Toyology

Tamagotchi Family

The obsession that is Tamagotchi has reached a whole new level. The latest edition to the world's most famous virtual pet is the Familitchi  - the most radical Tamagotchi ever! You still have all the fun features from previous versions; But now it has a new look with a house shaped antennae and you must raise and nurture your Tama-family with up to 3 family members appearing on the screen at once! Depending on how you raise your Tamagotchi you can become 7 different fun families. So it's basically the same as before but like most successers of any product this one is much better. Get yours for £12.99 from Bandai.

i-No That Song

Here's another i-pod gadget to add to the ever growing list of i-Pod gadgetry. The i-No is a fun, fast and frenzied game of music trivia that turns listening to music into a social interactive activity. Players must buzz their wireless remote control when guessing the name of the artist, the song or album. You make the game as interesting as you want as it will be your music you're playing against. This means the game can be enjoyed by quite literally everyone -from a bit of Elvis and Led Zeppelin to Beyonce and Gwen Stefani. Demonstrate your love of music with the i-No which also doubles up as speaker docs. This is the only iPod gaming system officially licensed by Apple®.  Available in July/August for around £50.

Not Just Another Robot

Feast your eyes on this beauty - it's the new i-Sobot from Tomy. Prepare to get excited. This is not your ordinary robot and will appeal to tech loving kids and adults alike. This feature packed robot has all the signs of a GREAT toy. They say good things come in small packages and the i-Sobot is no exception. Not only can it dance, do push ups, sommersaults, hula, play air guitar (genius) AND respond to applause, it also has a repertoire of 200+ action patterns and it can say 200+ words and phrases. It can do much more than this folks but this is only a taste of what's to come - you'll have to discover its superior greatness for yourself. It's not available at the moment so you can't get your techy mitts on it just yet but it's out July 2008 for around £200. That's pretty decsent for a fully functional robot with realistic moves - we should know we've seen it in action.

 

Office Toy

New from Recreation is the executive PC gaming chair lining you wirelessly to your console machine for your video gaming delight and a fine place to plug in your MP3 player. Built-in speakers and a rumbling base will ensure that you might well look forward to getting to the office. Coming this summer for about £150

Racing Ace

Slot car fanatics take a seat, this latest Scalextric set is going to stun. Take on Top Gears Stig and screech round Gambon corner in a super car from the comfort of your front room and therefore certain you'll not have to face that horses head that is Jeremy Clarkson. The Powerlaps set is due in March and comes complete with Ford GT and Porsche 911 GT3R and special edition Stig hand throttles. Create your own leader board and have friends bring over their own motors to take on Hammerhead and Bentley...... www.scalextric.com has more info.

Air Play

Our grey matter overfloweth with toy goodness here at London's Excel, blistered feet and grins as wide as the channel we've some marvellous material to share over the next few days. Feast your eyes on Tomy's Guitar Rockstar, it's pre-loaded with eight rock tracks to strum along to and whilst you hold the neck in your hand the movement of your other will release the riffs. Play in freestyle mode and release your inner rock god, plug in a pair of headphones and play people will cross the road to avoid you! Due out March for about £15

Toy Fair tomorrow

We're more excited than a kid at Xmas, our annual jaunt to Londons Excel to see the hottest toys for 2008 is upon us. We're seeing "The Stig" at the Scalextric stand, Tomy's air guitar and iSobot, Wowwee's wonderful line-up of Robotic creations, the Rubik robot (35 seconds to solve any multi-colured block) the Indiana Jones whip and loads, and we mean LOADS of other great kit for your spending pleasure in the year ahead. Get back here tomorrow for news, opinions and some video coverage of the greatest show on earth!

Palm power

The all new Hand Command has just made these pages ahead of the forthcoming Toy Fair franticity! This smart RC hovers just above the ground in normal flight but when you put your hand underneath he’ll follow your lead so you can control his flight with hand gestures.Its a bit like taking your own pet astronaut out for a walk! You can ‘throw’ him a short distance before he goes back to level flight and the little chap has auto-stabilising rotor technology making him eaasy to fly and staying upright almost all the time. Yours for about £25 at www.gadgets.co.uk

 

Lego Birthday Box

How could we have been so tardy in our reporting of LEGO's half century celebrations and not told you about their limited edition anniversary set. It has a decent selection of coloured bricks plus a golden nugget in the shape of a 2x4 metallic golden brick. It isn't due out until August, giving you builders time to create a masterpiece for which the golden block can be the final piece.

Lego Stacks Up Fifty

     Lego’s company motto – ‘Only the best is good enough’ – will never ring as true as it will on Monday 28th January. Lego has been entertaining generations of kids and adults worldwide for 50 years – that’s 18,262.1099 days, 438,290.639 hours and 26,297,438.3 minutes - in case you were wondering. The famous building blocks have remained a firm favourite in Britain for yeeeaaars and have brought entertainment to over 400 million brick building adults and children, inspiring some great and some not so great creations. There is more to Lego than just child’s play – there are actually architects and artists who dedicate their lives to building life-size sculptures made out of the tiny bricks which can sell for up to and even more than £10,000 each. If you want to get in on the action you will need at least 1.5 million bricks – so good luck with that! The simple toy has come a long way since it was first launched in 1961 and despite all the technological advances of half a century, the classic brick still retains its original 2x4 studs. In fact, all Lego pieces are compatible, so a brick from 1958 will interlock with one made today - unlike the majority of long-running toys that most adults wouldn’t be able to recognize from their childhood because they’ve undergone a huge technological transformation!! Whether the creators were being lazy we’ll never know, but it looks like it’s paid off.