I've recently discovered a
neat, portable game that I'll be bringing with me during my travels with family this Christmas. It's called Sifteo and comes in the form of adorable little cubes that fit into the palm of my hand. Although for now, it seems to only be equipped with one player games, I hope to see the day when multiplayers can play interactively with these cubes.
The basic set comes with 3 cubes and a larger rectangular console. The Sifteo base kind of acts as the base to sense your cubes, you can always add additional cubes. The console is also your on/off switch, volume control and mic. Batteries are included! If you're curious though, it'll take you 5 AAA batteries to run the basic set, 2 in the base and 1 each in the cubes.
The whole concept was quite interesting since you can shift, shake, move, tilt, flip the cubes every which way. It makes for quite the interactive experience. The game itself comes with 4 games already installed and you're able to purchase additional games ($8-$12) to download to the cubes. You install new games by connecting the Sifteo base to your computer via an USB cord.
There were games addictive to all age groups. I was always a Ninja turtles fan so uh huh, I played that one first! By rotating and tilting the cubes, you move your turtle from one platform to another to get them into the manhole. The further you progress, the more you have to think. This will get the kids thinking and problem solving, while having fun.
For the littler kids, there's
Cube Buddies to help fix faces. That just sounds weird when I write it but there's cute characters. The purpose is to help place the eyes, hair, lips, etc into the proper places. Pretty clever, huh? It'd also help to educate kids.
Then there's Word Caravan where you tilt the cubes as to spell a word correctly. All pretty educational stuff with puzzles infused with fun. Chroma Splash was interesting. My favorite may be the sandwich quest though. It's more challenging and would appeal to older age groups. It's challenging to line the cubes up as to provide a live map of where to go next. You move from screen to screen to complete quests.
The worst game, possibly because it wasn't even a game, was Bliss Bomb. By putting the cubes together, you get different combos of light flashing. It's pretty pointless but I could see a few being amused with it for a short while.
Overall though, decent image quality and sound with interactive mind-stimulating games. Battery life was decent. I was able to get a good 1.5hours of play in without taking too much off the battery life. You can check the battery left in each cube which I found neat.
Sifteo is a great add to your portable games this holiday season. It'd be great for keeping everyone occupied during the travelling. I would say 3 cubes (the basic) is definitely enough to start play but for games like Sandwich Kingdom, additional cubes definitely made it easier on my life! They do plan on making multiplayer games which I'm looking forward to but for now, it's mostly single player games.
Buy It:
Shop online for Sifteo. Use
BloggerSpecial for 10% off. The basic package of 3 cubes, Sifteo base, 4 games (Code Cracker, Chroma Splash, Cube Buddies, & Word Caravan), USB cable, carrier, and an additional bonus free download of Sandwich Kingdom costs $129.95. Additional cubes cost $29.95. If you plan on getting additional cubes though, the 6-cube package may be for you because you get 3 additional cubes to the standard package for a total of $199.95.
Win It: One lucky WOS reader will win a set of Sifteo ($130) for themselves! Enter on the Giveaway Tools form below from Dec 7 10PM EST to Dec 22 11:59PM EST. Open to US/Canada, 18+. Good luck! Please take the time to enter my other
giveaways while you're here.
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Disclaimer: The product/s mentioned above have been provided for the purposes of this review. No other form of compensation was received. Opinions expressed belong to Whirlwind of Surprises and are NOT influenced in any way. Please view my full
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