Bad

Having recently tested a similar AR product, I can say that this falls short in every way. The best I could really say is that as a Transformers wearable mask, it looks cool. But the AR game makes a lot of really poor choices, which I'm going to talk about here.

The general premise is, slide your phone into the goggles, put on the goggles and the mask and using the 'markers' play an AR game in which the hand attachment is a gun. Fine, it's on brand and especially for kids has the ability to be really fun. Unfortunately, it didn't really pan out that way and because of that I can't recommend it.

The first thing that I find really disturbing is this. The app is required to play the game, but on the box it plainly states that the app will be available until 30th June 2020. This basically means you're buying a toy with a two year lifespan. No passing it on to a younger child, no donating it to kids who have less, simply put after two years it's a glorified mask. Other games like this have functionality without the app, but this one does not.

The second problem comes in with the design of the game itself. Not only is the game a bit boring and samey (more on that in a minute), kids will nonetheless enjoy it, but once you finish a 'round', you must remove the whole apparatus to upgrade. The helmet isn't exactly easy to get on in the first place, never mind dragging it off and extracting your phone every ten minutes just to upgrade. When moving on from the first level they allow you to point with your blaster to select 'ok'. I really don't understand why they don't allow upgrading and access to the game's other features that way. I'm guessing it's because it's difficult and they didn't think it was important, but it's a big part of why this toy sucks.

The AR 'discs' being required, as opposed to just having randomly floating robots or other enemies, actually makes it less fun. This is because they just don't work in smaller homes. If you have a large sparsely decorated room or outside area that isn't too bright (it states it will not work if it's too bright) you might be ok, but apartment owners or those with furnished rooms should beware. The AR discs also make the levels samey, because it's always 3 'floating' items you must protect. Another problem with it not working well in small spaces is it's hard to differentiate the enemies because everything is crushed together.

Kids will find it really cool to hold up their 'hand sensor' and see it become a blaster, but that doesn't make up for the poor design of the game and even on little hands, the plastic pinches and digs in.

The design is shoddy and cheap when it comes to the goggles. My biggest problem was that if your kid doesn't have a cheap crappy phone, you're risking your phone in this thing and it doesn't even protect it. For example, you're supposed to push the goggles (phone inside) back into the mask and the top and bottom click into place. Except they don't. The bottom piece of plastic is too short to keep the goggles from pushing past it, so with a phone in, it just repeatedly falls out. You have to get it at the right angle to hold it on with your face, quickly, before it falls. It's unacceptable and makes it seem like they were trying to save money by cutting out plastic, but didn't test it well enough to see that it was a big issue. The plastic tab just doesn't extend far enough to prevent the Goggles + phone from pushing it back out.

I also had issues with the game repeatedly popping up with 'take a break' mode, even though I was in the middle of playing. This required me to take the whole thing off and press a button to continue, only to have it happen a few minutes later.

As a Bumblebee mask, the outside design is actually cute and solid and it's not the most uncomfortable thing I've ever worn on my face, easily fitting large adult heads or small children, but the hand sensor definitely needed some padding on the edges and within five minutes, it's painful.

They had a few cool ideas, like the hand-blaster, voice-overs and the ability to choose your own cool rock music, but poor execution means this toy ends up being one of my most poorly rated ever. Avoid.