SWINXS console review (plus video)

October 24, 2008 � Filed Under Uncategorized

Kids these days…

Replace scraped knees, scuffed shoes, muddy trousers and ripped t-shirts with an electronic armband and you’ve got the SWINXS. It’s a children’s games console that’s scooped childhood classics like hide and seek, tag and snap and tossed them into the digital fray. Think Bop it! but as a multiplayer game console.

The console itself looks like an unlucky clover (the ones with three arms) fresh from the dales of Emerald City. Roughly the same size as two Nintendo Wiis stuck together it’s slightly on the chunky side, but it’s pretty light.

Switch the contraption on and the voice of Captain Patronising will greet you. “Hello, I’m SWINXS and I’m going to bully you to play with me for the next few hours” or something along those lines. Enter the game by “tagging” your wristband on the console. Up to four people can play, and each one can opt to tag in or out of each game. Flipping from one game to another is a breeze but turning the darn thing off is a bugger. We kept hearing it tempting us to another round of snap.

To be honest we were bored of the SWINXS within 20 minutes, there are only so many places you can hide in a “grown up” office before starting to arouse suspicion, especially as you sprint back to the SWINXS screeching and screaming “I’m going to get my access point there first”. It is for kids though, so we’re sure they’d get away with it.

A game console it may be, but a serious competitor for the Nintendo Wiiit is not and at a £130 it’s pretty steep for a glorified game of hide and seek.

Check out the video of our big kid Chris Smith having a go on the SWINXS.