Never Makes It to Infinity - Forget Beyond
Written: Dec 27 '03 (Updated Dec 28 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: It looks authentic. It's fairly big. It has a few different buttons.
Cons: It's a pretty basic toy for $20. The wings detach easily.
The Bottom Line: The kid liked it, but I didn't. I mean - Buzz doesn't even come to life when we're all not looking (as far as I could tell, anyways)
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| youngchinq's Full Review: Hasbro Toy Toy Story: Buzz Lightyear Deluxe Electr... |
I bought this toy for my three-year old cousin in New Jersey - him and his six-year old sister are the only two people who could ever make a Christmas in New Jersey enjoyable. They are about as adorable as kids can be. The girl’s always been polite, and talented (she can really play the piano with those tiny fingers); while the boy’s always been inpatient, greedy, and rowdy - never says, “Sorry,” and never says “Thank you.” But even though I was not thanked, I knew he liked his deluxe Buzz Lightyear - it’s me who was disappointed at the toy.
Hasbro is a very conniving company out to make a quick dollar. Their venture into PC games yielded the wonderful and hugely successful Rollercoaster Tycoon, followed by a profusion of expansion sets, similar games, and half-baked sequels. In toys, they’ve made countless action figures based on the Toy Story franchise, including several Buzz Lightyear toys - Buzz Lightyear is, of course, the coolest of all the Toy Story characters and the toy of all children’s, real on onscreen, dreams.
All of Hasbro’s Buzz Lightyear toys have about identical design, only with different features and different price tags. The deluxe edition may sound like it’s the one to get, but it’s actually a pretty ghetto toy. The one you want to get is Hasbro’s Flight Command Buzz Lightyear action figure, which is about $10.00 more expensive. I bought this toy because, at $19.99, I expected something pretty nifty, but this unwieldy piece of plastic turned out to be rudimentary.
All Hasbro’s Buzz Lightyear action figures I saw were about a foot tall and shaped exactly the same, which is pretty faithful to the movie. Whereas the Flight Command Buzz talks automatically while the kid is playing with it, this Buzz only talks when buttons on his chest are pressed. The design of the toy makes it appear as if there’s three separate buttons to summon Buzz’s voice, but it’s actually just one button that’ll play one of eight dialogue quips from the movie. The eight different quips are on rotation and Buzz’s phrases follow a predictable course no matter what you do - he’ll say, “Check out my impressive wingspan,” even though his wings are folded.
The feature the kid will enjoy the most with this toy is the foldable wings that spring open with the press of a button. Unfortunately, the wings are attached delicately to the rest of the action figure and dropping Buzz from any height will likely detach one or both of the wings. Reattaching the wings can be easily done, but if your child is 5 or under, he probably won’t be able to do it. The whole toy, although expertly crafted, is quite clumsy. Manipulating the joints is quite difficult and the arms don’t move much; and even though the thing, wings aside, is quite sturdy, it’s near impossible to get it to stand up on its own.
Of course, with Buzz, the kid will want to pop those wings out and zoom it through the air while shooting his wrist-laser a lot more than trying to get Buzz to stand. Sadly, the laser on the wrist (read: button-operated blinking red light) can’t really point forward because, as I’ve said, arm motion is limited. Fortunately, Buzz’s head can turn 180 degrees so he can actually look where he’s shooting - as long as it’s never straight ahead. But it’s not as if someone who’s three will notice these details.
My cousin enjoyed playing with this toy for a few days while I was in New Jersey. He was particularly occupied with the wings and with the face-shield, which can slide up and down. The voices did not interest him. There is no on-off switch on the toy, meaning the three AA-batteries it requires and comes with will probably drain faster than it should. And, in the end, even though this Buzz was a success with its most important critic, he loved his new junior batting practice set a hell of a lot more. Next year, I’m getting him a football and a baby-sized Priest Holmes jersey.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 20
Type of Toy: Action Figure
Age Range of Child: 3 to 5 Years
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Epinions.com ID:
youngchinq
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Member: JJ Pi
Location: Maryland
Reviews written: 187
Trusted by: 162 members
About Me:
I am starting medical school in August! In the meanwhile my brain atrophies.
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