Yoshi’s Woolly World – Review

July 13, 2015Toybuzz

This month i’ve been feeling like everything around me is cute, cuddly and woolly, and it’s all down to the latest game we’ve been reviewing on the Wii U as part of the Nintendo Family Bloggers – Yoshi’s Woolly World.

The game is a beautiful puzzler, full of colour and cuddly yarn filled enemies.

Jacob and I absolutely love this game, and we especially love that we can play it together as two Yoshi’s helping each other out to finish the level.

In the game you jump around and flutter between platforms, collecting yarn balls and tossing them at enemies as you go.

You can find yarn balls inside big sewing boxes dotted around the place, and also make yarn balls from your enemies instead of eggs as Yoshi usually does.

As well as shooting your yarn balls at enemies, Yoshi also needs to throw them to create platforms, or sometimes to find secret entrances and hidden rooms.

Each level has tons of collectables to find as you play. If you can find them all you can unlock bonus levels.

One of the funniest parts of the game is when Yoshi suddenly unravels, and then knits himself into an accessory like an umbrella, or a mega Yoshi. It’s exciting when it happens to see what Yoshi is going to change himself into.

Another great feature is the really cool way Yoshi’s Wooly World can use Amiibo’s.

The new Woolly Yoshi Amiibo is definitely my favourite Amiibo so far, he’s gorgeous.

However in the game, if you have other Amiibos like Bowser or Mario, you can change your in game Yoshi to change into one of those.

Mario Yoshi is the funniest we think, as it’s hilarious seeing Yoshi with the plumbers curvy little moustache.

I so wish I could knit as we had such an amazing box of crafting things sent to us from Nintendo with a copy of the game, including some yarn and knitting needles. I’ve even been on Youtube trying to learn as I would love to make a cuddly Yoshi of my own, but to be honest I’m getting nowhere. I will get there eventually though, I’m not giving up

Yoshi’s Woolly World is a really fun game, whether playing alone or with a friend. I like the way that if you want you can power through the level as fast as you can and progress onwards. Or you can take your time and try to find every single collectable and hidden area. It’s really up to you.

Thanks so much to Nintendo for our awesome Yoshi’s Woolly World Bloggers box.

Minions Top Trumps – Review

July 9, 2015Toybuzz

Top Trumps are still one of my favourite games to play with the boys. I’ve loved playing Top Trumps since my days in the primary school playground, and am delighted they are still around to play with my children today.

We have lots of great sets in the house already, but this week we added a new one to our collection – Minions Top Trumps.

The cards all feature scenes from the new Minions Movie, so you can laugh along as you play recalling all the hilarious bits of the film.

All the cards are rated in the usual Top Trumps way. This time around your cards are rated against

Cleverness
Bravery
Leadership
Mischievous
and Top Trumps Rating

Out of all the scenes, my favourite card is ‘Serving the Pharaoh!’ as it’s the one with the Minions building the pyramids, which I thought was so funny.

For fans of all things Minions this is the perfect game.

You may have noticed from the picture that the cards look a bit battered around the edges. This is after only one week of use, so you can tell how much they have been used already.

Jacob couldn’t put them down, and that was the problem. He took them to school and carried on playing with his friends even when it started to rain. I’ve had to promise to get another set as soon as I can because he loves them so much, and theres no better endorsement than that.

	Minions Top Trumps Game(1) (Amazon)	£10.28
	Minions Top Trumps Game (Amazon)	£4.99
+ 2 others available from Amazon ↓
	Mini Top Trumps - Minions (Amazon)	£1.99
	Top Trumps Minions Collectors Tin (Smyths)	£9.99
	Top Trumps Minions (Smyths)	£3.99
+ 1 others available from Smyths ↓

Thunderbirds Are Go Website – Review

June 23, 2015Toybuzz

The final part of our Thunderbirds Are Go Blogger Missions were to work our way through the Thunderbirds Are Go Website, and sign up to International Rescue.

Another pretty easy mission we thought at first, however we’ve run into a problem – Were having too much fun!

Honestly the website is jam packed with so much interesting things to do and collect, we have spent a lot of time this week playing it (and I mean a lot!)

The first thing you do when you log onto Thunderbirds.com is sign up to International Rescue. You get to choose a cool secret code name, and you get a certificate you can print off. This is Jacob’s certificate, the codename he choose was GeostationaryDiagnostics37.

Once you’ve signed up and got your codename the fun really begins as you can start working towards your badges.

Theres 14 badges in all you can work towards collecting. You start with the codebreaker badge, as you’ll need the skills you acquire for all the other badges.

Each badge has a coded message part, which you have to decipher to continue. The codebreaker badge sets you up for this by having you crack the code. You can then use the code template to work out the secret messages and unlock the next mission badges.

Jacob and I recommend downloading the Thunderbirds Are Go app for your phone or tablet if you have one. It’s a handy gadget for completing the badges, as it has the deciphered code on it to help you gain your badges, and it makes you feel like a real agent.

As part of the mission I had a few questions to ask Jacob about the website:

What’s your username? Do you think it’s cool?

Yeah I really like my name, it’s very cool. It was hard to choose a name as they all sounded good together, but I’m glad I choose the name I did.

What stage have you got to so far?

Me and my mum had such a good time playing we finished all the stages.

How many challenges have you done so far? Did you do more than one in one go?

Yeah, we finished all the challenges do far. We worked really hard as we wanted to beat the Hood. It feels go to have gained all the badges.

Did you find the challenges easy or hard?

Most of the challenges were quite easy. It just took a bit of time to scan the pictures to find all the objects and Hood Challenge pieces.

Have you taken on The Hood yet?

Yeah, We just beat The Hood. It was great to find all the pieces finally, and see the secret mission video.

Is the website easy to navigate?

I think it’s a good website. I like to look around at the the different characters and crafts.

Do you think you’ll go back to the website to continue taking the new challenges?

I’m definitely hoping that more challenges will be added. It’d be so cool to get my score up and earn more badges.

So as you can see we had great fun together on the Thunderbirds.com website, and thoroughly recommend you all check it out.

Thunderbirds Are Go – DVD Review

June 19, 2015Toybuzz

This week the boys and I have been taking part in the Thunderbirds Are Go Blogger Mission.

Our first mission was an easy one – to enjoy all of the Thunderbirds Are Go episodes on the new series one DVD.

Firstly Jacob was a bit sceptical about watching Thunderbirds Are Go with me, after I told him that I used to watch the original Thunderbirds when I was growing up. I think he thought it was going to be very old and boring, but he was so hooked on the new CGI look.

All the old favourites are there like the Tracy brothers, Brains, Lady Penelope and Parker, but the new cartoon look brings everything bang up to date.

As part of the Thunderbirds Are Go Blogger mission I asked the boys to answer a few questions about the series.

Favourite character?

Thomas: Gordon Tracy. I think he looks a bit like me, and he’s loud like me too.

Jacob: I like Brains, as he’s always building things and inventing stuff.

Favourite craft?

Thomas: I’m going to say Thunderbird 4 as it’s Gordon’s, and it goes underwater.

Jacob: I loved the Bullet Train from the Runaway episode. It goes so fast, and mum said she went on a bullet train in Japan.

Favourite episode and why?

Thomas: I liked Slingshot as it’s in space with Asteroids and the Solar Flare

Jacob: Fireflash – Brains supersonic jet is really cool

What would you like to see happen next in the series?

Thomas: Another Space episode, maybe a bomb on the International Space Station. Perhaps even The Hood fakes his way as an astronaut and plants it himself.

Jacob: It’d be cool if Brains invented some kind of mega gun and The Hood tried to steal it

Would you like to see more of a certain character?

Thomas: I like Max, Brains’s robot helper. He’s cute.

Jacob: Yeah I like Max too.

What character are you most like?

Thomas: Gordon. He likes water like me, and he’s funny.

Jacob: My mum says i’m like Brains as i’m always building gadgets and things with my Lego

Is your mum/dad like any of the Thunderbirds Are Go characters?

Thomas: Think mum would like to be Kayo, but she’s more like Grandma

Jacob: Dad’s the oldest so he can be Scott

Thanks boys for your help (I think?)

The DVD is released in shops on 22nd June 2015, and you can pre-order it now from Amazon, or download the episodes from iTunes.

Disclosure: We were sent a copy of the Thunderbirds Are Go on Dvd to write an honest review. All opinions are our own.

Jungle Speed Safari – Review

June 8, 2015Toybuzz

We’ve gone and found a brand new family favourite for board game night, and it’s called Jungle Speed Safari.

We were contacted by Esdevium Games, and offered some board games to review. Which we jumped at being a huge gaming family, and found this little gem in the process.
A game for all ages, it’s guaranteed to have you all rolling around in laughter as you play.

The game is all about animals in the jungle. Theres hungry animals, angry animals, noisy animals and even hunters.

The game is played with cards all printed with the different types of animals.

Every time you pick a card it will trigger a different action, but they will all be fast paced and the quickest players will win.

For example if you draw a hungry animal then you have to grab the wooden token with the food they would most likely eat as soon as possible. The twist of the game is that all the other players also have to try and do the same thing.

Theres no waiting around for your next turn in this game, everyone plays at every turn. The player who reaches the food the fastest gains the card for their pile.

The winner is the player with the most cards at the end of the game.

It’s hard to explain any better than that, as every game is different. Depending on who’s playing, what cards you all draw, and how into it you are. If your all in the right mood, it ends up being a real riot of frenzy and noise. Which is how most of our games end up.

Thanks to Esdevium Games for sending us Jungle Speed Safari to review, and we’ve got some more great Esdevium Games up for review next week as well, so keep reading.

Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush – Review

June 5, 2015Toybuzz

Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush is the latest game featuring the loveable pink ball on the Wii U.

In the game Kirbys home of Dream Land and all the inhabitants have been drained of all colour, by an evil villain who appears from a portal through the sky. Luckily a magical paintbrush also appears, and helps Kirby and his friend Waddle Dee get their colour back. Kirby then sets off on an adventure to put things right.

You play the game by drawing rainbow ropes for Kirby to traverse on the Wii U’s touch screen gamepad. Kirby travels along the colourful ropes wherever you draw them. You use them to help Kirby navigate obstacles, collect powers and attack enemies.

However the magic paintbrush only has so much ink, so you have to keep a careful eye on how much ink you’ve used in your rope or Kirby might fall somewhere dangerous. Also the colours on the magical ropes only last so long before they start to fade and disintegrate. we’ve found that sometimes making more smaller ropes works best when you can.

Jacob is the biggest Kirby fan in our house, so has commandeered most of the gametime to himself. It’s hard to get him off it to be honest. The good news is that as you spend most of the time looking down on the gamepad, it’s the perfect game to take advantage of the wii u’s best feature, using the gamepad without needing the tv on.

Jacob loves that he can sit on the other sofa with his headphones on, playing a console game like it’s his 3DS. He plays the Wii U like this a lot if the game allows.

However when he finally lets everyone else play 4 of us can play together. One plays as Kirby on the gamepad, and the 3 others play as Waddle Dee’s on either wii Remotes or Wii U Pro Controllers. It’s so much fun all playing together, and very colourful seeing all the rainbow ropes running over the screen.

We all really like the art style of Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush. It’s made to look like everything is made of clay or plasticine. We had a lot of fun making our own Kirby and Dream Land thanks to the amazing art pack we received from Nintendo with the game.

If you fancy making your own check out the youtube video below, it’s a great step by step guide.

Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush is a lovely game for all ages. It’s very easy to just pick up and play.

Disclosure: We received a copy of Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush and the art supplies as part of our participation in the Nintendo Family Bloggers Network.

Star Wars Day Bloggers Challenge

May 4, 2015May 4, 2015Toybuzz

Happy Star Wars Day everyone!

In the Toybuzz household we’ve been building up to Star Wars day for the last few weeks by watching all the movies each Sunday, culminating with Return of the Jedi tonight. Popcorn is ready and were good to go.

To celebrate the day we were sent a lovely Star Wars Lego Microfighters set, and issued a bloggers challenge of picturing our fighter in a new world, discovering a new planet.

We received a Snowspeeder, and Jacob set about building it straight away.

I absolutely love the Microfighters range as the sets are small enough for him to build in one go without getting frustrated, but your still left with an awesome sized vehicle to get hours of play out of afterwards.

We’ve previously purchased the Vulture Droid and Homing Spider Droid, so the Snowspeeder fitted into his collection perfectly, and once again the build engaged him without stressing him out, which is perfect.

Now our Snowspeeder is all built, he’s ready to fly off and find a new planet. Apparently he’s sick of the snow now and is looking for somewhere lush and mountainous.

First stop on his adventure and he seems to have stumbled onto some psychedelic craters. There seems to be debris from previous crashed spaceships here as well, so he flies off again sharpish before he gets trapped too.

But then oh no! He flies straight into an asteroid field. He’s gonna need some seriously skilful flying to get out of this one.

Luckily he survived the asteroids, but watch out it’s a trap! He ends up getting himself tangled in some cargo nets, and he doesn’t look too happy about it.

Finally he’s made it, we’ve found the mountains. Well done plucky Snowspeeder pilot.

As you can see we had loads of fun with our new Lego Microfighters set.

May the fourth be with you everyone.

Wicked Uncle – Review

April 16, 2015April 27, 2015Toybuzz

A couple of weeks ago we were lucky enough to be contacted by online gift company ‘Wicked Uncle’, and asked to be one of their toy reviewer’s for this month.

Wicked Uncle is a brilliant idea for an online shop. It’s the perfect one stop shop for children’s toys and gifts, all sorted into gender and age categories.

Brilliant and extremely useful for all those wicked uncles and aunts, gran’s and granddad’s looking for a quirky fun gift for the youngster in their life but not knowing where to start.

Some people may balk at the idea of gifts being age and gender separated, as it’s a contentious issue at the moment. However I think it’s a great idea and believe most consumers would find it useful.

Here’s what Wicked Uncle themselves say about the issue:

* Gender – some people don’t like this division. We do it to make things really easy and the popularity rating shows what other people are buying. We divide products by gender because nobody ever buys pink tiaras or Frozen products or dolls for boys. It just doesn’t happen so there is no point in including these in the girl sections.

We certainly include construction, Lego, remote control and outdoor fun products in the girls sections. We love the idea of girls running around being as boisterous as small boys. Check out the Battle Tanks in Girls 8-10.

Where a product has been in various age / gender categories and it doesn’t sell at all, then we may take it out to make room. A lot of toys are age specific and children really don’t like getting toys they think are too young for them.

As part of us reviewing Wicked Uncle I was given £40 in credit to choose on whatever I wanted for the boys from the website.

For Jacob it was over to the boys age 7 category, and I choose the Hyperspeed Remote control car. He’s always wanted one of these remote control stunt cars with flashing lights, so it was exactly what he wanted to receive.

Thomas is 9 now, and since I did spend most of my allotted money on Jacob’s stunt car he had to settle for a smaller gift. However there was still plenty to choose from, and was thrilled with the incredibly bouncy Moon Ball i choose for him.

Jacob is so thrilled with his stunt car, it’s amazingly agile. The wheels twist and turn all over the place, whilst the flashing coloured lights make the room look like a disco. It’s an ideal gift for a little stunt devil petrol head like him.

Thomas’s Moon Ball is equally awesome. It bounces massively high in the air, much higher than a regular ball. We found we got a better bounce the harder the surface you bounce it on, but be careful bouncing indoors as accidents are bound to happen. Best for outdoor play definitely.

Apart from being very happy with my choices for the boys, I was equally pleased that my order came nicely packaged for the boys to open, plus that there was no receipt inside telling Thomas how much more I’d spent on Jacob than him. That could have been very awkward.

Thanks to Wicked Uncle you’ll receive an order confirmation with everything you’ve ordered on your email, but your lucky gift recipient can open their present straight away without being told how much you spent on them.

Wicked Uncle can gift wrap your present, plus even write a handwritten birthday card for you if you need them too. However even if you don’t opt for the birthday card your lucky gift recipient will find a thank you card in their box, ready to send with your name and address on it, so they will know the gifts from you.

All in all I think that Wicked Uncle is an excellent service for buying gifts for children. Especially if you are looking for something a bit different or are not sure exactly what the youngster your buying for would like. There really is something for everyone, and every budget.

As their mum I obviously know my boys very well and could easily choose them something myself without ideas. Saying that I would definitely use Wicked Uncle again to buy presents for their friends birthdays, as its so hard to think of new things to buy for all those parties.

I think the site comes into its own for uncles, grandparents, aunties – anyone who might not have children of their own and needs a little help picking out what a young child would like. Plus with the gift wrapping and hand written card service, the present can be chosen, sent, and all be done and dusted in one website. Fabulous.

Thanks to Wicked Uncle for asking us to be part of their Toy reviewers programme.

Crayola Colour Alive – Review

April 9, 2015April 9, 2015Toybuzz

Easter holidays, and the boys have been getting creative and testing out the new Crayola colour Alive colouring books.

With Colour Alive you can see the images you’ve coloured in actually pop out of the screen and into your living room. Which is actually really neat.

As with most things nowadays there’s an app you’ll need to download.

The system works by scanning and recognising the special Colour Alive marker you have used. Each book comes with 7 Crayola Markers, but only one unlocks the special virtual reality pictures. With the two colouring books we had to review, the red marker unlocked the magic in Mythical Creatures, and it was the yellow in enchanted forest.

Once you’ve found the special colour you need to simply scan it in the Colour Alive app. Then you can scan in your colouring pages and watch as the pictures appear to come alive.

Annoyingly at the moment it seems that the app is having a few problems on certain devices with scanning the coloured in pictures. However if you scan an uncoloured page and then colour it in the 4D effects will work.

Once we figured things out and released that our virtual dragon was located in the “my saved stuff’ section, we got to work taking some virtual selfies with our works of art.

Even Harry the cat got involved.

To celebrate Colour Alive being at the Gadget Show Live there’s actually a competition running this week, for the best Colour Alive Selfie with an amazing prize.

If you have a Colour Alive set you can enter by tweeting #colouryouselfie and your picture, and if you get to see it at the show you can try it out and enter there.

Disclosure: We were sent some Colour Alive sets by Crayola to review. All opinions are my own.

Competition Time! – Family Ticket to Gadget Show Live

March 27, 2015April 16, 2015Toybuzz

To celebrate Vivid sponsoring the Kids Tech Toy Trail at Gadget Show Live, which takes place 8th – 12th April 2015 we’ve got 3 family tickets to give away for Wednesday 8th April! (Each family ticket is for 4 people).

One of Gadget Show Live 2014’s most popular features was the Kid’s Tech Arena, which will be returning this year in the form of a Kid’s Tech Toy Trail. The Kid’s Tech Trail is to be sponsored exclusively by Vivid and will feature separate pods, each with different toys from the Vivid range for children of all ages to get hands on with.

The pods will create an immersive experience and are guaranteed to keep kids engaged and involved at the show – as well as giving them a chance to try out some toys not yet on the shelves!

The four pods making up the Trail will feature a RealFX demo area, i-Que, Freddy Bear and Crayola Colour Alive with demonstrators and Vivid brand teams on site daily to enable kids to get hands on with the products.

Win a Family Ticket to Gadget Show Live 08/04/15