Hasbro NetJet Review!

I’m about to reveal a secret about myself that I don’t share with many people. Are you ready?

I’ve never played a video game.

I mean, I HAVE – I’ve got a love/hate relationship with The Sims. I used to play that You Don’t Know Jack CD Rom game with a few friends – uh, back in like 1997 – and I used to LIVE at the arcade when I was Kayley’s age, so I’ve played my share of Ms. Pacman. But when all of my friends in high school were playing Nintendo, I was – hmmm. I don’t know what I was doing. Probably shopping for Aqua Net and listening to Belinda Carlisle or something. Almost all of Kayley’s friends have an Xbox or a Playstation – but she doesn’t! I have no idea why. Are we just super cheap? Am I afraid to show everyone my lack of hand/eye coordination? I don’t know what the deal is. I’m seriously considering getting “her” a Wii for Christmas, though! I can make up for all the wasted years.

So, when someone from Hasbro contacted me and asked me to review the Net Jet Online Gaming System that targets tweens ages 6 to 11, I figured, hey! My video game knowledge is probably equal to that of a 6 to 11 year old, right? Well. We got it in the mail a week or so before Kayley’s birthday, so I was all wrapped up in getting ready for The Best Birthday Party EVER, and I didn’t have much time to try it out. And then, school started! Now, I’ve got three kids in school! One in middle school and two in preschool, and my life is just all about driving now. Driving, and washing dozens of school uniform pieces, and overseeing homework. And, y’know, fighting with the preschool teacher. I’ve had a lot on my plate, okay? And, actually? I thought Kayley had taken the unit over to her dad’s house with all of her other birthday presents. It was just a couple of weeks ago that I unearthed it during a weekend cleaning frenzy. Notice, I included “weekend” there. Crazy cleaning does not go on around here during the week – only on the weekend, when Mister Organization is home.

I was beginning to think I’d never get a chance to open the cool little Net Jet and see what it was all about! And actually, I didn’t. I sent it to work with Paul, who sent it home with his coworker buddy Jason, who is rumored to be this huge gaming geek. I figured, hey! Might as well hand it off to an expert. And so, I give you: Jason’s Review!

In exchange for a dumpster office chair, I agreed to review the Next Jet plug and go gaming control. It consist of a USB controller much like typical console controller that plugs into your PC and allows games to be loaded depending on which drop-in card you have in the controller. Simple enough concept and has been done in the past with Atari controllers with built in games that you could plug into the T.V. and start gaming.

I received a controller which comes with a demo card and two separate games each on its own drop in card (Kool Cart and Marble blast). Before I get into my impressions I would like to give some information to allow for a better reader experience. I am a 32 old Engineer who is an avid gamer. The Net Jet is targeted an 8 year old audience. With this in mind I tried to emulate my own inner child – which really isn’t that hard of task for me  Off to my review!

Opening the package was an experience in itself. My hat is off to Mothers who deal with this hard plastic that bonds on a molecular level to its products. Before starting the table saw my wife gently grabbed some kitchen shears (I never knew why there was scissors in the silverware drawer) and sliced and diced her way into container. I had her open Kool Kart while she was in her Samurai like state. So I plugged in the controller and waited for something to happen. It takes a while for the software to load and creates a desktop shortcut that I missed and had to go into my computer and click on the virtual drive that the USB created. It then launched a web site with all the demo games that corresponded to the demo card that I had plugged into the controller. There were several demos and I choose a Tetris like game that had you shoot different color balloons in the goal of trying to lump together like color balloons so they fall off before they reach the bottom of the screen. After clicking on the demo box I was prompted to download a 21.57 Meg file. Starting the game wasn’t really a difficult task. However, the demo never really got difficult or challenging. Graphics were pleasant and the music was fun and really well done. There where 3 different types of game play: Arcade, Time trial and something else – hmmm. Well, overall on a scale from 1-10 in the realm of eight year olds I give the demo card a 7.8. I almost gave it an eight for the variety of demos to choose and not quit an eight for the large file that I had to download.

Onto to Kool Kart. I took out the card and put the new card in and clicked on the desktop short cut and was brought to the same page. I clicked on Kool Kart box and again had to download 21.57 Meg file. The game again has pleasant graphics and fun music. There were more game options to choose from and the ability to customize your Kart. I tried some tracks and they were 3 laps long with varied terrain. The game spices things up with the ability to pick up items to aid in your quest to dominate other Karts. Nitrous, bombs, rockets, etc will aid you along you way to victory. The racing is fun and difficult enough to keep you interested. On the box it says online arcade and I naturally thought that I could go online and race other 32 year olds. I couldn’t conquer any children since there wasn’t any online element to the game except to download a file and keep a profile there to show progress and such. I give the game a solid 9. It was fun enough to keep my attention and the ability to unlock modifications for your Karts looks kept me primed for more racing. I did not play the other game – partly because I feared trying to open it and partly because it looked like a maze game that I personally do not like.

In the end I think this would be fun for an eight year old. I did not care for the downloading of the files. If you have a dial up then any game would take at least an hour to get going. The controller was easy to handle and the button assignments were intuitive. I had fun while exploring the other demos and found some I really liked. Depending on cost I could easily recommend this over a console if the controller and games where significant cheaper that console and games. Plus you get to keep the television while your youngsters game away on the computer. Or I guess it is a negative taking away your precious computer while the TV collects dust –hmmmmmm. I really shouldn’t bring in my own separation anxieties into the review. It’s a buy if it is cheaper than a console.

So, there you have it! Thanks for the in-depth review, Jason! Of course, I had to get on the Hasbro site and check out all the other games so I could write this post, and I was pretty tickled to see that they have a game from Kayley’s favorite show, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. Woohoo!