Shopping toy stores and getting out alive

As a parent, I have left many of my old haunts behind and picked up a new set of stomping grounds. Gone are the days when I could pop in to a bookstore for a long, leisurely browse and maybe enjoy one of those phenomenal gingerbread lattes at Starbucks.

Now, I frequent parks or indoor playgrounds. The only store that I can stroll through on a Sunday afternoon is Toys ‘R’ Us, which becomes a sort of indoor playground for Colin.

He enjoys pushing the fake lawnmowers up and down the aisle and for some reason that aisle is always empty of children. I guess today’s kids blow past that benchmark at a very young age and Colin is still innocent enough to not require screaming bells and whistles on every toy.

Lately, my journeys to Toys ‘R’ Us haven’t been as leisurely. I have been a man on a mission, searching for toys for my son for the first Christmas he may actually understand, and also looking to see what is hot and trendy, so that I can report and comment on it.

During college I used to work at KB Toys, so I have always had an affinity for toys and kept a sense of child-like wonder and appreciation for them as well. It amazed me that the popular items this year appear to have been popular both during my childhood and my college years as well.

For instance, the first groups of items I noticed the other day were Cabbage Patch dolls, followed by Barbie, Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, Hot Wheels, G.I. Joe, Transformers and Star Wars. You could go back in time, hijack a kid from 1984 and he or she would feel right at home in the toy store.

I wonder though, does the fact that there are very few new toys mean that these products are just too good to let go of or is there no originality in the toy industry?

Only Strawberry Shortcake appeared to have undergone a major makeover with the dolls looking bigger and better. I didn’t get a chance to smell the hair and see if it was scented like fruit, though.

I’m assuming it does and a 31-year-old guy smelling doll hair would just look too creepy.

Another popular group of items this year appeared to be centered around “The Little Mermaid,” which was released on DVD recently. I don’t know if there are new toys out this year, but the store practically had an entire aisle dedicated to Little Mermaid dolls, playsets and games. I love the movie and hope to either purchase it for Colin or receive it as a gift myself this year. This is one thing that I would absolutely recommend as a gift idea this year.

As for toys based on old ideas, Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars and their nifty new race tracks are always a good bet, and I think parents are better off buying either Strawberry Shortcake, Barbie or Care Bears for a girl rather than those hideous, disgusting Bratz dolls. Seriously, those things make me feel dirty just looking at them. They might as well be called Skankz.

Going towards toys for the younger kids, the most popular item seems to be Tickle Me Elmo Extreme. I didn’t see it in the store and it is temporarily not available on-line. The store did have another Tickle Me type item and it happened to be the one thing I had to have before leaving the store: Tickle N’ Giggle Curious George. “CG,” as we call him in our house, because if we speak the name aloud Colin believes we will immediately be going upstairs to watch one of the dozen episodes we have Tivo’d for him, is bigger than ever, thanks to a movie and a new television show on PBS.

The tickle doll is similar to the old Tickle Me Elmo where there are several tickle spots on the doll and one of them gets the doll to react even more than the others. This magic tickle spot rotates, so it is never in the same place twice in a row.

I’m sure we’ll want to throw the chattering and chuckling monkey out the window by Dec. 27, but we can’t wait to give it to him.

As for other gifts, he isn’t demanding anything and we just want to provide him with some books, an Aqua-doodle, so he can draw and not color his hands funky colors, and maybe some block-like vehicles.

I thought all the LeapPad stuff was really cool and the last thing we got Colin that he really enjoys is a tent that looks like an igloo. We got it at Ikea and the kid hides in there whenever he wants to play with us. Trust me, it is adorable.

One of the coolest things I saw and played with this year was an item called the ESPN Play by Play. It looks like a boombox and comes with a microphone and a bunch of typical sports sound effects, like the charge fanfare, the defense chant and the “We Will Rock You” stomp. You can also plug in your mp3 player, which makes it double as sort of a mp3 boombox.

The idea is that you can take it to little sporting events or your backyard flag football games and call it like an ESPN sportscaster. I admit I love playing with microphones, especially when there is an echo effect involved, and this was fun. I’d love to take it to a Little League baseball game or something and give it a whirl.

The toy market changed forever when gaming systems became all the rage, though, and now they dominate the market. The industry quickly went from Colecovision to Atari to Nintendo, Sega, Sony and Xbox. Though it doesn’t take up all that much space in the toy store itself, video games are a big business and chances are a game or one of the fantastic new systems are on your kid’s wish list this year.

Toys ‘R’ Us did not have a Nintendo Wii or a Sony Playstation 3, so I went to XPlayground in Peachtree City to try them out. They do not sell the games or systems, but kids and parents can go to the establishment and give them both a try.

The Wii is amazing and it looks like Nintendo has created a system that is not just based on a gimmick like the Power Glove or the Power Pad. The system comes with a wireless controller and a “nun-chuck” which give you extra control. There is a motion-detecting device that goes on top of the television and how you move is how your character moves on the game.

I tried out several games on Wii Sports, which is the most popular title for the Wii at XPlayground right now, and had a blast. The boxing game had me dodging punches and throwing my own, while the bowling game saw me play one of my best strings in years, probably because I wasn’t throwing a 10-pound ball.

The baseball game isn’t going to take the place of something like Triple Play, mainly because you can’t field, but the hitting and pitching was great fun. The graphics weren’t sensational, but they were unique and fit the screen well. I played for roughly 20 minutes and worked up a bit of a sweat.

There are a number of other games available for the Wii, which also allows the player to download any old Nintendo title through its WiiConnect 24 Internet connection.

There is also actually a chance that you may be able to find a Wii before Christmas without shelling out a couple of grand, as Nintendo is planning on releasing 4 million more systems.

The Playstation 3 is a curious beast. The graphics are incredible. They are without a doubt the best I have ever seen. The problem is that the system is expensive, somewhere close to $600 without the necessary add-ins, and it is extremely unavailable.

XPlayground owner Larry Justice stated that they company only released 400,000 systems and it is unlikely that there will be another release before the holiday.

The second problem is that there are not enough titles for the system right now. You can play your old Playstation 1 and 2 games, but why buy the system to do that when their graphics won’t be as magnificent as the PS3 titles?

Justice, who stood out in line for the Wiis and PS3s, sometimes for days, raves about the Wii and recommends it over the PS3, at least right now. As more people make the move to HDTV and Blu-Ray DVDs, the PS3 will function as a complete entertainment system and by then there will be enough titles for it to work as a gaming system as well.

That being said, PS3’s Motostorm and Ridge Racer looked amazing on the big screen HDTVs at XPlayground and gaming fans should head down and check them both out.

You probably won’t get your hands on either system this Christmas, though, and you’ll just be looking for games for the current system in your house.

Among the recommendations from Justice and me are “Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas,” “Gears of War,” “Call of Duty 3” and, the oddest game I’ve ever heard of, “Viva Pinata,” for the XBox 360. It is a game where you control the environment and raise pinata-like animals.

Other games that are getting a lot of play are “Marvel Ultimate Alliance,” “Final Fantasy XII,” “Superman Returns,” “Guitar Hero II,” “Tony Hawk’s Project 8” and “Bully,” from the makers of “Grand Theft Auto.”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,“ Justice said. “Your character defends the kids who are getting picked on by the bullies with pranks.”

Of course, Christmas isn’t just about the toys and your kids will scarcely notice if something was missing from their list. Even if they do notice, they’ll get over it. I stopped crying about not getting a Dagoba swamp playset a long time ago. It has been at least 10 years.

If you are running out of ideas, old stand-bys always work, like board games, books, clothes, and the increasingly popular gift cards. I for one am hoping to get some more iTunes gift cards to continue growing my amazing music collection.

Happy shopping.