Funkeys Town Specialty Starter Kit (1 UB Hub & 4 Funkeys)

• 43 Collectable Funkeys
• New games in each zone
• Earn coins to purchase items and customize your crib!
• Share your crib with friends online
• Contents: 1 Funkey Hub with USB Cable, 4 Funkeys, and 1 Installation Disc

Amazon.com Product Description:
This specialty starter kit will have you well on your way to U.B. Funkey world -- and a possible collection addiction. Funkeys are creative vinyl characters that plug into a larger Funkey hub attached to a computer in order to travel around their virtual world, play games, build a "crib," and interact with other Funkeys. This starter kit includes the 5-inch-tall white Funkey hub, USB cable, two 2.75-inch-tall Funkeys, and installation software. All in all there are 42 different Funkey characters: three different colors in 14 different designs. Of the three in each design, one is quite common, one is rare, and the third is very rare by collection standards. There are 42 curious, cute, and collectible characters in all. To log your Funkey on, simply stand it on the "hub" attached through the USB port. You'll see your character's avatar match the appearance of the Funkey plugged in and you'll be able to visit locations and play games that are attributed to that Funkey's properties. To encourage collection of additional Funkeys, Radica implemented a few clever rules. For instance there is a coin system, which awards different coin values depending on the Funkey currently in play. Items that can be purchased with those coins also vary with the character in use, and, lastly, certain games are only unlocked and available if the right Funkey is plugged in to the hub. Which means the more Funkeys you collect, the more virtual places and games you can experience and the more coins you can accumulate. The 2.75" character stands in the 5" hub to connect. By playing games in the U.B. Funkeys world, characters earn coins that they can then use for purchasing items for their "crib." These rooms are customizable, from wall colors to furniture and plants to accessories, and can also be uploaded for friends to see. Just give your "crib" a name, share it with your friends, and they can visit anytime they're logged on. There are four zones that offer a total of 16 games for players to conquer, and 30 stores where they can spend their hard earned coins on more than 1,000 virtual items. Now the question is: Are you Funkey? System Requirements Windows Vista/XP/2000ME/98 operating system 800 MHz processor (1.3 GHz recommended) 256 MB RAM (512 MB recommended) 1 GB free hard disk space USB port 32 MB video card (64 MB recommended) 8X CD or DVD drive Sound card Keyboard and mouse

PIECE OF JUNK:
My daughter was so excited to receive this for Christmas. First, I paid in extremely inflated price for the product on Amazon. Secondly, it would not install. I did everything the booklet told me several times to no avail. Evidently the USB port and device did not work together. I tried everything imaginable on my computer and online. All of this while my daughter cried. I never did get it to work properly and thought of buying another one to try again. Fortunately I read other reviews and found that I am not the only one experiencing this problem. We will not be buying more of this product and will be going back to Webkinz. Tried and true. Don't waste your money and sanity on this product.

Happy MOm:
I bought this for my son for Christmas. He loves it! I didn't have any problem installing it, worked like a charm the first time. I even took it to a friends house he had a playdate with, and they installed it no problem. I bought a bunch of them at Target for $4.49. He still loves Webkinz, but these are so much more economical. The ages say 8+, but he is only six, and plays with it no problem.

Fun, but narely tolerable on older computers:
I got this for my son, who uses an older Windows 98 machine. It refused to work at first, until the website support eventually got it working. (After needing to install an unzip program on the Windows 98 machine. PKUNZIP is proprietary, Mattel!) He enjoys it, but he doesn't realize how incredibly slow it is. If he ever sees a friend playing it on a faster computer, he'll get sick of it instantly. Characters crawl along the screen. The program is a total system hog, which is probably okay for Gigahertz-level CPU's, but not for the older computers that families tend to pass on down to their kids.

MAJOR glitch makes this toy a huge DUD!!:
My kids got the starter kit 4 days ago and have since gone to 4 different stores looking for new characters. At $5-$8 a pop they have purchased 7 new ones in just 3 days. They have been hooked-until today. Immediately after the Login process a screen pops up asking you if you want to create a unique user ID for chats etc. If you select "no" it tells you that you will not be able to participate in many features of the product. My 10 year old decided to go ahead and create this new user ID. It does tell you at the end of the process that this will replace your old login info..no problem right? WRONG!! At login only original user IDs are available for selection, you cannot type in this new ID that was just created, therefore you can no longer gain access to your acct. After searching the website & google to figure out how to fix this, I discovered this is a universal problem with the system & there is no solution. The only thing I can think to do is reinstall the software which will force all 3 of my kids to start from scratch. And we will still have to deal with the pop up at login at the beginning of every game. With my 5 year old playing this game, I am sure we will find tgame (aside from the fact that you have to keep buying new characters to progress in the games), but today I say, my kids wasted a whole lot of their money & I hope they will consider returning these to the stores!!!

Good fun:
Easy to use, fun for the kids, cheap to get extra Funkeys to add on. Would recommend.