Mega Bloks NEO Battler Split-Shifter

very happy

My son received this as a gift. I feel terrible that the family paid this much for this extremely cheaply made gift. We are used to Legos and this does not even begin to compare. The pieces are cheap and don't stick together. The whole thing is about to go in the trash!

We bought this toy for our grand nephew's birthday -- he just turned 9 years old. Our niece tells us that he LOVES it! In fact they haven't been able to find this particular series at the stores in their area and I told them to go to Amazon to find others. Thank you!

The Neo Shifter is cool, it is like Bionicles only they are thicker pieces. They are fun to build and play with too. This one stays together very well. It is really awesome that you can open up the main part of this Neo Shifter and take two little robot guys in and out.

First, the good part: it looks like it will be fun to play with, now that it's put together. It's a Bionicles knockoff, and appeals to my son the same way. Now, the bad parts: First, the design. It's *much* too complicated. There are far too many types of parts that are almost identical, making it hard to find the right one. (What kind of construction toy makes you distinguish between a 2.125" hose and a 1.375" hose?) Similarly, many pieces are gratuitously assymetric, and it's not easy to figure out which way they're supposed to go. By contrast, Bionicles have far fewer types of part, so they're easier to put together. Also, since they're interchangeable, you can get more creative with them. Second, the construction: the pieces fit together very badly. Many have to be forced; my 7-year-old son was just not strong enough. (Most of them do, at least, fit snugly once they're together.) Bionicles go together much more smoothly. Finally, the documentation. Like Lego, it has pictures instead of words. However, since the pieces are hard to tell apart, the pictures have to be *really* clear--and they aren't. They're slightly unfocused, and the colors are off. Oh, and the last straw: after spending 90 minutes building the vehicles, I found out there were no designs for the creatures. You have to go to their Web site and hunt around for the *rest* of the manual--and then it turns out you can't Shift from vehicles to creatures; you have to start from scratch. Apparently they decided to save a few pennies by not printing the rest of the manual. I have told my son that, if he buys any more of these, I will not help him build them.