When was the last time you saw an actual prize in a cereal box?  I don’t think they really do that much anymore.  I’ve seen some that give you codes to unlock things in online games and such, but no physical prizes.  When I was a kid, cereal box prizes were everywhere.  We’d get things like stickers, cars, those baking soda submarines, baseball cards, rings, flipbooks, candy that we could pack in our school lunch that day, and much more.  One time in boxes of Chex, you could even get a computer game called Chex Quest (which I reviewed at The Dallas Morning News back then).  Sometimes, as a kid, the prizes were more interesting than the cereal itself.  So if I see a prize in a cereal box nowadays, I might notice it a bit more, especially if it’s Skylanders related.  And since Skylanders is a big deal here at GamerDad.com, here’s a write-up about the new Skylanders Skystones prizes in certain boxes of General Mills cereals!

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Tags: Unplugged

When I went to the PAX South gaming convention back in January, I attended a Gamer Parenting panel and it was really fun.  One of the major topics that everyone talked about nearly half the time on that panel was Skylanders, the hit game series that combines video games with toy collecting.  It’s made over a billion dollars for Activision and there are countless products and tie-ins.  So since Skylanders was such a big deal at the panel and here at GamerDad also, I’ve decided to write about everything I can that comes along that’s Skylanders related.  Even if it’s something small, like new Skylanders Fruit Snacks!

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Tags: Misc

One day, a high school student gets lost walking home one evening and is ambushed by a horde of flying devils.  They almost kill him, but some angelic beings come down and bring him back to life and take him back to their heavenly fortress called Celestia.  Here, they imbue him with a powerful crystal that makes him a god, and now he must lead an army of angels against a war with devils in this anime-inspired dungeon crawling RPG.  It’s actually a sequel of sorts to last year’s The Guided Fate Paradox, but you don’t really need to play the first one to know what’s going on in the sequel, as the stories seem completely unrelated from what I can tell.

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Tags: Game Reviews

Maya the Bee was originally a German children’s book from the early 1900’s.  But most people probably remember it as a Japanese anime cartoon from the 1970’s, which was shown on Nick Jr. in the US in the late 80’s and early 90’s.  Yeah, back in those days, Nick Jr. showed a lot of children’s anime.  And now there is a new computer animated Maya the Bee cartoon and movie.  Not sure if the new cartoon is being shown in the US, but I think the movie is coming to video later on.  Now you can help young Maya collect honey and rare flowers for her teacher Mrs. Cassandra in Maya the Bee: Flying Challenge.  It’s a 3-D continuous runner (flyer?) downloadable for iOS and Android devices (reviewed on iPad here).

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Tags: Game Reviews, Movies with Children, Television

Magic Cat Story is a free-to-play puzzle game downloadable for iOS and Android devices (reviewed on iPad here).  In the game you help a wizard cat stop an evil magician from turning all the people into animals.  But storylines in puzzle games really aren’t that important.  To thwart the evil wizard, you must match colored blocks to make them disappear.  While most free-to-play puzzle games are similar to Candy Crush or Bejeweled, Magic Cat Story plays more like a falling block puzzler such as Dr. Mario or Puyo Puyo.

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Tags: Game Reviews

Stardust Vanguards is a multiplayer space-themed action game downloadable on Steam for PC.  One cool thing about this game is that it was made by local folks (well, local for me and my friend anyway). Speaking of which, I had my friend, Robbie Allen, review this game for me, so please check it out by clicking here!

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Tags: Reader Reviews!

Recently I reviewed a one-on-one 2-D fighting game called Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late.  That’s a really long name!  When I first started playing it, I thought the characters weren’t that interesting, because they all looked like typical anime stereotypes.  But as I kept playing, some of the characters ended up being a little more interesting than I thought.  And since I sometimes like to write about fighting game characters in blogs, I’ll do just that with this game right now.  Plus I don’t have any other blog ideas anyway.

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Tags: Misc

Boy, what a long name.  I bet it’s hard to say all that during a gaming discussion!  Anyway, Under Night Etc. is a 2-D one-on-one fighting game made by the same folks who did the Guilty Gear and BlazBlue titles.  It’s available for the PlayStation 3.  But how does this one stack up against those other series?  Read on to find out.

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Tags: Game Reviews

Holiday themed cereals are nothing new.  I think it all started with Cap’n Crunch’s Christmas Crunch.  I remember that as a kid.  It was just Crunch Berries with red and green pieces.  Later on, other cereals followed suit with Christmas and Halloween editions of cereals like Rice Krispies and, well, I know there are others, I just can’t think of them.  Well the next holiday has gotten the cereal treatment and it’s St. Patrick’s Day.  And naturally, the cereal that goes along with it is Lucky Charms!  So here’s a look at the Lucky Charms St. Paddy’s Day Edition box! (shouldn’t it be St. Patty’s Day?)

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Tags: Misc

Well, I finally managed to get all of the Wave 3 Amiibo figures (well, almost all of them), so here’s a blog about them!  Amiibos are Nintendo’s answer to Skylanders and Disney Infinity, but since the Amiibos are based on characters that I actually like, I’ve made more of an effort to collect them.  So check them out!

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Tags: Misc