It is that time of year again to stock up on toys for the kids either as gifts for the holiday season or to keep them busy while they’re not at school, so we’ve created a Gift Guide to help you through.
This forms one of our many gift guides which you can check out here for our recommendations on just about everything you could hope to pick up at the end of 2022.
These guides are made up of the best products we’ve come across this year so it comes with our recommendations so you’re not spending your hard earned money on duds.
One final note is that, to help you buy these products, we have included links to various online retailers. None of these links are affiliated and Hypertext earns no money from any purchases. These links are purely here for accessibility. Pricing listed below is accurate as of the time of writing.
Our links also don’t include all retailers which have the items available, just the ones that were in stock at the time of writing.
Fidget Cube | R200
The best gifts are those that are used every day, and the Fidget Cube can sit happily on a desk at home, at school or at work to be played with at all times.
The Fidget Cube is ingenious in its simplicity: a plastic cube with a different movable item on each face.
While the Fidget Cube is the king of this kind of product, the entire fidget toy industry has exploded over the years and you can find countless variants in person and online. Shop around to find some that fit your budget and the needs of whoever will receive it.
Buy here: Toy Kingdom | Sportsmans Warehouse
NERF Elite 2.0 Motoblitz Blaster | R1 499
The Elite 2.0 Motoblitz Blaster is a unique Nerf blaster as it’s essentially two foam flingers in one. The main blaster is a motorised affair that uses four, not included AA batteries to rapidly shoot darts one at a time from the ten-round magazine. The secondary mode is a pump-action air blaster that can shoot off a volley of up to six darts.
There are 22 darts in the box too so there’s spares on top of the maximum 16 that the blaster can hold at once.
This is on the expensive side and we’re including it for the fun we had recently when we reviewed it. It’s also on sale often at around R500 off too.
For those who want a cheaper option see our guide to Nerf blaster types for what else is available in South Africa.
Buy here: Toy Kingdom | Loot | Toys r Us
Electric Water Blasters | R450+
Just as Nerf blasters have become more advanced over the years, so have water pistols with new options coming fully electric and motorised.
While we try to stick to established brands here for the Hypertext Gift Guide, we’ve seen these no-name “Electric Water Blasters” pop up at several locations around the country with various labels that all share these colours and the shark decals.
After loading in water, the battery then shoots out the water without the need for any pumping or loading as with other water pistols.
We will advertise some caution here as these are toys intended for the water which come with batteries. Also be cautious with pricing as we’ve seen them as cheap as R450, and as expensive as R1 000.
Buy here: Takealot
LEGO Fast & Furious 1970 Dodge Charger R/T | R369 Gift Guide
South Africa, thankfully, has access to almost all of LEGO’s catalogue, which makes buying from them a bit difficult with so much choice.
The Speed Champions line from the company gets a special mention from us as even a single purchase of a smaller set gives you a great building experience and a fantastic display model at the end of it.
We’ve chosen to highlight a recent crossover from LEGO Speed Champions with Fast & Furious in the form of Dom’s Dodge Charger.
Buy here: Great Yellow Brick | Import A Toy | Kiddiwinks
Transformers Decepticon Dragstrip | R550 Gift Guide
The Transformers buying experience in South Africa is awful. Not only is the selection a fraction of what’s available overseas, but local buyers are often overcharged greatly.
On top of these problems online retailers refuse to individually list toys, instead selling them in random lots so what is actually delivered is a mystery. At the time of writing only Takealot is willing to sell you a Dragstrip online, otherwise you will need to physically visit stores and hope it’s on the shelves.
All of this is a real shame as Transformers are still fun to play with and put on display, with a favourite being the Decepticon named Dragstrip. This robot comes with two blasters and can transform into a six wheel F1 car which isn’t something you see often.
Despite being a good product on its own, Dragstrip also illustrates the Transformers stock problems in the country. Dragstrip is part of a team called the Stunticons which features five Transformers in total. These five can be combined into a new Transformer named Menasor. Overseas all five parts of Menasor – Motormaster, Dead End, Wildrider, Dragstrip and Breakdown – are all available, but South Africans have just one.
Buy here: Takealot
