Nov 21, 2012

New Stuff - Light Rider & Power Buggz

Many, many months ago while perusing the Hot Wheels at grocery store Stop & Shop (don't ask me why I shop for Hot Wheels at a grocery store, they seem to get the hard to find stuff) I noticed the line of Hot Wheels Motorcyles. The back of the card shows a very Tron-like vehicle called Light Rider. I hit every Stop & Shop around on a regular basis and have never found it. None of the department stores even carry the Motorcycles line. I finally resorted to Ebay and managed to get one for only retail plus S&H.

hot wheels motorcylce light rider tron lightcycle toy

The next day after it came in the mail, the VERY NEXT day, I went to Kmart, which I rarely visit, and there it was on the peg. Oh well, a bike in the hand is worth two in the bush, right? Even without the name of Light Rider, there's no mistaking the Tron inspiration. It's hard to see in the photo but if you look, you can see the rider's arm, body and leg.

Something else I found at Kmart is a new blind bag toy series called Power Buggz from MEG Toys. This same company relaunched a new line of painted Monster in My Pocket figures a few years ago pretty much worldwide, except North America. Thanks for that, MEG Toys.

I like creepy things, no shock to regular visitors, but these are a different kind of creepy. They're insect-like but they have distinctly non-insect faces and their two front legs are arms that end in hands. Sort of reminds me of the end of the original The Fly.

The Buggz packaging looks somewhat similar to Predasaurs so I was surprised to find they're made by different companies. The bag says there are 12 to collect, 3 each of Ants, Beetles, Spiders and Roaches. These creepy little things have wheels on the bottom and a pullback-and-release motor. Depending on how slick your floor is, they'll go between 5-10 feet. The site mentions there are others that have a ripcord motor, I bet those go quite a ways! If you're the pranking type, you could pull one back so it's ready to go and then place it behind or under something so when someone moves the object, the Bugg comes zipping out!

power buggz springer spider toy with LEGO cowgirl
LEGO Cowgirl (for scale) tries to rustle up a Buggz ride
 Each one comes with a cardboard punch out "target" card and game card. The site has four different games you can play, two with just the cards and two using the cards and Buggz. The ones using the Buggz have you pitching cards and trying to get your motorized bug to land on the defense side of the card and touch the highest point zones. The game cards are done in a surprisingly sturdy stock and aren't flimsy at all. For some reason, I'm getting images of people in various states of intoxication trying to get their Buggz to land on a score card or knock their opponents off.

power buggz springer spider game cards
Top-Bottom: Target punch-out card, Game card attack, Game card defense

1 comment:

  1. So playing with Buggz could be the new beer pong? ;) Now you've got me picturing drunk people flipping these critters around. That non-insect head is really creepy. How brave of that little cowgirl to try roping that!

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