susieq112's Full Review: Mattel Hot Wheels Fireball
My son is a dare devil. At 3, if he could find a way to jump off of the roof, just to see what happens, he probably would. I have a credit card that offers rewards in the form of Amazon gift certificates and, often, if I don't have anything I have to buy from Amazon I let my son pick out a toy. That was the case when we purchased the Hot Wheels Fireball.
At the time of our purchase the toy was on sale for $24.99, which is about its current selling price. Before we purchased it, I looked at some reviews and the product information carefully because the toy is recommended for children 10 years and up. Obviously, my son does not fit into the recommended age recommendation.
The Hot Wheels Fireball is essentially a closed circuit race track that supposedly shots the car out on the track to complete 360's around the sphere that is created by a web of tracks. The piece comes unassembled and requires 10 to 15 minutes to assemble which mostly consists of putting the track together. The track pieces include two tabs on one end and receptacles on opposite end, so there is no real way to put it together wrong and the pieces are labeled appropriately. In the base of the sphere you have a mechanism controlled by two rubber bands that is suppose to make a "boulder-like" object fly apart as the Hot Wheels crash on the track. We tried this once and found that the two pieces of plastic fly off the track too fast (as in very forcefully) and threw away the rubber bands.
The speed of the cars is controlled by spinning discs in the bottom of the track or the base. The cars are pushed between two spinning discs, which ratchets the car up and around the track. The spinning discs have minimal protection from little fingers by way of a "fire-shaped" cover added during assembly. Shockingly enough my three year old has left this part of the apparatus alone and does allow the spinning discs to function without sticking his fingers in them.
The racetrack comes with two vehicles, but does not include the 4 D batteries that make the thing work. So if you do purchase this toy, make sure to buy the batteries also. We have had the track for about 4 months and have moderately used the toy. So far, we have not had to replace the batteries.
The main thing you will want to know about this toy is its overwhelming ability to injure someone. Yes, injure! Now the premise of the toy is to "wreck" the vehicles, which most of us would assume, wreck the two vehicles that come in the set. Truth be told, just one vehicle can wreck in the Fireball, which sends it flying out of the sphere. Now, if your an Amazon shopper, the pictures for this product show a net on the Fireball. How or where that picture came about is a mystery to me, because that net did not come with ours. So, we are stuck with the fact that cars can fly out of the Fireball and they aren't going particularly slow if they do fly out... Do you get what I am saying? High speed, metal, flying, toy cars. The only "good" thing that we have observed is the fact that they don't fly up, they only seem to go downward and out of the bottom half of the Fireball. Thus the reason why we always tell our son to play with it standing up. A good hit the shin may hurt a bit, but it isn't half as bad a getting hit in the face.
Now, many people probably think I am terrible parent for letting my child play with something so dangerous. Truth be told however, my son loves the toy, but he's learned to literally ask for supervision while he is playing with it. The boy has a respect for this toy, that he doesn't show to others. In a way he likes it, but he fears it as well.
The other important thing you may want to know about this toy is how well it does/doesn't work. All in all, don't be surprised if the car only goes around once or only half. The force required to launch a car in a 360 is large and this toy doesn't always accomplish it. If you have two cars on the track at once, they'll probably crash so quickly you won't see it. We have noticed that some vehicles work better than others, and some of the cars we already had worked better than the ones that came with the track, so if you do buy this one, try out your whole Hot Wheels collection and try to find the ones that are best suited to the track. Often the flatter, weighted vehicles seem to work better. We have found some that will work for multiple laps, almost every time.
The last thing you will probably want to know about this toy is the overwhelming amount of noise it makes. The mechanism that runs the spinning discs makes a lot of noise that can not be turned down or stifled in anyway. You can't hear anything else, if your in the proximity of the Fireball and if your trying to talk to your child, you'll have to speak up...
Overall, the Hot Wheel Fireball is a potentially dangerous toy. I can't say that I would whole heartedly recommend it, especially if one wasn't fully aware of its drawbacks.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 24.99
Age Range of Child: 9 Years or Older
Race on a crazy, upside-down fiery meteor from Hot Wheels! Create the biggest crashes to launch the fiery meteor off track. Features tons of intersect...More at Amazon Marketplace
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