Tuesday 15 March 2011

Retro-tastic games!

I bought Phoebe some fairytale dominoes recently and they have been a major hit so I thought I might add to her collection and do a brief review of things for a bit of fun!

In our game collection we have:

Once Upon a Time Dominoes

A really excellent game, nice and easy to understand for small people and causes a good amount of giggling. Both girls can play it without much help from me (mostly when it comes to managing Clara and the argument about who has won and who hasn't).

Hungry Hippos

Horrendously disappointing now. I remember it being a lot sturdier than it is now, and I am not alone in my thoughts either. It is now flimsy, I presume because it can be broken into pieces for easier storage which would be great except the plastic is SO brittle that breaking it into pieces would likely end in it literally ending up in gazillions of unintentional pieces. Why not make the box a bit bigger to fit the whole game in?! Oh and the marbles get lost so easily... we are down to 2 now and have only had it since Christmas. I wonder if they sell extra marbles...

Toy Story Buckaroo

This hasn't actually seen the light since Christmas because the girls have been to busy or have forgotten it is in the cupboard (I suspect the latter) so I will have to bring it out tomorrow afternoon for a proper go over! It looks very like it always has... I will come back to this one.

Asda Mr Funny Face

Again another I haven't tried out on the girls yet (having only bought it today) but after seeing the state of Hungry Hippos I have sworn off buying the "official" games and embraced the own brand ones. Putting it together it seems as fun as ever and has suitable catipult capabilities of the features to entertain my girls! I had forgotten about the face cards so that was a good reminder. I predict a lot of fun with this game as both girls love to make faces!

Asda Guess Who

After discussing the disappointing HH with friends I was horrified to find out that the new official version of Guess Who has also suffered "modernisation". Comments from friends are: Only 5 girls to 19 boys, child has to pick character which makes the game hideously samey as child frequently picks same character over and over and over, why having it sat upright when flat on the table. So I had decided this game wasn't going to hit our collection. Until I saw that Asda had a 2 for £8 on games and their version of Guess Who reflected the, far superior, original. So I snapped it up! I am happy to report that there are equal numbers of boys and girls and you get to pick from a stack of cards for the character so that makes it much more random!

Disney Princess Memory

Bought to appease a small Princess obsessed child. However we lie them face up and the girls enjoy matching the pictures to put away. Nice thing is it is loads of different poses of various princess and characters. That makes it more tricksy rather than just matching Jasmine - Jasmine, Belle - Belle etc.

Pop Up Pirate

We LOVE this. Never fails to make the girls hoot when the pirate shoots out! Only downside is some of the swords have been lost and I have yet to source replacements. You would think if they sold games with lots of bits to small children they would do refill packs?! Can't be that hard surely... and better than having to buy the game over and over and over just because a few of the swords are lost!

Anyhow that is our game collection, what are your favourites... any we need to add?

2 comments:

Rachel said...

We love Asda games here - we have Guess Who and Connect4

The ELC version of Hungry Hippos - I think its Frog Frenzy is great - very sturdy!

We also like Snakes and Ladders and pairs.

december said...

Ooh sounds like fun all round. What a shame about Guess Who though, sounds really boring now.

Any plans to include Operation? A favourite in our house when I was younger :)