odd toys

This week we're taking a peek at a LEGO motorcycle [BMW R 1200 GS Adventure] that can be re-built as a hoverbike. It's completely batty, to be sure - but the appeal in having a BMW-branded hoverbike was more than I could handle. I had to built it - and built it I did. It took a few hours (spread out over a few days, about an hour off and on each day), and was quite enjoyable to see unfold. The build you're seeing here photographed by SlashGear is the Hoverbike part of this equation.

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Today we've got a gift guide for Star Wars fans for the holiday season, for men and women, girls and boys alike. This gift guide is golden for Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, Life Day, and whatever else includes the giving of presents galore. We've got a list of the most awesome Star Wars products we've discovered and tested ourselves over the past 12 months - the lot of which we recommend personally.

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Connected Mr. Bear is a toy with a light-up heart that controls what's played on your Netflix account. What's even creepier than this bear being able to control what you watch is its choice of TV shows. You see, as Netflix sees it, Full House (or Fuller House) is the perfect jumping-off point for a new kind of connected toy. A toy with a light-up heart - one that demands you watch Full House when it commands.

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Our 2016 collection of "Nerdy" gift ideas for both men and women includes offbeat products we really love. We have personally tested each of the products on this list and have enjoyed their abilities and features thoroughly. Some items are meant to be helpful - tools and such - while others summon our most base joy centers. We're talking about toys for adults here - moms and dads, here - in a list made with the SlashGear reader in mind.

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Anki's Cozmo Robot is set to get an update in December to increase its abilities and expand its intelligence. This will be the first major update to the robot since launch, and Anki suggests it'll be a big one. Anki says their goal is to make the robot grow and learn well into the future so that its owners will never find it boring. At this point it's able to lift cubes, play games with cubes, and speak our name. Next, it gets a whole lot more interesting.

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If there's a battle for best brand each year on this day, April Fools Day, ThinkGeek is certainly in the running for emperor. This year we've got a handle on their entire collection, starting with the couple of products you see here in the header image. That's a very tiny hand of Magic: The Gathering cards - a Travel Edition. Behind it, you'll find a White Noise Machine along the lines of Star Trek. You might see where we're going with this one already.

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Sugru is a strange sort of self-hardening glue/clay that comes in a variety of colors and plays very, very well with LEGO bricks. It's made for all sorts of different situations, like fitting around my MacBook power cord to add some protection to the places where it normally feels the most wear and tear. When we were provided a few packs of Sugru to review for SlashGear, we didn't just want to stay within the bounds of the given example uses of the product. We wanted to use the unique qualities of Sugru to step our LEGO game up to the next level.

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The following Valentine's Day gift guide is androgynous and prepared for the nerd in your life. Whether you're in love or just obligated to gift don't want the recipient to get the wrong idea, here you go. This list is for you. It's relatively brief, and everything on the list is 100% full of guilt-free joy. You and yours can partake and feel good about a world full of science fiction and happiness.

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Just days after Adam Driver's appearance on Saturday Night Live, his sketch as Kylo Ren's alter-ego Matt, Radar Technician, has gone viral. Today we've been sent a couple of mock-ups of action figures based on the character - likely never hitting shelves, of course, but we're allowed to dream. Would that NBC were to see enough call for such a set of figures, we might see it happen. They'd both be essential additions to your collection, that much is true. UPDATE: Additional figures added.

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Believe it or not, BB-8 remains part of our everyday lives three months after we published our first review. This little guy sits charging next to my television - I'm just a few feet away from him right now. That's a real rarity when it comes to reviews of oddities. With a smartphone, sure - it's not unheard of that I might stick with a smartphone for months and months. But a toy? In this case, even though I've reviewed products galore in the meantime, this BB-8 by Sphero toy has remained in heavy circulation.

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Build-a-bears have appeared with Star Wars bodies on the same day the Motion Picture Association of America has released its rating for The Force Awakens. Coincidence? Well, yes. They really have not a lot to do with one another, other than the oddity that is the PG-13 rating for the film and the much younger intended audience for the bears. But we'll be participating in both, one way or another. We're going to get that stuffed BB-8. Just you wait.

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Today we're having a peek at a crossover between two of our most favorite media: big-name games and tiny interlocking block toys. Today we're preparing for Halo 5 by taking a closer look at several of this season's Halo-brand toy sets from the folks behind Mega Bloks. Just like the Halo video game franchise, these toys strike a place between childhood and adulthood - a pressure point in the body of the gamer. After your Master Chief experience but before Halo 5, here you'll find something very different.

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