Thrillville: Off the Rails

Product Number: 206
Where can I buy: Amazon.co.uk

When I first started my journey in to video games as a child I was pretty well catered for. Gentle platform heroes were the order of the day, and even if I was tempted to buy a more ‘violent’ video game the pixelated blood, and poor graphics means my fragile little mind didn’t come away warped in any way. These days platform heroes have become something of a joke, and aside from games by Nintendo I get a real feeling that kids games are becoming too childish and adult games too adult.


To fill this void comes Thrillville: Off The Rails, the latest game to allow you to build your own theme park. Unlike other games in the genre such as Theme Park and Rollercoaster Tycoon which are focused on the micromanagement of costs, ticket prices and research, Thrillsville takes a more relaxed approach to the construction of your park. Firstly there’s no open plot of land to play with, instead you receive five different parks each with three sections, which come pre populated with a few rides, and their own distinct themes already in place.

At first this seems rather defeating, as you find much of the character you want to inject in to your park has already been put in to place. Furthermore, the restrictive layout of each of the parks means you can only place a few rides in each, with pre set areas for your rollercoasters, rides and stalls to slot in to. Not only does this stop you from building one huge park, it also means you have to sacrifice some rides, in order to build others.


The logic behind these restrictions is that Thrillville does away with the top down perspective of other games, and instead places you inside each of the parks as park manager. This gives you the freedom to explore each of your parks, and best of all try out each of the rides you have built. Rides come in two forms, the first are simple mini games, each with Xbox Live leader boards and around 15-30 minutes of game play from start to finish. Clearly designed for children most of the games can be played through in one sitting, and aside from the odd almost unbeatable end boss there’s little reason to go back and play through a second time. Notable exceptions include Stunt Rider and Sparkle Quest, which focus on scores and solid platforming action respectively.

To encourage further play throughs, guests will challenge you to play a game with them and 100 missions are on offer to give you an incentive to explore your park, build new rides and chat to your guests. These missions unlock new rides and colour schemes for your park, as well as providing you with points which advance your park ranking and open up new worlds for you to explore. Each new world has various slots for rollercoasters, and these can be build to your own design, and best of all you can ride them once you’re done.


Thrillville: Off the Rails is definitely a completely different offering to any theme park games that have gone before. The micromanagement of ticket prices, advertising and research is all still in place, but the focus now is more on fun, chatting to your guests to appease their needs and best of all simply enjoying yourself in the virtual world around you. Sure there may be restrictions in place, but the sheer variety of mini games, and the freedom in making your own coasters creates a game that is fun from the first day of park opening to the last. And that’s something that is true for both kids and adults.

Shady Beats

Product Number: 205

Synergy is a great word. It implies the bringing together of various elements in order to create something better, and ultimately more convenient. Take iFlops, the iPod charger in a teddy, which eradicated the need to worry about hugging both an iPod and a cuddly toy before going to bed. Also hoping to prove one product is better than two is Shady Beats, a sunglasses case with integrated speaker.


Whilst not the most natural of combos, Shady Beats is designed to offer everything you need when you head down to the beach. With a padded space for your shades, a zip up pocket for your cards and cash, and a speaker for your music player it’s a neat device. Frustratingly there’s nowhere to store your actual music player (unless you shove it in the pouch for cash but annoyingly that can’t be zipped up all the way due to a very short headphone jack) this means you might still have to carry your pride and joy in a pocket, or place in loose inside the pouch. Either way it kind of defeats the point a little.

In terms of your shades there’s plenty of room inside for even the most bizarre of styles, and mine fitted in fine. Given that I’ve lost / broken more than my fair share of shades over the years I actually found it a handy device. Sure you might prefer to wear your shades on your head, so it’s a good job Shady Beats also doubles up as a rather handy portable music player.


With no internal volume controls of its own you’re left to rely on the output of your music device, which is fine for iPods if you ramp them up to the highest volume, but may not work well for quieter devices. Despite lacking volume controls Shady Beats requires batteries, which is a shame given that iFlops managed to produce a decent sound without them, and if you’re heading to the beach the last thing you want to take is a spare pack of batteries.

In terms of music we tried out everything from George Michael to Fall Out Boy to Hardcore Club XL 2 and they all produced satisfactory results. All of the songs from loud to quiet, rock to pop did have a slight gravelled edge to them, perhaps due to the casing surrounding the speakers. You can combat this a little by playing the device with the lid open, but you’ll lose some volume along the way so it’s really a trade off between the two.


Shady Beats isn’t without its flaws, and there are definitely some tweaks that could be made in future versions. If you take it purely as a set of speakers and a slot for your sunglasses then it does the job well, it’s just a shame you have to lug around spare batteries and your iPod someone separate.

Magnicard

Product Number: 204
Where can I buy one: JML Direct.com

Ever feel like there’s something not right with the packaging you find in shops? Or simply feel like it’s trying to deceive? Well those who take a very close look at the Magnicard box will no doubt come away feeling like the box is trying to make the product look better than it is. The card itself is designed to magnify text by up to 2.5 times, and this is clearly illustrated as you can see the card at the front of the packet magnifying some text.


The twist in the tale comes when you view the packaging from the side, and it’s then you realise the card isn’t magnifying the text, and in fact that the text itself is printed in a far bigger font that anything alongside it. Taking one look at this has put me off buying the card for months, and left me with a pretty poor opinion of the product. Which really was a bit of a shame, because as soon as you take the card out and align it against something you start to realise that it’s quite a handy bit of kit to have around.

As for why the marketers felt to print far bigger text on the packaging, there really is no deception as the magnified text you see on the front is more of an artists impression to show how it will work when freed from its packaging. When you first try the card out you will see that it is every bit as effective as the text indicates. I found the card worked best by holding it right by the text and then pulling it towards yourself until just before it loses focus. This brings the text closer to yourself and ensures the maximum level of magnification.


I tried this out on various packaging with typically small text and it did the job superbly. As you scan up and down the text the focus remains and so long as you don’t dart the card across the page at a rapid rate you’ll find it more than keeps up with your eyeline. Naturally it works best on printed text which can easily be magnified, although if you’re trying to decipher someone’s bad handwriting it will help a little by making the bizzare twists and scribble bigger.

On top of that there’s a small light which helps brighten things up a bit, it won’t really help you read the text but is a nice addition if you are in a darkened place, especially as it slips snugly in to the credit card slot of any wallet. If you fancy reading a book at night without waking your partner up by turning on a light this seems like the way to do it.

All in all it seems the Magnicard more than stands up to the visual claims of its packaging. Perhaps in future the marketing team might want to slap an “artists impression” disclaimer on so as not to deter perspective buyers. Either way don’t be put off by what looks like a trick, there’s no magic here just an effective magnifying glass Sherlock Homes would be proud of, and best of all it fits snugly in a wallet so it's ready for when you need it.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Movie marketing is a funny thing, take Spiderman 3, all Summer long we were bombarded with posters of Spiderman face down with his dark alter ego (Venom) staring back at him. Come the actual movie and 2 hours in everyone started to wonder where on Earth the prickly tongued villian had vanished to. Sure Spiderman’s black suit did feature prominently but it was one example of a time when movie marketing can lead you down the wrong path and totally destroy your opinion of a movie (had the posters featured Sandman or New Goblin people would have been far less disappointed).


By comparison Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer ran with posters not only showing the core four, but also with the Silver Surfer taking up an equal amount of poster space. Luckily this movie campaign was one that paid off, and thanks to a trailer which only showed one scene from the movie, audiences were more than impressed with the final result. By keeping hype (and expectations) low the end movie seemed far stronger for it.

Sure there are flaws, the reappearance of Dr Doom is generally weak (‘Let’s trust the bad guy, he’s our only hope yada yada…’) but the overall ending more than makes up for that. There’s also a rather interesting development with the foursomes powers which you’ll either love or hate, and every appearance of the Silver Surfer more than makes up for any problems with the script.

Visually FF:ROTSS is everything you’d want from a typical summer blockbuster. Whilst the Silver Surfer may at first glance look no more advanced than the villain in Terminator 2 you’ll soon spot some great lighting effects, and the way various backdrops are reflected off his body and board is handled very well. Clearly realising he’s the best part about the new movie there’s an in-depth documentary on his origins on the DVD even if you opt for the 1 disk version.

As with the original there are some elements of heart to the new movie, mostly revolving around the marriage of two heroes and their desire to leave the world of butt kicking behind them. Thankfully unlike the original this doesn’t act as baggage that drags down the action and instead functions as a nice arc to the story by staying away from being anything too serious or soppy.

Whilst it may not be the most visually impressive summer movie (that would be Transformers) or action packed (Bourne Ultimatum) it’s also not the most bloated (Pirates) or over the top (Spiderman 3) and as such it sits up there with the Simpson’s movie as one of the true unexpected treats of the Summer. Rent it or buy it and enjoy a super hero movie with heart but without having to tread through the intestines and stomach to get there first…

Animal Tracking and Bug Hunting Kit

Product Number: 198-199
How Much: £14.99
Where can I buy one: Amazon.co.uk

After chomping my way through the Bug Eating Party game a while ago I felt a small sense of guilt for consuming so many little critters. So to repent from my sins it was only fair that I accepted the task of reviewing the Bug Hunting Kit so that I may be able to observe our insect friends in their native environment, or in my case my back garden.


As this was the first time we allowed our new kittens out in to the back garden we had a nice tag team to help us find bugs to observe. Inside the kit you find all manner of useful capturing tools, the best of which is a pooter which comprises of a pot and two rubber pipes. Using this you pop one pipe on top of a bug and suck in air through the other, the bug is then swept up the pipe and kept inside a glass jar for your observation.

After this you can then move the bug in to an assortment of pots including some made of plastic, one with a magnifying glass on top and even a few that have been made from cardboard tubes and sticky tape (yes, just like something from Blue Peter!). This home made ethos is possibly in part due to the involvement of Nick Baker whom you may know from a number of BBC Nature Shows (or the micky takes of said shows on Harry Hills TV Burp).


Using the kit Marie managed to catch a spider and a small insect which was far better than the fly I attempted to capture miserably. Once you’ve caught your prey you can then use a measuring square to determine their size, or a separate magnifying glass to inspect them close up. The kit also comes with gloves to protect your hands, tweezers and a spoon to move bugs around, a bag to keep everything together and a notepad to record your findings.

In addition Nick Baker has also taken the time to rubber stamp an Animal Tracking Kit, which isn’t quite as much fun to play with in your back garden (unless you want to track your own pets) and therefore no doubt requires a trip to the country to be really enjoyed. Much like the bug kit you get a bag, gloves, notepad, magnifying glass and tweezers. In terms of tracking there’s some plaster of paris to mould animal footprints and bottles for collecting hair or errr... droppings.


All in all the kits represent a nice way to kill a couple of hours, especially if you’ve got kids and you fancy an excuse to explore the great outdoors. So grab a pooter and a magnifying glass and go and take a look, you never know what you’ll find!