The Best Toys of the Year

 

Radio controlled excavators, long-range snowball launchers and fully-automatic Nerf rifles - 2010 was a great year for people who take their playtime seriously. These are some of the most fun toys we could get our hands on.

1. Solving the Smallest Rubik Cube In the World
At 0.39 inches (10mm) this is the smallest Rubik Cube in the world and the smallest piece of the 80s you can have in your hands-this side of Simon Le Bon's fake eyelashes.


2. TRON Controllers Make Any Game a TRON Game
Prince of Persia, Call of Duty, Red Dead Redemption-it doesn't matter what you're playing. Just know that it'll be better with one of PDP's glowing TRON controllers.


3. Hurl Snowballs 150 Feet This Winter With These Jai Alai Scoops
I can understand not wanting to be the guy who brings a jai alai xistera to a snowball fight, sure, but if you want to start tagging up your enemies (neighborhood nine-year-olds) at distances of up to 150 feet, well...


4. Who Needs an Indoor Ball? YOU Do, Apparently
Today's Nerf guns are exceedingly complex, with automatic firing and reloadable dart magazines. But Nerf's eureka moment arose from a decidedly more primitive scene: some cavemen chucking boulders around an office.


5. Hawk Eye RC Chopper: Your $65 Personal Spy Drone
Flying an RC helicopter? Sure, that's fun for a little while. Flying an RC helicopter that can shoot both video and still photos? That's good for a lifetime of creepy stalking memories.


6. Solar Powered Transforming Robot Teaches Your Kids the Important Stuff
Namely: the awesomeness of robots. Secondarily: the joys of sustainable energy. The £13.00 T3 Solar Robot/Tank/Scorpion will help impart both of these lessons, guiding your child to a promising future as a sun-harnessing super-scientist (or a robot army-commanding supervillain.)


7. A Working 62-lb Remote-Controlled Excavator Can Hardly Be Called a Toy
Let's say you want to dig yourself up a little garden or terrorize the local rodentia. Or both! Well, meet the EC280 Excavator. It's a tiny little monster with a kickass demo soundtrack. Everything about this is ridiculous and wonderful.


8. So This Is What Nerf Guns Are Like Now, Huh?
After discovering video games, I didn't really keep up with my old friend Nerf. But last night I got to shoot (and get shot by) the Stampede, a new, fully automatic Nerf rifle with a tripod and replaceable magazines. What!?


9. 10 Classic Sci-Fi Toys
If you grew up in the 60s or 70s, you grew up with the futuristic creations of Gerry Anderson on the TV. These toy replicas of his designs are screaming to be zoomed across the kitchen table and into the air.


10. Toys With Mental Illnesses-Seriously"Oh, what gift to offer the bipolar six-year-old nephew this Christmas...I know! These German toys with mental illnesses would please the little tyke. Would he like the depressive turtle Dub, Kroko the water-phobic crocodile, or the personality disorder-affected sheep Dolly?