Customer Reviews

Maisto Street Troopers PT-808

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My 9 year old nephew absolutely loves this vehicle. It transforms from a car to a "robot" on the fly and shoots darts when in robot form. Even if it didn't transform, the radio control vehicle would still be worth the cost. It is extremely durable (i know this because he is constantly running it into walls and the vehicle doesn't even blink). This is one of those "why didnt i think of it!?" type of toys. The projectiles have a great range, plus robots seem to be "in" these days. I highly recommend this toy for any age!

As a grown up kid, I love RC anything. This car doubles the fun. Watching my 9 year old son scare the bejesus out of his 16 year old sister when it raised up and shot the little darts at her was priceless! The car is fast and the "morphing" is seamless. You can still drive it around no matter what configuration it is set in.

I believe 90% boys will love this RC car as:
1. It can transform from a vehicle into a robot
2. It can fire "missiles"
3. It runs fast and can do a lot of things

Cons:
1. the control range is not very wide, at about 8 metres, 10 at most. So it's better to play indoors rather than outdoors. Otherwise you might need to chase the car.
2. For indoor use, it runs very fast and of more fun on the hardwood floor. However it might be too slipy if you would like it to make turns or do more challenging things. On the other hand, you can easily control it and make it do those gestures on carpet yet you will lose some speed.
3. It's not energy friendly. Make sure you have extra AA and 9v batteries at home.

Other thoughts: Although the manufacturer recommends 8+ years, I bought this for my 2 year old nephew. He loves it and can make the car go forward and backward using the controller. So you don't have to wait until the boy grows 8. To be honest it's fun for grown-ups too. Just keep in your mind it was on sale for 19.99 so the current price looks high for me.

I had given this as a present to my nephew who loves cars and robots. He has so many toys which gets annoying. But now the area he plays in is with less toys because he uses this one so much. It such a fun toy. It is durable but the tires are not all that great. But they do after all it does do a lot of things. You should get this since is what every boy likes robots and cars why not have both in one right?

This toy was purchased last minute and is a huge hit. My son is 11 and enjoys playing with this multi-use remote controlled toy! It really impresses his little brothers. It is part robot, part car and part gun. You can use the remote to move the toy around in the vehicle shape, make it rise up into a robot form, then shoot the "nerf" darts. The toy is about as sturdy as any remote controlled toy, and with 8 children it is still in one piece and functioning. It is really neat. We got it at an incredible price too!!!

This car is amazing. It drives on all four wheels, and can also morph into a missile-shooting machine by standing up on its back two wheels. This is not a remote-control car that your kids will get tired of! My 11-yur old son loves it, as he especially loves to freak out his friends by suddenly morphing it. The missiles have suction cups, so they are not only injury-proof, but they bring entertainment by sticking to sliding glass doors (with a target taped to the outside), etc. You'll love it.

I bought two of these, one for each of my boys (ages 9 & 6), for Christmas. They are an absolute blast! We have spent several hours over the last few days playing with them and I don't think they'll be relegated to the back of the closet any time soon.

The remote works well.

The cars transform on demand; you just hold down the glowing red button in the middle of the remote until the car is either all the way up (for the robot) or all the way down (for the car).

The darts shoot fairly far (5-7') for what's essentially a spring-loaded suction dart gun with a static firing angle that's less than a foot off the ground. And rapidly pressing one of the two fire buttons will launch all 5 missiles with surprising speed.

The cars move pretty quickly and are quite responsive to remote inputs. And it's great that they come with a three-channel transmitter so each car is separately controlled without interference from the other person's remote.

Battery life seems like it might be ok; only one set of 6 AA's in each car, and they've easily run for 12 or 14 hours of hard use over the last few days with no sign that they're going to quit anytime soon.

Considerations:
There are a few things to be aware of, though. These did not inhibit my kids' (or my own) enjoyment of them, but they are things to keep in mind.

1) Occasionally, one dart does not want to stay in its barrel. You normally push the darts in until you feel them click into place, but sometimes one of the barrels does not want to click. What I've found is that if the revolving "gatlin gun"-style barrels stop with one barrel straight up at twelve o'clock, that one barrel for whatever reason does not want to keep the dart in place. But if you just push the fire button a little bit, enough to get the barrel to move slightly so that it's not at high noon, the dart clicks into place just fine. Apparently, this is a known issue because the manual actually "kinda sorta" alludes to it in the tips it provides. They mention a "novice tip" to just use four darts for beginners, and a "pro tip" to slightly depress the fire button to use all 5 darts for more advanced users. I guess that's their way of fessin' up without actually coming out and saying here's a problem. But to me and to my kids, no biggie. Once we knew how to deal with it, it only takes an extra second to cope (since you're having to reload anyway).

2) The rear (i.e., driven) wheels don't get great traction and while moving from hard floors to carpet, if you're not moving fast enough, the car sometimes get stuck. This only happens when in car form, though, and only at slower speeds (because the front wheels get up on the carpet while the rears are still on the tile, and it elevates the rears off the floor just enough to have too little grip to move, either forward or back). My kids and I tend to just drive the things around in robot form anyway. They steer just as well in robot form, don't get stuck going from tile to carpet, and you're always ready to fire your missiles. Woo-hoo!

3) You have to make sure that the car is all the way up in robot mode, or the missiles won't fire. If you push the fire button and nothing happens, push the transform button to make sure the robot is in the "full up" position. Just lowering it a little bit will prevent the darts from firing. Again, like with issue #1 above, once you know, no biggie.

4) We haven't had them long enough to comment on durability. There are some parts that feel a little flimsy. They've already taken more abuse than I initially thought they would withstand and are still going strong, but only time will tell...

None of these things are deal-breakers, IMHO, and these cars are well worth the money. Fantastic, if mindless, quality time with the kids!!!

In car mode, your remote control can only control the back two tires. The left knob moves the left rear tire forward/backwards and the right knob does the same thing to the right rear tire. Both of the front tires only spins and is not able to turn left/right like most r/c cars. As a result, trying to maneuver the r/c car may be a challenge.

To transform, there is a lit circular button on the remote control. HOLD it down and it will transform from car to robot. If you let it go halfway, it will in between car/robot. Holding onto the button again will cause the transformation to continue where it left off.

The missles are spring loaded and fires quite far. It comes preloaded with 5 missles and you get an additional 3 as spare.

Batteries are not included. The car/robot takes 6 AA batteries. The remote takes 1 9volt battery.

Overall, the toy itself looks really nice whether it is in car or robot mode. My only complaint is that I wish the front two tires can turn left/right from the remote control.

This is more sturdy than I had expected, a nice solid feel to it. The way it adjusts itself really doesn't take away from the feeling of solidity - it was well designed.

The complaints I have follow some of the others as far as the control - tank like control, but I have a lot of issues with the controller just not responding right at all - and sometimes it takes three or four attempts to get input recognized and acted on by the car. I had thought it was maybe bad batteries (though all tested up past the 1.5v and 9v with my multimeter) but a brand new set didn't help it at all. It acts sometimes as if there's dirt or corrosion on the contoller's pickups and it just doesn't let contact be made sometimes or something.

My other complaint is with the launcher - depending on where it stops, sometimes it's only possible to get three missiles to "lock" into place. Frustrating for my 8 year old at times.

Even with the tank style controlling, it's not too bad to drive, you just have to remember it won't do a nice "normal" turn like a real R/C car with proportional steering would. This can actually be a drawback to someone like my 8 year old who got three R/C cars for xmas, two with normal steering and this one, and since they're his first foray into the hobby, he gets frustrated switching between the two. In hindsight, I should've stuck with just the one type or the other, until he got the hang of R/C vehicles. But I'm not about to pull out one of his xmas toys just to help keep his frustration down...

Looks sharp though, and you can interrupt the transformation by hitting the button again, it'll stop at whatever point it got to, and if you hit the button again it goes the other way. Handy if you accidentally bump it while playing and want to get back to the configuration you were at again quickly.

Works decently on my carpeting as well, which is good since the kitchen and bathrooms are the only non-carpeted surfaces.

All in all a unique R/C toy, just not something conducive to any complex steering needs depending on your layout.

I purchased this rc vehicle for my grandson for Christmas and it was his favorite toy. Once he started playing with it he just wasn't interested in his other toys. It is worth the money and it performs as stated. I was very pleased with the product. I would recommend this toy.