Games Reviews

I bought two as Christmas gifts for the kids, and on one, the plastic piece holding the hinge together broke even before we cut it out of the plastic, and the other broke when the boys were opening and closing it repeatedly to make the alarm sound (not sure how rough they were, but we weren't amused that it broke so easily!).

I was going to replace them, but I think I will return the one that they didn't break themselves, and look for a sturdier one. I'm pretty sure a replacement would break again!

I like the electronic safe. Even though I don't have one but my friend does, and I think it works spectacullar. But I think you should lower the price on it. Us kids, some of us have to buy are own things like me, and my mom and dad won't let me get it because they say it is too much money, and they don't want me to waste $10.01 on a safe. So if you want costomers buying this product you better lower the price. My friend even said it is really expensive but the one thing about her parents is they don't care what she spends her money on they just want her to be happy. So think about what I just said to you.

Thanks,

Amy Klemp's Daughter,
Lexi (9)

I bought this and I'm saving my "REAL!" money in here. It works good with the YOUniverse ATM machine bank, because you could add the money until you make thousands of dollar.

I have looked all over the place for a puzzle that my 18 month old could have (most say 3 & up). So I was happy to find this one by Melissa & Doug. She likes it and I feel safe knowing she has an age appropriate wood puzzle to play with! My only negative so far is one of the knobs came loose...

This was a gift for our 17 month old triplet grandchildren. They loved the puzzle and were able to put the brightly colored shapes in the appointed places with little difficulty. The only problem was that the puzzle pieces are covered with paper and when the triplets mouthed the shapes, the paper started to come off. This will now only be used with adult supervision, a shame since they were have such fun.

my son really enjoys this toy. he learned quickly how to place the shapes and even if he is not using the puzzle board he likes to use the objects for other activities. All in all a good buy.

Good game for my 6 year old. A few of the skills are to advanced for him but he is catching on and has fun with it!

My preschooler loves this (mind you he just got evaluated on a second grade level) he knows how to read, so he does level one comfortably. My kindergartener is great as well he is also on a higher level (3rd) so the second level does him well.

It is fun, it is educational, and the fact that the characters are familiar is a plus. This cartridge reviews Fractions, addition, vocabulary and more. The assistance with the hint button is a plus. The cartridge is also great because with the addition it constantly reminds you that if you have to much, what you should do. It is like a tutor which I enjoy. I like to review it myself and practice before I give them to my children. Leap Frog is a wonderful company they make learning FUN! You can get this cartridge if you have a child doing this level work no matter how old.

There are four games on this cartridge that features the characters from Dreamworks Madagascar movie. Inside each game there are two levels of play, and in general I would say that even on Level 1 (the easier level) this cartridge is probably too advanced for preschoolers and even some kindergarteners since it requires some reading ability plus some basic math notions.

**Mango Math**
Melman (the giraffe) gets up a tree and Gloria (hippo) tries to get him down. This game starts out (Level one) with simple math equations such as 5 + 2 = X. Melman and Gloria bounce up and down grabbing mangos until the appropriate amount of fruit is collected to answer the equation. [Thus they need to grab 7 mangos].

[The `hint' button will take children to a page where the equation is shown and solved should they not know the answer.]


**Hi Stakes**
In this game Alex (the lion) is looking for Marty at Grand Central Station. On Level One your child will be practicing fractions. Alex will go up and down three different levels searching for the one and only shape that is divided into the correct parts -- shows fourths, or thirds, for example.

They will also be shown shapes, such as rectangle that is divided into parts, and asked to identify the numeric fraction that corresponds to the portion of the rectangle that is colored blue. For example, find a number such as � or �.

[One of the problems I noted with this game is that the numerical fractions are visually hard to make out clearly on the screen. Detail is not so good here.]


**Penguin's Password**
This is a fun letter shuffle game. Children are shown letters such as "a, e, c, k" and they need to reshuffle them to form a real word. In this case the word `cake'.


**Island Hopping**
Obstacle avoidance is part of this game as your child steers jet-ski riding Marty away from debris and incorrect words as they try to complete a sentence. You might see a sentence such as "The ___ laughs" or "The ____ fusses" and your child needs to find a noun that makes sense in this sentence.


Five Stars. [A-]. Although the `Hint' button provides good clues and even answers in many cases, children will need to be able to read and understand basic math concepts to get the most out of this cartridge. They will also need a bit of eye-hand coordination.

I personally find the characters annoying, but this cartridge has such good learning opportunities that I can't really complain. I haven't seen any games anywhere else that cover the same skills as well: learn math, sentence syntax, and spelling, all while having fun.

My 6 year old daughter got this for a gift and she loves it... as much as my 2 year old son does! My 2 year old loves the encouragement the game shouts out as he plays. A fun toy for multiple ages.

I love skee-ball, so when I saw this in the store I wanted it for me. Luckily my son also loves skee-ball, so I was able to call it a gift for him. We play with it often, especially when his friends come to the house. It can be played by anyone at any skill level, and we often have players whose ages range by thirty years. I do wish that the balls stayed in the game a bit better, but otherwise this is a well designed, fun game.

I just bought it from toysrus for my 3-year old son.He likes it so much.He plays with it for long time.This toy can really help child to improve the ability of the hands.For adult,it is also a very cool toy.All our families love it very much.

My son and I just finished making this car. It was a fun project!

After waiting 3-4 weeks, it finally arrived! To my grandchildrens dismay. It did not perform as advertised.
There wasn't any volcano erupting, all it did was sprinkle a small amount from the side. Yes we did have good water pressure, and it was put together correctly!
I just want my money and shipping charges back!
Thank you for your expediency on this return.

My 12 yr old is "bored" with everything. I bought this to keep my 9 & 4 yr olds occupied and found out that my 12 yr old likes it more than my 4 yr old does! We've used it several times and it's worked great each time. It hasn't fallen over, despite the kids jumping back and forth over it.

It's not super heavy plastic, but heavy enough that it should stay in one place unless it gets knocked around.

I had to buy something more "gentle" for my little one...he got scared when the volcano erupted, although his big brothers thought it was awesome!

I saw this toy last summer in a toys r us catalog, but we didn't pick one up until a few days ago. Here in NC the summer temps are already near 90 degrees, so we wanted something fun that would keep the kids cool while they played. This is the way to go. Right out of the box, you attach a garden hose and turn on the water. Mt. Tikisoki will shoot a mist out of both sides continuously. Approximately each 8 seconds his eyes will open wide, then he will blow and shoot a blast of water straight up in the air about 15 feet. Pretty impressive I must say. The kids and the dog loved it. It wasn't long before my son (6 yrs old) grabbed an empty water bottle out of the recycle box and placed it on top of Tikisoki. The blast of water blew the bottle about 12-13 feet in the air and all in attendance got a good laugh.

I have seen a few reviews saying how this toy doesn't work, but truth be told we haven't had any problems. It is plastic and relatively inexpensive so I'm sure one day it will stop working.
In the meantime though, this has been a great purchase and it should make for some good summer fun.

My 4 y/o loved playing his older cousins Leapster, so when I found the older unit at a great price, I got it. I knew I'd have to have the same Dora game, but could only find this L-MAX version. The problem starts with a feature of the L-MAX that only allows one of the games called "Animal Adventure" to be played if L-MAX is plugged into the TV. That means the older, cheaper verion of Dora offers an extra game on the handheld! I think product development really dropped the ball on this one.

I returned the L-MAX version and found the cheaper plain Leapster version instead. I'm still offended that Leapfrog would charge more for this version and offer less.

If your kid doesn't need to plug into the tv, pass this one up and shop for the non-L-MAX version of Dora's Wildlife Adventure.

This game is big fun for an almost six year-old. I wasn't sure if he would like it because he is no longer an enthusiastic Dora the Explorer fan but the game is educational (a big selling point for me) and interesting enough to hold his attention for hours on end.

Does a great job teaching numbers and letters inside of enjoyable and playable games.

My young children (boy and girl; 4 and 6 this month) are not allowed to watch SpongeBob but that doesn't keep all three of us from enjoying this game. It is simply one of the best Leapfrog LMAX/Leapster game cartridges that we have.

**Skills and Games**

Word Building
Arrgh. Some of SpongeBob's friendly jellyfish have letters inside them. There is a water cannon that can be used to knock the letters out. On the first level, children are shown the last two letters in a word: such as _ a t. They can `free' letters which then float up to fill in the blank to make a word such as hat, cat, etc.

[I have noticed this is helping my preschooler `get' the entire word building concept.]

Phonics and Attributes
In this silly and fun game [even mom likes!], Patrick must move around three conveyor belts collecting objects. Sometimes these objects are just anything that is `yellow' and sometimes the objects are shapes, items with start with a certain letter, items grouped and equaling a certain number of things, and in the advanced round: items which are grouped and equal to an equation such as (8-3).

Money and Addition
SpongeBob is at one of those grab-a-prize machines. He gets to try to grab something if he has the right amount of change.

[This has been great for my kindergartener and preschooler. The latter can now identify various coins, while the former is learning not only to count change (for example, that 4 quarters make a dollar) but also to count by 5's and 10's.]

Music
There is a fun section in which children can play around with instruments and sounds.

Five Stars. [A]. Better background story than most of the cartridges. Better graphics other Leapster cartridges. Lots to learn. Good humor for all ages.

My almost 6 year-old loves this game. He doesn't even realize he's learning and we're looking forward to having his L-Max on long trips.

Great learning tool for children. My Pre-K son enjoys playing video games and now he learns as he plays. I recommend!

I,my wife and 2 daughters have long been fans of the Friends TV show (in fact we own the 10 Season Box set). I got The Friends Edition as a gift for my wife, who is not realyy a game board enthusiest. Well, we had the most fun playing it. I was laughingly surprised at how little I knew and how much the other members of my family knew! I heartily recommend it as a fun, entertaining way to spend with friends, family and anyone looking for a good time!

I love this game! I remember everything I read, and I love Harry Potter, but this game can be difficult sometimes. My friends who have only seen the movies can even answer questions, and my little brother and his friends love playing it.
My only complaint would be that sometimes the movie clips are too long, especially for the die-hard Potter fans, who have seen all of the movies enough. The questions on the clips sometimes do not go hand in hand also.
One other complaint is that if you are afraid of some of the darker elements of Harry Potter, you might get a little creeped out by the dark music and colorings. My younger brother has closed his eyes on two occasions, so only younger kids MIGHT be a little scared.
Other than that, there is nothing wrong with this game. If you love Harry Potter, either book or movie form, or you want to learn more about it, this game is perfect!

We bought the Scene It? Harry Potter Edition for our family game night. It covers the first 3 Harry Potter Movies; Sorcerors Stone, Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Askaban.
My son is in kindergarten and is only 6, but reads very well (at a 2nd grade reading level), so we were able to easily play the game, read the questions on the screen etc... Another reviewer mentioned that the movie clips are very long (30 minutes!); this is not true. I would guess they were 2-3 minutes long at the most. We also enjoyed the "Hidden Scenes" where something is missing from the scene (person, wand, hat, chair etc...) and that was really fun.
The nice thing about this game is, you can condense the gameboard and have a quick match when you are limited on time (perhaps if it's close to bedtime!). We really enjoyed it and this morning when my son woke up, he pulled the game out and was playing it alone, while my husband and I slept in- you can't beat that!
I wouldn't call ourselves huge Harry Potter fans, but for those that own the movies and have watched them a couple of times, this should be enjoyable.

The little metal balls and the tips of the colored pieces have all turned color (black spots). It feels gross!! I hope it doesn't have lead in it.