Tonka Power Tools Playset Review
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If your child covets your socket wrenches or, worse yet, your blowtorch, this program might help keep your shop tools (and your child) safe a bit longer.
Tonka Power Tools will have mini mechanics building things like dragsters and robots, using a plastic power tool. The tool that comes with this game won't drill real holes but it is a real piece of hardware that connects to your CPU's game port and monitor port. Setup is fairly simple, depending on how you feel about exploring that dusty jumble of cords behind your computer. Plugging and unplugging the power tool could prove a cumbersome task for parents who share a computer with their kids. The only other option is to leave the power tool plugged in, and act like it's perfectly normal to have a screaming yellow Tonka tool perched next to the mousepad.
This Windows-only program offers three activities and three games, introduced by buff-armed, jovial Tonka Joe. The activities all involve building cool things that can be saved and printed. There's a wood shop for constructing forts and castles, a metal shop for designing all manner of vehicles, and a tech lab for rockets, robots, time machines, and the like. The ever-versatile power tool comes into play here: pointing the Teflon tip at the screen and squeezing the trigger selects an activity, twisting the collar on the tool selects one of 24 different power-tool tips to use on a project, then pointing and triggering again gets the job done. We really liked arc welding, which made the screen flash so realistically we considered donning sunglasses. The three games have three levels, and are good exercises in logic, spatial applications, and finding the right tool for the job. A pit-stop game requires kids to quickly fix racecars that roll in needing repairs. A Tetris-like construction game has players affixing panels to a house as they fly in from all screen directions. And in The Safe Game kids use their tool to solve puzzles, using visual cues to "crack" a series of locks and win the treasure contained in the safe. Decent games, one and all, that will please tool lovers, and provide the tool-impaired with a gentle introduction to the differences between Phillips-head and flat-head screwdrivers.
A final word: the plastic power tool is quite light, but the games are engrossing enough that it's possible to hold it to the screen for long, fatiguing periods of time. Now we know why Tonka Joe has such beefy arms. Perhaps Tonka Power Tools should be marketed to adults as a triceps toner. (Ages 5 and older) --Anne Erickson
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