Grades K and up. Europe's 2003 game of the year! Develops logic and spacial perception while kids learn to be tactical. Players take turns placing pieces on their board, each starting from their corner. Each new piece must touch at least one other piece of the same color, but only at the corners! The goal is to get rid of all your pieces. The game ends when all players are blocked from laying down any more of their pieces. Includes one gameboard with 400 squares, 84 game pieces in four bright translucent colors, and an instruction guide.

Not Your Average Board Game
Blokus encourages creative thinking and has received a Mensa award for promoting healthy brain activity. The goal of this game is for players to fit all of their pieces onto the board. When placing a piece it may not lie adjacent to the player's other pieces, but must be placed touching at least one corner of their pieces already on the board. The player who gets rid of all of their tiles first is the winner and strategic thinking helps as you block moves from your opponent. Blokus sometimes comes to an end because there are no more possible moves.

Four players make this abstract game especially fast and exciting; however, it can be just as fun for two or three players. Blokus has come up with a number of different ways to play the game to make it more thrilling when playing with less than four players. Draft Blokus allows a player to use more than one color and Reverse Blokus reverses the entire game so that the person who places the least amount of tiles on the board is the winner. It can even be played in a solitaire version when one player attempts to place all of their pieces in a single sitting. A game of Blokus typically lasts a 30 minutes. As a practical feature, raised edges on the board help keep the tiles in place and allow convenient clean-up. This game includes 84 pieces in four vibrant colors, an instruction guide, and one gameboard with 400 squares.

Blokus is simple to understand, but the game's complexity is revealed shortly after everyone begins to play. It can be addictive, even for those not normally into abstract games. Blokus is a catalyst for spatial thinking, as players form images in their mind before placing the pieces on the board. Children and adults can play together for hours of competitive family fun. As Europe's 2003 Game of the Year, Blokus is adored by many and even played in professional tournaments.

The Hyper Dash helps kids develop basic math and color and number recognition skills. View larger.

The Hyper Dash uses RFID to wirelessly recognize targets. View larger.

What We Think Fun Factor: Durability: (what this means) The Good:Award-winning way to stay active; improves listening, memory and math skills The Bad:Plastic unit may not hold up to lots and lots of rough play In a Nutshell:Hyper Dash is a fun way for kids to exercise their bodies and their minds At a Glance Ages:6 and up Requires:3 AA batteries

Fast, Easy Set-Up
The only set-up required is to install three AA batteries. Opening the battery compartment requires a small Phillips head screw driver, which means an adult needs to change the batteries. This keeps batteries in the right place during active play, but it also means that changing batteries on the fly requires you to have a screwdriver with you.

The manual is clear and concise, with descriptions of how to play and a list of all the special commands the Hyper Voice issues, so any child can be up and running in just a few minutes. There's no button to turn the unit off, but it quickly shuts itself off when not in use to save battery life.

Getting Moving Quickly
The electronic tagger plays upbeat music and calls out voice commands to control the game, while players following the commands race against the clock to tag targets identified by color and number. Kids can play solo, up to four players can compete head-to-head, or up to eight players can work cooperatively in teams of two. There's even a level where kids need to solve addition and subtraction problems to figure out which target to strike next.

With no complex set-up and no complicated directions to follow, younger children get started playing Hyper Dash quickly. Since players control where the five targets are positioned, there are infinite ways to play Hyper Dash. Combined with the fact that Hyper Dash offers four games to choose from with increasingly difficult levels to master, and it's easy to see why even older, more experienced players (including parents!) stay excited about this game.

Four-Games-in-One
The original game, Hyper Dash, features the Hyper Voice calling out commands. Four different levels allow the players' skills to progress. Level one includes only colors in the calls. The calls on level two are a little faster and include both colors and numbers, while level three adds special commands like "Double Strike," "Triple Strike," and "Reverse. " Level four features the "CompuStrike" call, which require kids to solve basic math problems, such as "four plus one" or "three minus two. "

In Team Dash, a special command indicates when the Hyper Dash unit should be handed off, turning the race against the clock into a relay. The games Micro Dash and Team Micro Dash set out sequences that get progressively longer and trickier, providing a challenging test of memory.

The Hyper Dash unit keeps track of times and scores, and the Hyper Voice announces the winner at the end of the game, cutting down on arguments. With only one Hyper Dash tagger, kids will have to wait their turn to play in multiple player games. This can be both a lesson in patience and an opportunity to cheer others on.

RFID Technology for a Flexible, Durable Game
Hyper Dash uses radio frequency identification (RFID) to recognize the targets. The same technology is used to track packages and to identify books and DVDs in many libraries. This means that a wireless signal connects the Hyper Dash unit and the targets, so there's no need to strike targets with force.

While the Hyper Dash tagger unit seems incredibly durable, it is made of plastic. Just because RFID technology means kids can tag targets lightly, it doesn't mean they will. Our one concern about the game is the possibility that hard play will damage the tagger over time.

With RFID, there's no limit to how far apart you set the targets. You can set them up at opposite ends of a football field for a serious test of endurance, or close together requiring fancy footwork. You can even them up next to each other to see who has the quickest hands. This flexibility makes Hyper Dash appropriate for both indoor and outdoor spaces.

Award-Winning Educational Fun
Kids have so much fun playing Hyper Dash that they don't realize how much they're learning. Parents will love the way Hyper Dash combines active play with lessons that support color and number recognition, basic math skills. The game's format also inspires better listening and improves kids' coordination. It's no wonder that Hyper Dash has won an iParenting Award and a Seal of Excellence Award from Creative Child Magazine, along with several other honors recognizing it as an innovative, educational toy.

On the DVD
Sleeping Beautywas the last and most lavish of Walt Disney's animated fairy tales. He told the artists not to hurry and to give him "a moving illustration": The film required almost four and one-half years and one million finished drawings. Instead of the 19th century storybook illustrations that had influenced the look ofSnow WhiteandPinocchio, the artists adapted the flattened perspective and jewel-like colors of 15th century French illuminated manuscripts. The results remain unmatched for sheer visual opulence. However,Sleeping Beautysuffers from a weak story: the vision of an ageless princess slumbering in a vine-shrouded tower was replaced with elements ofSnow Whiteand a boy-meets-girl musical. The evil Maleficent and the three Good Fairies (Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather) dominate the film, rather than Princess Aurora and Prince Philip.Sleeping Beautywas originally released in 70mm, and the Blu-ray edition restores the film to its original splendor. (Many earlier releases trimmed the wide-screen images and/or muted the glowing palatte.) The Bonus DVD looks good on a flat screen monitor, but it pales in comparison to the richness of the Blu-ray. In addition to the commentaries and a making-of documentary, the set includes myriad extras that vary widely in quality. Nostalgia buffs will enjoy the recreation of the old Sleeping Beauty's Castle attraction in Disneyland, and the TV program "Four Artists Paint One Tree" provides a welcome showcase for key talents from the film. But the CG animation of the dragon and the voice imitations of the Good Fairies fail to capture the magic of the originals in the "Dragon Encounter"; the "Maleficent's Challenge Game"--a hi-tech Twenty Questions--sounds only vaguely like the redoubtable sorceress. (Rated G: violence)--Charles Solomon




Stills fromSleeping Beauty(Click for larger image)

Stills fromWall-E(Click for larger image)