November 23rd, 2010 by Stinkhead
We love Batman in our house, so we were very excited to assemble “Batman House” as my 3 year old calls it. The Fisher Price TRIO system is something we had never played with before. We had seen the funny animals and firehouse kits before, but being this was a Batcave, I had to give it a chance. Check out my review and pics.
If you’re not familiar with the TRIO system, it’s a series of cubes, pegs and panels that allow young kids to build quickly and build structures that are sturdy enough for playing with. My three year old isn’t quite old enough for LEGO system (which you have to admit, most of the fun is in building… heavy play with a toddler will lead to lots of “rebuilds”) and he’s quickly outrgrowing the Megabloks chunky blocks that are mainly just for building (and knocking down) towers.
The trio system plugs together pretty quickly, and will stay together through all kinds of play, but can be broken down when wanted pretty easily. The package says ages 4 and up, but my son is 3 and he was having fun plugging posts into holes and free form building. He is a little young for following the directions (which were pretty easy for me to follow), but he had a lot fun with the random construction.
One night while he was sleeping, I gathered up the pieces and made the Batcave structure that was on the box, and he’s been playing with it since. We feel that this system equally divides the fun between building and playing with the completed structures. There’s an opening garage door, a working zipline, a huge Bat Computer, and a batmobile with moving wheels, so there’s plenty to do with the set once it’s built.
The one thing that his mother and I didn’t like about the set was that the blue cubes can’t connect side by side, so they have a few clusters that are permanently attached in different denominations. There is a variety included, but we did feel a bit limited in what we could create. We assume that this is to aid the younger children in their building.
Overall my son took to the set better than I had expected. I thought he’d just play with it when it was all put together, but he really had a blast randomly building and connecting (however right now, he won’t let me dismantle the current build to try another). The direction book had several layout ideas, and I really like that there are additional Batman themed Trio sets we can find, including his popular villians and other vehicles. These are of course compatible with the “generic” sets like the firehouse and the crazy animals.
They recommend this set for ages 4 & up. Younger kids will like building, but need your help to get the desired buildings. I feel because it’s Batman, and free form enough, kids ages 6 & up will still enjoy this building set, but be ready for the flexibility of LEGO and other systems in awhile. The figure is short, about 2″ tall. It was the right size for my son’s little figures to hold, but he did have a hard time getting Batman to sit in the Batmobile. They are bigger than LEGO, but smaller than playmobil. Batman had a cloth cape.
This Batcave was $40, but you can also find Mr. Freeze, the Penguin, Joker, Superman, and other Bat vehicles for cheaper. The Batcave is the flagship piece of this line.
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Posted in 3&up, batman, crafts, kids, toddler, toys | Comments Off on Fisher Price Trio Batcave
