Best Toys

All little kids, at one point or another, want to be a firefighter, a policeman, or a paramedic when they grow up.  There is something very attractive for kids about the idea of rushing in at the sound of an alarm and saving the day- or saving someone’s life.  For kids who dream of being one of the everyday heroes we depend on, the Rescue Heroes Command Center is a great toy.  This command center is the central base for all three rescue services in one consolidated building.  The toy has, obviously, a command center inside where the calls ‘come in’ and orders are given.  The kids playing with the toy can use the voice memory system built in to record their own voices giving the commands and then can play them back for the rescue team over the speakers for everyone to hear loud and clear.  And speaking of loud and clear, the Rescue Heroes Command Center also has lights and sirens that kids can operate at the touch of a button for more realistic play time.  There is a helicopter landing pad on the roof of the building, a satellite dish for the newest technology in miniature communication, climbing hooks, a map to route the way to various rescue points, and cubbies where the rescuers store their rescue packs.  A particularly cool feature to the Rescue Heroes Command Center is the fire pole where rescue heroes can slide down to get to the ground floor faster in case of an emergency call.

For the purposes of our Rescue Heroes Command Center reviews, we recruited eight kids, both boys and girls, to test out the toy.  The toy is rated for kids three and up due to the small parts included with the set that can become detached and turn into choking hazards.  For this reason, our future rescuers were all between the ages of four and eight.  After introducing them to the toys and assuming our observer positions in a corner of the room, we watched as the kids chose their favorite characters and began to create all sorts of different emergencies.  They especially love the voice memory feature, and used it almost incessantly for the entire play period.

What we learned during our Rescue Heroes Command Center review process is that while the girls didn’t enjoy themselves quite as much as the boys, we believe this is only because the girls had a slightly different play style than the girls.  Had we done two separate reviews, one with the boys and one with just the girls, we are pretty confident that the girls would have enjoyed themselves a lot more.  The girls in the group were basically playing amongst themselves in the middle of the larger group, and the boys barely noticed because their play style was more loud and rowdy.  There was a lot of yelling going on, but it was all in fun and seemed like it was part of their ‘this is an emergency situation’ play.  We feel confident recommending the Rescue Heroes Command Center to parents for their children.