Review: Flipper Frenzy

Written on Dec 1, 2010 by RuthJS and filed under Reviews, Wild Planet

Smart Step Games (Wild Planet) has come out with a new preschool toy this season. Flipper Frenzy is a battery operated shark who plays games with his underwater friends (octopus, fish, turtle, and sea horse). Intended for children ages three and up, Flipper Frenzy retails for around $20. The game got generally positive reactions from our little testers, but volume and ease of game selection were areas we had concerns.

Out of the Box

There’s no question that Flipper Frenzy is cute. Flipper is a blue shark with a huge toothy grin that opens wide to reveal a large scoop mouth. The shark is accompanied by four multicolored adorable animal friends: octopus, fish, turtle, and sea horse. These friends can be stored in Flipper’s mouth, with a little arranging.

Flipper Frenzy is designed to be very easy to operate with just a few buttons. On top of the shark, there is a button that operates the scoop mouth. It is large and easy to operate for small hands. On Flipper’s left, there are three buttons that control the electronics:

• Power - toggles the game on and off
• Menu - toggles through the game options
• Go - starts the game that has been selected

Before you can play, Flipper Frenzy requires three AA batteries which are not included.

Let’s Play!

The object of the Flipper Frenzy games is for children to take turns finding the correct animal friend that matches the description given by Flipper. When the child has found the correct animal, he or she scoops it into Flipper’s mouth and shakes the toy to see if it is the correct animal. Children can choose to have Flipper describe which animal to find based on the animal’s name, the letter that starts the animal’s name, the friend’s color, or a description of the friend. For example, Flipper might say, “who has eight legs?” and the child is supposed to find the octopus. Additionally, children can play “Sharky Says” or hide and seek.

Review Reactions

The three and four-year-old reviewers that we had play with this toy enjoyed it. However, we should note that the children did have some difficulty using the small buttons on the side of the whale to select the game they wanted. Additionally, while Flipper Frenzy says it can accommodate from one to six players, we had up to three children play with the toy at a time, and we felt that this was the maximum number of players that the game could realistically occupy. It is also worth mentioning that there is no volume control on the game, and it is quite loud. While this did not make a difference to our testers, the adults in the room commented on the noise level of the toy.

In a Nutshell

This game has a list price of $19.95, and if you have one or two little toddlers at home, it is fun.

Pros: cute, durable, reasonably priced, age appropriate games, fun for one to three kids

Cons: batteries not included, no volume control, small buttons can be tricky for little hands, hard to fit all the animals in the shark’s mouth for storage, really can’t accommodate six children

We give Flipper Frenzy:

4 out of 5 stars

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