Review: Hyper Blast

Written on Sep 29, 2009 by Brian and filed under Reviews, Wild Planet

Hyper Blast is part of Wild Planet’s Smart Step games series which are designed to be educational while getting kids active at the same time. Hyper Blast is a numbers based game, that times kids while they try to return five colored balls to the base station. Multiple levels make the game progressively harder by mixing in math and other new commands.

Playing Hyper Blast

It’s easy to get started with Hyper Blast. Just arrange the balls on the base and press the blue power button to turn the unit on. From there kids can select from one of four game types that support from one to four players. The games work in much the same way though, the kids stomp on the blast button to launch the balls across a room. Then as the base calls out commands, kids return the balls to the base.

The base is made such that a ball only fits a single slot. So the five can only fit in the fifth hole, and so on. If a ball gets returned that’s not right, the kids will have to stomp the blast button to start over. Out of the gate, the games are pretty straightforward, kids will return the balls in sequence, sometimes in reverse sequence. By increasing the difficulty though, kids can be met with colors (blue, green, etc.), double digit numbers (32, 25, 42) and math problems (3+2, 5-1).

The games are all timed, so kids are incentivized to work quickly. In multi-player games, the unit keeps score and announces the winner at the end. The only note is that kids will often not really stomp on the button, but press it just hard enough to get the balls to roll off so they can be faster. In multi-player games, we recommend having the opposing players handle the stomping for each other to keep the kids honest.

From a parent’s perspective, it’s clear kids really had fun with Hyper Blast. It’s also something parents can play a few times without getting bored, which is a nice plus. The game is recommended for ages 6 and up, but kids much younger can play the easy levels, especially with a little help from a parent or bigger sibling. We found that six year-olds enjoyed the game a good deal, but kids much older found it too easy. Without the element of competition, they might not have enough interest in playing.

That said, Wild Planet did a good job with Hyper Dash. It’s a fun game that gets kids moving and thinking about numbers and doing light math; and for a reasonable $25 what’s there not to like?

Editor’s Rating – 4 out of 5 stars

Have a comment about this article? Leave a comment in the KidsTechReview.com forums.