Board game purists beware: board games are becoming more commercialized and more high tech. Monopoly now comes in a version in which players electronically pay their rent using a pretend credit card. Rather than visiting a bingo hall or a chess club, you can now play online on sites like FoxyBingo or PlayChess. And an assortment of board games now incorporate a television and a DVD.
Does that mean these modern board games are less fun than their predecessors? We say no. Or, at least, not necessarily. Here’s a selection of three fun, modern board games:
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Spot Cool Stuff is freshly returned from the 2012 International Toy Fair, a huge trade show where games, puzzles, scooters, trinkets, action figures, squirt guns, building blocks, mini robots and all manner of other playthings are put on display—and then taken way too seriously.
Here’s our annual roundup of the new toys we spotted at “The Fair” that seemed especially worthy of highlighting. Keep in mind that, at least for this website, Spot Cool Stuff has a bias towards products that adults can enjoy playing with as much as kids; you won’t find any dolls, baby rattles or toddler toys on our list.
Each of these toys has either come out in the last few months or is launching sometime this year:
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Users of Apple iPads and iPhones downloaded more than 5 million mobile applications from the iTunes app store last month. About that many apps were downloaded by users of Android tablets and smartphones. A million or so more went to Blackberries and devices running other operating systems.
Among the people who were struck by the high—and fast increasing—popularity of mobile apps: toy makers. Increasingly, toys are either designed to be used with an app or are inspired by them. Here’s our review of five especially cool ones:
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Another entry for the category of Toys I Wish Had Existed When I Was Young: The Brookstone Rover Spy Tank.
Though, to call something that lights up this brightly when turned on a “spy” anything is a bit of a stretch. The rover tank doesn’t run at a whisper quiet either. But it is a very cool.
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Ropes, crampons and harnesses—none are required while scaling the Inflatable Climbing Iceberg
Summer fun is water fun. Here are two cool inflatable toys to bring with you to the beach, lake or swimming pool:
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Ardent LEGO fans never need much of an excuse to create with their favorite building blocks. So the much-hyped royal wedding between Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton provided more than enough excuse for an enterprising group of English enthusiasts to construct a scene from the wedding in Westminster Abbey out of LEGOs.
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Much of what kids play with eventually ends up in their mouths. That’s especially true when what they are playing with is a brightly colored and has a consistency that’s somewhat food-like, as is the case with Play-Doh. So when possible it can be a good (and potentially hospital-trip averting) idea to let kids play with something they can safely eat, as is the case with Yummy Dough.
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No board game has as many take-offs as Monopoly. You’ve probably seen local Opolies for sale in tacky tourist stores while on vacation. There’s Londonopoly, Tokyopoly, New Deli-opoly, Cape Town-opoly, Hollywoodopoly and even Lubbockolopy (as in Lubbock, Texas). Among the multitudes of other Monopoly verstions are Photo-opoly, Christmas-opoly, Chocolate-opoly, Ice Cream-opoly, Wine-opoly, Earthopoly, Ocean-opoly, Farmopoly, Puppy-opoly and Beagle-opoly (though not, to our knowledge, Puppy-Beagle-opoly), Gardenopoly , Waffle-opoly, Princessopoly and Pirate-opoly, not to mention the counterculture Anti-Monopoly.
If those aren’t enough choices for you—or if you’d like to add a personal touch to your Monopoly-ing—Spot Cool Stuff has an answer for you: Make Your Own-Opoly
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