Toys… I love them, who doesn’t right? I’ll be the first to admit that I’m just a big kid. All of us have toys of some sort or another, but as we get older our toys change a bit, they become more complex, and more expensive! There are toys out there that are aimed at children but adults can appreciate and enjoy as well, at least us geeky adults can anyway! Today for review I have one such toy, it is categorized as a toy but it is more of a consumer electronic than an actual toy. It is the Roboraptor from WowWee, and yeah it’s a toy, but it’s one really cool toy that everyone in my family (even my wife!) loves. The Roboraptor has a sort of AI built into it, and it can actually interact with the environment and people around it, it is just plain cool.. Read on to check it out…

Roboraptor

Reviewed by: Kristofer Brozio AkA Dracos

Sponsor: WowWee

Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:

ROBORAPTOR

A Fusion of Technology and Personality

Dinosaurs are back and roaming the earth in the 32 long Roboraptor, an advanced fusion of technology and personality. With his advanced artificial intelligence personality, realistic biomorphic motions, direct control and autonomous (free-roam) modes, the Age of Dinosaurs has truly returned. Roboraptor comes to life with the following features:

– Fluid bi-pedal motion: walking, running and predatory gaits

– Realistic body movements: turning head and neck; whipping tail actions

– Three distinct moods: hunter, cautious and playful

– Autonomous environmental interaction: responds with mood specific behaviors and sounds

– Mood dependent behavior: aggressive/hunting mood; nervous/cautious mood; friendly/playful mood

– Multi-sensory: touch sensors in his tail, chin and mouth; sonic sensors

– Infra-red vision system detects objects in his path, or approaching him

– Powerful jaws that play tug-of war games, bite and pull

– Visual and sonic guard mode

– Responds to commands from Robosapien V2

– Auto shut-off function

– Video game style controller

– Demonstration mode

– 40+ pre-programmed functions

Battery Requirements: 6 X AA, 3 X AAA (not included)

Find the best prices for the Roboraptor on ShopZilla

A Better Look at Things

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Sit back a relax, this is going to be a long review, I have 13 movies in here as well as all the pictures!

Well seeing as the Roboraptor is 32 inches long the box is pretty darn big. Pretty much the entire front of the box is one big window to show off the Roboraptor.

The back of the box has a nice carry handle in the center of it, and lists the specs and features of the Roboraptor and its remote.

Getting him out of the box, we can get a good look at him, he’s big and mean looking. It really doesn’t resemble a robot that much, or as much as I thought it would anyway, they did a nice job on the details of it.

You can see the textures on the body that feel sort of like skin or scales, like a dinosaur might have. There are sensors and buttons located in various places on the Roboraptor to allow you to interact with him in various ways.

A Better Look at Things

Continued:

The top of the head of the Roboraptor is actually a sensor for the remote, it can receive signal from the remote or it can track the special LED light from the remote. You can point the light somewhere and the Roboraptor will chase or go to it.

There are also infrared sensors located on each side of his nose as well, they look like his nostrils. There are also microphones on both sides of his head to detect sound in stereo, both of these sensors seem fairly sensitive.

The detail on the head is very well done, the eyes just look so real and the scales feel real.

The neck is segmented to allow side to side and up and down movement, the movements are mechanical but not as you would expect them to be.

The Roboraptor does have front claws or arms as well, but they really don’t do much except flop around, they move up and down and that is about it.

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A Better Look at Things

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One the top and sides of the tail are located sensor buttons, the first two segments of the tail are the buttons, the little black round dots on the first two segments are also buttons. Pressing each one will give a different reaction depending on the mood he is in.

The feet are interesting, they are large and help the Roboraptor keep his balance. His stomach is where the batteries would go, good a place as any I guess…

The toes, at first I thought they would be rubber to help him grip better, but they aren’t they are more of a solid plastic. There are ankle hinges as well to help him walk better.

Look, it’s a boy!!!! And here we have his…thing…err..umm… that’s the power button.. yeah that’s it…

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A Better Look at Things

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Here’s a few more nice close ups of the Roboraptors head so you can see the nice details that went into it, the eyes look so real almost evil…

On the bottom of his head, under his chin is another button sensor, again depending on the mood he’s in, he will do something different when you press it.

In his mouth, between the sharp teeth, on the roof is yet another sensor, this one can be used for playing tug of war, or having him bite you or someone else!

All in the all the Roboraptor feels very well made, he is kind of heavy actually. A lot of effort went into the details to make it look and feel more like a dinosaur than a robot.

A Better Look at Things

Continued:

Now for the remote, the remote resembles something you might find on a standard game console, this was done purposefully as it is very familiar to most people.

The right side is the function buttons, there are pictures on them of the actions you can make the Roboraptor do like biting, swinging his tail or moving his head. The buttons are also used in conjunction with the ‘shift’ button located on the front of the remote to put the Roboraptor in his various modes, playful, hunting and cautious.

The left side of the pad is the directional buttons, clicking the forward button makes him walk, run and his ‘predatory’ gait, it depends how many times you hit the button. Of course there is left, right, reverse and stop as well.

In the center of the remote is the ‘Demo’ and ‘Roam’ button, hit it once and the Demo starts, hold shit and hit it your Roboraptor will roam about you house looking for things to get into. Above that is a little LED that lights up when you press a button.

On the front of the remote is where you will find the ‘Target’ button and the ‘Shift’ button. Also this is where the transmitter are located as well.

On the bottom of the remote is where its batteries go, not much else to see there.

Ok, well the entire next section is going to be all movies, sol sit back and enjoy them, I had lots of fun making them!

Testing and Playing:

Isn’t YouTube great, I get to share my movies on there with everyone and I get to use them in my review, just to darn cool if you ask me!

The first movie would be powering the Roboraptor on, when you hit the button he goes into Guard mode automatically.

The next is the Demo mode, it was kind of cut short as he decided to take a dive off my table…