HEXBUG Battle Ground Tarantula

As much as I don't want to admit it, my son is no longer a baby and playing with toddler toys, he's branched out into toys that are aimed at "older kids" *sob*. He discovered HEXBUG a year or so ago and loved the little nano bugs and there his love of all things robotic began.

The HEXBUG Battle Ground Tarantula is a whole new level of robot. It is huge in comparison to the nano and not like anything he'd ever played with before.

Inside the packaging you receive one Tarantula and one remote control. The control can do four different things; move the Tarantula backwards and forwards, move it from side to side, shoot a laser and change the channel.

There are two different Tarantula's available to buy - blue and orange - we received the orange and for the best play experience, you should really own both so that they can battle each other (sold separately). You switch your Tarantula on by holding in the button on the top of it and selecting a channel on the remote, we've used channel 4 when playing alone and not battling another Tarantula.

C loves making it walk and because it has eight legs just like a real spider, the way it moves really is spider-like. You can connect two Tarantulas together via infrared technology and use the button on the top of the control to fire lasers at each other. The Tarantula's sensors pick up on the action and will recoil when hit. You need to make sure you have the Tarantula's set to two different channels when battling.

The futuristic sound effects really add to the excitement of play and C has been getting a lot of enjoyment out of it. The HEXBUG Battle Ground Tarantulas retail at £24.99 each which I think is a fair price considering the amount of technology in the toy. It is recommended for children aged 8+ but my son is 5 and can play with it perfectly fine.

(We received this item for the purpose of this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.)