takes time out to play with it. It may be too easy for him now but he still likes to do it and I think it got him started on other puzzles as well. It is sturdy and the colors are great!

I wanted a robotic pet for our busy family, so I bought the original RoboSapien when it first came out. Though we had a lot of fun with it, it lacked autonomy (the ability to do things on its own). Robopet promised that, so I bought that next for my family. It looked promising!

At first, it was immensely fun. It seemed to deliver on its promises. It could roll over, sit up and beg, and scampered about as it explored its environment without running into anything. However, I was disappointed with the fact that it had trouble on a threshhold (the raised part where one floor type changes to another floor type), and could easily get itself stuck in a corner with only one or two obsticals. Oddly, uneven and soft surfaces posed a great challenge; one would assume that a walking robot with four legs ought to be able to walk on anything, but robopet needed a hard, flat surface. Also, I questioned the durability of this 'bot.

Now, I'm not sure if it's something that happened when it fell 6" to the floor after backing away from a wall, or if it was a defect, but mine started locking up whenever I used it in edge detection mode. Nothing takes the fun out faster than when this 'bot freezes in some odd pose and becomes completely unresponsive until it's reset; this after only a couple of minutes of play.

I did some research on my problem, and discovered other durability and quality issues. Apparently, the gears inside are made out of cheap plastic and are prone to stripping. The legs aren't very strong at all and they are also prone to breaking. This wouldn't be that big of a deal if spare parts were readily available, cheap, and easy to replace, but this is not the case.

I'm sorry, but a robotic pet needs to be reasonably durable. If it walks, then it needs to be able to walk on grass, carpet, gravel...and finally, it ought to be able to tell you when it's "Hungry" (low battery power) at the very least. If you want to get into the world of robotics, I suggest one of the many good kits, and if you're in the market for a cheap robotic pet, wait a little longer. Robopet does come close, but we're not quite there yet.

This does everything it's supposed to--lots of cool tricks, no trouble walking on carpets or hard floors, etc. It's not too noisy (just noisy enough to entertain kids), and the programming is very clever. My 10 year old has the patience to read the directions; my 6 year old just pushes buttons and enjoys himself. My kids think it's "awesome!" I'm glad the price was reduced, but it's definitely worth $70 (including shipping).

My 6 year old nephew got this for his birthday after he got the dinopet for Christmas and he loves them both! This is so funny it even acts like it is peeing! This is a pet I can handle we all love it!

We just bought this vacuum today from Toys R Us for our 13 month old son who is *obsessed* with vacuuming. He LOVES this toy and seemed very appreciative of our purchase. In fact, because of his age I'm not sure if he even realized that this isn't the real thing! However, there are some serious design issues with this vacuum.
Two caveats:

1) What other reviewers say about the plastic door covering the attachments is absolutely true. It doesn't stay closed, and the attachments just fall out- very poor design! Do the people who design these things ever actually touch them? Because a light touch is all that is needed to knock the case open and dump the attachments out. We'll probably keep this taped closed in the future.

2) On our vacuum, the two halves of plastic (front and back) that join to make up the handle do not line up properly (which we couldn't tell until we took it out of the box). My husband was able to pry the halves open and inspect it with a flashlight, and found that a hole where a small piece of plastic was supposed to fit in was deformed. We then pushed a screwdriver into the hole and wiggled it around to open the hole, and the problem was solved solved for the most part (the gap between the two halves is much smaller).

Overall, this toy is a total piece of you-know-what. I would have much rather paid more for a sturdier toy. However, I still think it is worth every penny because of the pure unadulterated joy on our son's face as he walked around "vacuuming" our living room. I would absolutely recommend this to parents of children who are really fascinated by the grownup vacuum, because this is a very realistic substitute.

We bought this vacuum for my son when he was just 2. He loves it and still plays with it now - almost a year later. We have replaced the batteries once. Unfortunately, we have lost all the attachments and the plastic cover and blue cover... but he still gets it out anytime i vacuum. I'm on here to get another one for my younger daughter.

My daughter loves her Hoover. I got it for her for christmas. She pulls it out whenever I'm cleaning to help me. I haven't had any problems with the door breaking and my little one breaks everything. She's had it for 6 months now and she uses it several times a week.

Lot's of fun, BE AWARE, AMAZON is not selling the WHITE (vanilla). They are shipping BROWN (chocolate) color. I sent the first brown one back and specifically asked for vanilla white. They sent me the BROWN one again. Amazon is color blind or they don't have white.

My favorite thing about Matchin' Middles is how big and sturdy the pieces are, so even the littlest kids can play with it. So many games for preschoolers have small cardboard pieces, which means little brother can easily destroy them or swallow them. With Matchin' Middles, even my one year old can safely play with it - he enjoys opening the container, pulling the pieces out, and putting them back. His older brother learned turn-taking and all his shapes from the great memory game (which can be easily adjusted depending on the child's ability). A-plus.

This toy is fun, educational, theraputic, and inexpensive. My autistic daughter first played with this when her early interventionist brought it. All of the other reviews on this toy are right on! I bought this for her to keep at home, it was so great. There are many ways to play with this. You can use it as a puzzle to match the shapes and put the cookies together. You can play memory with them. My daughter is now too old for them to use in these ways, so she plays "tea party" with them! How's that for toy mileage! I was surprised to see them in "vanilla". (Ours were chocolate like Oreos) Neat! This toy is for everyone, whether the children have special needs or not. I hope this review helps.

My 2, almost 3, year old daughter loves this book. The phrases are almost a little too immature at times, but overall is very good.