Magic Reviews

I bought one of these toys for my granddaughter and it looked like so much fun I'd get one for myself.

I can't really comment yet on the educational value or how durable it is because my granddaughter hasn't gotten hers yet (her birthday in a few days) but the entertainment value for a "big kid" like myself is awesome! :)

The packaging is difficult to deal with...it took me all of seven minutes just to free it from its plastic cocoon...but once opened, I was delighted with my toy. And I plan to buy one for other fun-loving "big kids", friends and family, for their birthdays. I'm just hoping my granddaughter gets as big a kick out of her toy as "Nanny" does her own.

My son got this in his Christmas Stocking when he just turned two and he still loves it. It is his flashlight, golf club, sword (for when he fight Captain Hook) and what ever else he can think of. It is extremely durable and has stood up to beatings and bangings for the last 7 months. I would recommend it highly (and it's pretty fun for the parents too:)

These sticks, as the other reviews will tell you, do not need to be limited to just children. Most of my friends are 20-somethings and we have been having a BLAST with these things. Of course, all you do is wave around a ball of light, but then again, when ELSE can you do that and stare at the colors for hours on end? This is a fabulous item for people of all ages and 'hobbies'. Well worth the money. Have fun!

Not only does this game incorparate the underappreciated Imperials it does so in a nice way. You get to fly 7 craft! Unlike the old version this game has better sound and grafics. The cutscenes are still old but they fill the bill. You don't just have to fight Y,A,X, and B wings. You fight well detailed Calamari Cruisers, YT-1300 transports (Millenium Falcon) Star Destroyers, Carrack Cruisers and so forth. Great game.

My cousin owns this game, so when I visit, I got to play it. I got adicted on the first time. This is funner than (I'm sorry fans) Tiberian Sun, since you can personaly blow up infinite Y-Wings and X-Wings, which is pretty fun.

The original Tie Fighter was one of the best space combat games available. The Tie Fighter Collector's Ed. (TFCE) is upgraded over its previous incarnation to support hardware acceleration but that's only for the flight sequences. Between the flying, you'll notice the same old cutscenes around the same less-than photorealistism. The sound is also conspicuously improved - mostly because it to alternates between the true stereo of todays computers (again in the flying sequences) and the ancient MIDI in the intervals.

That said, the meat of the game is firmly in Pentium country, with rich colors and textures expected for a latter-day sim, but not taxing enough to slow down frame-rate on any low-level P200MMX. If you own "X-wing v. Tie Fighter", you'll find the same level of graphics, but with more imaginative single-player missions. As a fighter pilot with the dread imperial star fleet, you fly those tiny little insect like ships that seems to drop like flies in the 3 movies. Besides the expected campaigns (all pre-scripted, you can't go on until you finish all primary mission objectives) and "historical" missions, there's a nifty pilot's proving ground, an enclosed maze and shooting gallery that convincingly recalls the Death Star innards from the 3rd movie. However, the missions require you not only destroy waves of fighters or large ships, but inspect and even capture other ships. Also, a complex storyline sends imperial starfighters against a variety of enemies, many not quite as noble as the stalwart rebels. Star Wars is best when highlighting the moral ambiguity of its surrounding universe, and Tie Fighter doesn't dissappoint, and your enemies will include Rebel X-wings, but also pirates and profiteers, defectors and other traitors and various alien races who don't know that they need the emperor's permission to war against each other. There's even a clever subplot in which you have two missions - your commander's and those of a special imperial emissary. Most of the time, the two are in line, and neither asks you to controvert the orders of the other. It creates a level of depth and suspicion mising from the original x-wing.

If X-wing collector's ed is this good, I'll pick it up as well. If you've already got the original versions of both games, I'd suggest getting the new X-wing, since the original was the older of the two and would have the best improvement.

Menace is our dragon. We all love him. He is snuggled every night and played with every day. He goes on every trip we take. I don't think we could live without Menace, so a replacement body has already been obtained to wait in the closet should Menace ever wear out his current body. We are a Catholic family and we don't usually endorse reincarnation, but in this case we will make an exception. We have given this some thought after six years with the same dragon. Menace still looks pretty good even if he has come down with a slight case of the Velveteen Rabbit Syndrome (he still has all his faculties, but you can tell he's been on many adventures and enjoyed many snuggles). Be careful if purchasing this dragon, he is "bitey" and "naughty" and will refuse to share any treat unless he really loves you in which case you can have a little bit. Also, he does not like to be called a "snuggle dragon" - that will cause a fit of biting and name calling and threats to use his fire. None of us has seen any fire yet, so we think he may be bluffing. He actually snapped at the valet at the Ritz-Carlton Maui one time for patronizing him. Menace is also very sensitive about the fact that he does not have any teeth, although we are rather glad of it because he can be so "bitey." Please only adopt a dragon if you will really love it. We worry about dragons going to homes unwilling to give the love and snuggles and treats and attention needed to feed and care for a dragon.

I recieved an early version of one of these outrageous fellows when i was barely four on christmas..i soon adopted it and based a love for dragons around it. It took place for a teddy bear in my life. Now it sits in my room happily, although I do not play with it as much, being older and all. But I highly recommend this toy for kids. The puppeting vaule is also great because of the moveable arms and great mouth, I had put on many shows for my family. GREAT TOY. Feel free to buy it for some little kid like i was.

As a dragon lover, I bought that dragon puppet about three months ago, and it's just beautiful ! This plump little dragon is really gorgeous, fun to operate, and really sweet to cuddle ; he really deserves to be the very next item on your dragon purchase list, and he's just perfect for any fantasy-related room deco, or as a lovable pillow-pal on your bed... You may pretend to be a dragon-slayer, if you want, but you'll be quickly overwhelmed by how soft and cuddly he is !...

this is a great game to play at any event I first learned it at my softball summer camp. We played every night it was very very fun. its easy to play and u can play for hours

Frog Juice is a really fun game for the whole family. There are witches, witch wash, and spells. My family could play it all day. It is very fun. That's it.

I have boys age 7 and 11 and both love this game. It's a great family game for all ages. I can play with the kids and they have as much of a chance of winning as I do. Our 7 year old often wins and we don't have to go easy on him.

This turn based game package, yes I said turn based not real time, is extremely addictive. These games have a huge selection of heroes, artifacts & monsters that you can personally control. Use your hero to scour the land in search of artifacts, magic spells, gold & monsters to either join your army or conquer. Take over castles and towns to further strengthen your tactical position, improve your land and holdings. Game play is endless. Games have a vast array of single scenarios that you can choose from or you can test your luck with other gamers on-line or across a network. If you love strategy games, definitely treat yourself to these very addictive games. Hours of enjoyment and well worth the price!

My husband and I have been playing HOMM since the original version came out, in '92 (?I think?). We've bought every new version as it has come out without a regret. Hour for hour, these games are undoubtedly the best game value we've ever gotten. Even today, all three versions are still playable, still fun, and a staple on our home machines. While dissimiliar, this game is on par with the original Warcraft, with respect to playability.

HOMM, HOMM2, and HOMM3 are strategy games involving logistics, exploration, and tactics.

HOMM is awsome! A great strategy game. If you like Starcraft you will likely like this game. The game also has good graphics. The battles are very fun because you can't always move far enough to attack your enemies. I liked the turn part too. It makes it so you can't build a lot of troops to rush or something because you only can build one building per turn and you can't build unlimited troops because you can only build so many each week. Overall: A great game!

I love this..It is so soft and easy to shape and it doesnt stick. My mom used to always buy it for us but she stopped because it was always rock hard when bought. I wish that she still bought it but i dont care because whenever i see it i dont want it anymore becase i know its for little kids..lol..anyways its great!

This stuff feels light as air, and is easy to model and mold into just about anything. With the first package we bought, the Model Magic was hard as a rock (so it was obviously ancient). I emailed Crayola, who apologized profusely and offered me a coupon for a new package (their customer support system is prompt and professional- 5 stars for that!). It should be noted, then, that if you want your creation to be permanent, leave it out to air dry (about 24 hours). If you want to be able to keep playing with it, put it in an airtight container. I tried putting water on the rock hard stuff (as the website suggested trying), but it didn't do anything. More fun than playdough (and doesn't smell funny, either).

I love this product! It's on the expensive side for what you are getting, but it's great for kids. I have a 2 and 4 year old and they love to mix the colors and see what happens. They make balls with swirls, roll it out and use cookie cutters or just shape whatever they want. It is as educational as water colors for learning the mixes of colors without the mess. It doesn't get all over the place like play-doh. There is nothing to break because when it dries, it is almost like rubber. If pulled too hard, it will break. The downside....once the package is opened, you must use it all because it doesn't store very well. There is even a disclaimer on the package. There are individual 2 oz. packages sold for people who just want to try it. Once you're sold, you will want the larger tubs because it works out cheaper.

I am a 30 year old mom and I got this game boy game as one of my 5 year old's first game boy game. My daughter loves this game and enjoys playing all the little mini games in the activity mode. For me, I find I AM THE ONE stealing moments to play this game, but mostly in the mission/adventure mode. It is very addictive, challenging (but not so challenging that my five year old couldn't do) and the graphics and sound are excellent. There are many lands to explore, (cloud city, marketplace, crystal caverns, magic forest, dragon playground & atlantis), lots of mazes, hidden areas and fun little activities that never bore. Trying to train the little pegasus is a lot of fun. If I was my daughter's age, this is the game I would have chosen as my first game boy color game, but I am partial to Arabian themes anyway. The only annoyance is saving the game, it requires a lengthy coded password. Worth every penny.

My 7 yr. old daughter loves this game. She plays it on those long (and short) car trips.

I like it a lot!It is the best game I have ever played!I like it a lot!

I played Heroes III earlier this year at a friend's house, and I was hooked. I was about to buy the Mac version when I saw that 3do was finally coming out with the expansion set for Mac. The only flaw in this game is that it sucks up your time. If you are not careful, that "one more turn" can keep you up until the rooster crows and it's time for work.

The game is a nice combination of role-playing and strategy games. I prefer turn-based games like this to real-time games like Warcraft, as it is based more on strategy and less on dexterous mouse-clicking. This game is also great for multiplayer, either online with Game Ranger, or the hotseat version with multiple players taking turns on the same computer. The only caveat is that the first player seems to have a better starting position in most scenarios.

The only critisms of this port would be the lack of the map and scenario editors which are available in the PC versions. While there are plenty of scenarios and the randomly generated maps are challenging enough, it would be fun to create your own. The other is that the manual, which should have been printed and not just included on the CD so that you can use it while playing the game, is not comprehensive and uses the tired scam of trying to get you to spend more money to figure out how to win the thing.

That said, I can't think of a better game to buy for the Mac. This one was well worth the wait.

I can't really say that Might and Magic is actually similar to this game, but if you liked the other Heroes of Might and Magic games, you should like this one. The old Mac game 'King's Bounty' was basically the direct predecessor of the Heroes games... Heroes III encompasses all the old creature names, etc., and concepts (MP, HP, Exp., etc.) Retrospectively, Heroes III is essentially a glorified version of its predecessors... spectacular animations, decent music(adding a great environment to the world) and an enhanced interface, allowing you to manipulate your heroes and empire even more. For a new gamer, it takes a while to learn all the functions; I myself am still learning new features. You can try and perfect your strategy in a Hotseat game(playing with other human/computer players on the same computer), Online Multiplayer Game(play against other human/computer players on-line), a regular campaign game, or one of the many scenarios.

This is a great game! It does get you hooked, though, so be careful. You can always save the game, however, so if you limit yourself you can always come back later to finish a scenario. In this game, you are... well... you are you. You don't have one character that's you, you are as many characters as you recruit. These characters are called Heroes. There are different types of Heroes, all having different abilities and statistics. In the beginning, you can either start was is called a campaign, where it's usually 3-4 scenarios all towards the same goal - in some you carry on your heroes to the next one, in some the first 3 are all different, and in the end you pick the group you want to use. There are more than 15 different campaigns.
For a single scenario, it's just one scenario, you complete it, and you're done. When doing this, you can either start with completely random things, or you can chose what different castles you want, what resource you want to start with, and what single hero you will begin with. There are 9 different castles, and for each castle there are maybe 10 heroes. For resources, you get to choose between gold, an artifact, or a different resource (depending on the castle you've chosen). Then you begin the game. In each scenario and campaign you have a different goal - most of the time it's to defeat all your enemies castles and heroes, but there are some where you have to kill a monster, gather all resource supplies(?), get a certain amount of gold, collect an artifact, kill a certain hero, or defend one of your castles from being captured by the enemy. When you start, it all depends on the certain scenario on what you have. Some start with your only hero, and you have to get a castle before you can really start playing - and in this game, if you are without a castle for a week, then you lose. In other scenarios, you start with one or more castles, and sometimes more than your chosen hero. In your castle, you can buy something to improve it once a day. It has barracks for different creatures to recruit, resource silos that will earn you some resources each day, mage towers that enable your heroes to learn magic spells, castles to improve the defences of the castle, and the greatest thing is the Capital, which you don't get until you get a few other things first, but once you do, it increases the amount of creatures in your barracks each week, and it gives you the mighty sum of 4000 gold per day. In your castle you can also recruit heroes, a choice of two per week - unless you recruit one, then a different one fills its place. And don't get me wrong - it takes money to recruit your heroes and creatures. You can also find money around the map with your hero, but most of the time you'll find yourself short of cash - unless it's a really long game and you've bought everything in your castle, have the limit of eight heroes, and your money is just piling up.
But enough about the castle - it's very important, but what you're trying to do is achieve your goal, and unless it's to accumulate gold, you can't achieve it by doing nothing with you hero. In any case, you have to have your hero capture resource places (ore pits, crystal mines etc.) so you have the resources to buy the things in your castle. You hero has a certain amount he/she can move each day - this increase with certain statistics you can get, or certain artifacts. There are also spells, if your hero is advanced enough to learn them and you have the right mage tower (and level) that enable him/her to transport somewhere on the map. That map in the beginning, by the way, is black, and you can only see things once you've explored there. If you have an ally, then you get to see where they've explored as well. Your hero sometimes starts out with a good army, but normally you have to wait to fight anything until you get enough troops in your castle. You hero has 8 'slots', which you can fill with an unlimited amount of 8 different creatures. There are different levels of creatures as well, and some are better than others. Your hero fights creatures around the map to get places, to gain experience (enough allows him/her to go up a level), to gather resources and artifacts, or to win the game. When you attack 'a' creature, sometimes they will flee and you can chase them (not on the map, your hero stays in one place) or let them go, and sometimes they will join you, which is always nice. You can also kill enemy heroes, but take in mind that if their army is better, you can die. You can make your hero retreat, however, and recruit him/her in the tavern in your castle. You can sort of view an enemies army by putting your mouse over them and holding down a certain key - I think it's the control key, the tap key, or the option key. Some heroes are also better than others from experience. You can also gain experience by doing other things besides killing beasts.
So now you have this very long narrative, and I still haven't told you everything about this game. Don't worry, you can figure it out yourself (I'm so nice). This is a really great game, for children and adults alike. It does involve strategy, however, so maybe you should be at least 10 before playing. It's a great game, and I recommend it to anyone who likes computer games - this version is for Mac OS, but there are Windows versions. This pack comes with three heroes games, all having many different campaigns and scenarios - as you can pick levels to each single scenario, that is almost an unlimited amount. You can also create your own map, but I haven't really figured out how to do this the exact way I want to, so I can't help you there.
I hope this review has helped, even it was really long. I hope you enjoy the game!

I played Heroes III earlier this year at a friend's house, and I was hooked. I was about to buy the Mac version when I saw that 3do was finally coming out with the expansion set for Mac. The only flaw in this game is that it sucks up your time. If you are not careful, that "one more turn" can keep you up until the rooster crows and it's time for work.

The game is a nice combination of role-playing and strategy games. I prefer turn-based games like this to real-time games like Warcraft, as it is based more on strategy and less on dexterous mouse-clicking. This game is also great for multiplayer, either online with Game Ranger, or the hotseat version with multiple players taking turns on the same computer. The only caveat is that the first player seems to have a better starting position in most scenarios.

The only critisms of this port would be the lack of the map and scenario editors which are available in the PC versions. While there are plenty of scenarios and the randomly generated maps are challenging enough, it would be fun to create your own. The other is that the manual, which should have been printed and not just included on the CD so that you can use it while playing the game, is not comprehensive and uses the tired scam of trying to get you to spend more money to figure out how to win the thing.

That said, I can't think of a better game to buy for the Mac. This one was well worth the wait.

I can't really say that Might and Magic is actually similar to this game, but if you liked the other Heroes of Might and Magic games, you should like this one. The old Mac game 'King's Bounty' was basically the direct predecessor of the Heroes games... Heroes III encompasses all the old creature names, etc., and concepts (MP, HP, Exp., etc.) Retrospectively, Heroes III is essentially a glorified version of its predecessors... spectacular animations, decent music(adding a great environment to the world) and an enhanced interface, allowing you to manipulate your heroes and empire even more. For a new gamer, it takes a while to learn all the functions; I myself am still learning new features. You can try and perfect your strategy in a Hotseat game(playing with other human/computer players on the same computer), Online Multiplayer Game(play against other human/computer players on-line), a regular campaign game, or one of the many scenarios.

This is a great game! It does get you hooked, though, so be careful. You can always save the game, however, so if you limit yourself you can always come back later to finish a scenario. In this game, you are... well... you are you. You don't have one character that's you, you are as many characters as you recruit. These characters are called Heroes. There are different types of Heroes, all having different abilities and statistics. In the beginning, you can either start was is called a campaign, where it's usually 3-4 scenarios all towards the same goal - in some you carry on your heroes to the next one, in some the first 3 are all different, and in the end you pick the group you want to use. There are more than 15 different campaigns.
For a single scenario, it's just one scenario, you complete it, and you're done. When doing this, you can either start with completely random things, or you can chose what different castles you want, what resource you want to start with, and what single hero you will begin with. There are 9 different castles, and for each castle there are maybe 10 heroes. For resources, you get to choose between gold, an artifact, or a different resource (depending on the castle you've chosen). Then you begin the game. In each scenario and campaign you have a different goal - most of the time it's to defeat all your enemies castles and heroes, but there are some where you have to kill a monster, gather all resource supplies(?), get a certain amount of gold, collect an artifact, kill a certain hero, or defend one of your castles from being captured by the enemy. When you start, it all depends on the certain scenario on what you have. Some start with your only hero, and you have to get a castle before you can really start playing - and in this game, if you are without a castle for a week, then you lose. In other scenarios, you start with one or more castles, and sometimes more than your chosen hero. In your castle, you can buy something to improve it once a day. It has barracks for different creatures to recruit, resource silos that will earn you some resources each day, mage towers that enable your heroes to learn magic spells, castles to improve the defences of the castle, and the greatest thing is the Capital, which you don't get until you get a few other things first, but once you do, it increases the amount of creatures in your barracks each week, and it gives you the mighty sum of 4000 gold per day. In your castle you can also recruit heroes, a choice of two per week - unless you recruit one, then a different one fills its place. And don't get me wrong - it takes money to recruit your heroes and creatures. You can also find money around the map with your hero, but most of the time you'll find yourself short of cash - unless it's a really long game and you've bought everything in your castle, have the limit of eight heroes, and your money is just piling up.
But enough about the castle - it's very important, but what you're trying to do is achieve your goal, and unless it's to accumulate gold, you can't achieve it by doing nothing with you hero. In any case, you have to have your hero capture resource places (ore pits, crystal mines etc.) so you have the resources to buy the things in your castle. You hero has a certain amount he/she can move each day - this increase with certain statistics you can get, or certain artifacts. There are also spells, if your hero is advanced enough to learn them and you have the right mage tower (and level) that enable him/her to transport somewhere on the map. That map in the beginning, by the way, is black, and you can only see things once you've explored there. If you have an ally, then you get to see where they've explored as well. Your hero sometimes starts out with a good army, but normally you have to wait to fight anything until you get enough troops in your castle. You hero has 8 'slots', which you can fill with an unlimited amount of 8 different creatures. There are different levels of creatures as well, and some are better than others. Your hero fights creatures around the map to get places, to gain experience (enough allows him/her to go up a level), to gather resources and artifacts, or to win the game. When you attack 'a' creature, sometimes they will flee and you can chase them (not on the map, your hero stays in one place) or let them go, and sometimes they will join you, which is always nice. You can also kill enemy heroes, but take in mind that if their army is better, you can die. You can make your hero retreat, however, and recruit him/her in the tavern in your castle. You can sort of view an enemies army by putting your mouse over them and holding down a certain key - I think it's the control key, the tap key, or the option key. Some heroes are also better than others from experience. You can also gain experience by doing other things besides killing beasts.
So now you have this very long narrative, and I still haven't told you everything about this game. Don't worry, you can figure it out yourself (I'm so nice). This is a really great game, for children and adults alike. It does involve strategy, however, so maybe you should be at least 10 before playing. It's a great game, and I recommend it to anyone who likes computer games - this version is for Mac OS, but there are Windows versions. This pack comes with three heroes games, all having many different campaigns and scenarios - as you can pick levels to each single scenario, that is almost an unlimited amount. You can also create your own map, but I haven't really figured out how to do this the exact way I want to, so I can't help you there.
I hope this review has helped, even it was really long. I hope you enjoy the game!

We got this for our daughter when she was 16 months. I purchased it on sale at the store and saved $50. It stayed in our living room for two weeks as she loved it so much! My husband put it together and really the only difficulty he had with putting the screws in was that you need to get inside the house to do it and it's a wierd angle. Even with that it still took less than a half hour to put together. If you are putting it together inside make sure you have a door wide enough for it to fit through. We assumed it would fit through our slider and when we moved it out it was just a hair to wide with the roof on. So we had to take the screws back out. Still not really a problem and more our fault than anything. My nephews (3 and 6) have come over to play and also had a ball with the house. I'm glad we purchased it when she was small so that she'll get several years of use from it. It is very sturdy so I have no worries that it won't last for her and any other children we may have. It has a cute little kitchen inside and the doorbell makes quite a few different sounds. I see no reason to spend $300 or more on a house when this one is just as fun and durable and as I said you can get it for $99 on sale at the store. I only gave it four stars for educational because for older kids it probably isn't but the little ones can practice opening and closing the door and shutters and pushing the doorbell. It really isn't the type of toy you'd purchase for educational purposes. Overall it's a great product. One of the few toys we have that I don't feel was a waste of money.

My original review for this house was on Dec. 23, 2002. It's still in our living room and our almost 4 1/2 and 3 1/2 boys still love playing with it. Probably this Summer we'll finally put it outside! Anyway, I'm writting to let folks know that there ISN'T susposed to be any pre-drilled holes for the screws. The idea is for the insertion of the screws to bore their own "hole" into the plastic. This makes the installation more tight and secure. Yes, of course you're going to need an electric screwdriver! It really isn't that difficult to get the screws in with the electric screwdriver. Drilling holes first to enable "easier" screw insertion may very well leave you with a loose and wobbly house once together if you make the holes even a bit too large. Hope this is helpful for you.

My 20 month old loves it. Only one thing you should know before you start putting it together, you really need a cordless screw driver. You can do it without one, but it won't be any fun.