Top 10 Toy Lines of the 2000s


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Toy colour changer



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While they're great toys, racetracks are tough to assemble and take up too much floor space to leave set up. This year, Mattel took the modern toy-racing track up a level with its Hot Wheels Wall Tracks. Command Strips stick the track system securely to the wall, so cars can hit slopes, bumps and loops before riding down to the floor. The Starter Kit comes with an easy color-coding system for assembly, but the best part is the thought of not having to put it back together for each use. And if you're raising young James Cameron, Hot Wheels' new Video Racer will be a perfect Wall Tracks companion toy. A tiny camera embedded inside a standard-size Hot Wheels car can shoot up to 12 minutes of high-quality footage and be exported onto a computer and edited with Mattel's easy-to-use video software. They've even got ready-to-go music, scene-transition clips and special effects to give the video shorts a little something extra.

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The Yu-Gi-Oh "Official Card Game" (OCG) made its debut in the serialized comics of the same name. Using the in-story's card game as the foundation, the actual card game was made and officially released in 1999. Even after over 15 years, the game's depth and variety continues to be a big hit, and the world's number one Trading Card Game!

 Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links for iOS and Android will be coming to Japan in late April and then should release globally before the end of the year. While there was a brief announcement a few months ago that the game was in development, it wasn't until yesterday that we got the first trailer and with it more details about the game. The video previews the Duel World single-player mode, the Online Matching mode, and the characters. In Duel World mode, players choose their characters and duel against standard and legendary duelists. As you complete missions, you raise your characters' levels and obtain cards, and as you advance through the stages, you unlock new legendary duelists and new functions.

In Online Matching mode, you can battle against friends and duelists in real-time duels, and you can also practice with the decks of duelists you've competed against in the past, which, I have to say, is a very smart idea. When it comes to characters, Duel Links features Yami Yugi, Seto Kaiba, Katsuya Jounouchi (Joey Wheeler), and Mai Kujaku (Mai Valentine). As you complete missions, you have access to more characters. Pretty standard stuff. The game will of course be F2P with IAPs, but I don't know exactly how the monetization will work. The game should release in the US at some point this year, so keep an eye out.

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Rubik's Cube is a 3-D combination puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Originally called the Magic Cube, the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toy Corp. in 1980 via businessman Tibor Laczi and Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer, and won the German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle that year. As of January 2009, 350 million cubes had been sold worldwide making it the world's top-selling puzzle game. It is widely considered to be the world's best-selling toy.
In a classic Rubik's Cube, each of the six faces is covered by nine stickers, each of one of six solid colours: white, red, blue, orange, green, and yellow. In currently sold models, white is opposite yellow, blue is opposite green, and orange is opposite red, and the red, white and blue are arranged in that order in a clockwise arrangement. On early cubes, the position of the colours varied from cube to cube. An internal pivot mechanism enables each face to turn independently, thus mixing up the colours. For the puzzle to be solved, each face must be returned to have only one colour. Similar puzzles have now been produced with various numbers of sides, dimensions, and stickers, not all of them by Rubik.

Rubik's Cube World Records 

1 - Rubik's Cube - Collin Burns - 5.25
2 - 4x4 Cube - Sebastian Weyer - 21.97
3 - 5x5 Cube - Feliks Zemdegs - 48.42
4 - 2x2 Cube - Christian Kaserer - 0.69
5 - 6x6 Cube - Kevin Hays - 1:40.86
6 - Rubik's Cube: One-handed - Feliks Zemdegs - 6.88
7 - Rubik's Cube: With feet - Gabriel Pereira Campanha - 25.14
8 - Rubik's Cube: Blindfolded - Marcin Kowalczyk - 21.17
9 - 4x4 Cube: Blindfolded - Oliver Frost - 2:10.47
10 - Rubik's Cube: Multiple Blindfolded - Marcin Kowalczyk - 41/41 54:14
11 - Pyraminx -Oscar Roth Andersen - 1.36
12 - Megaminx - Yu Da-Hyun - 37.58
13 - Rubik's Clock - Evan Liu - 4.80
14 - Rubik's Cube: Fewest moves - Tomoaki Okayama - 20 
15 - Square-1 - Bingliang Li - 6.96
16 - 7x7 Cube - Vladislav Shavelskiy - 2:36.58
17 - Skewb - Jonatan Kłosko - 1.81
18 - 4x4 Cube: Blindfolded - Oliver Frost - 2:10.47 
19 - 5x5 Cube: Blindfolded - Oliver Frost - 5:35.84

Records

Single time: The current world record for single time on a 3×3×3 Rubik's Cube was set by Collin Burns of theUSA in april 2015 with a time of 5.25 seconds done at Doylestown Spring 2015.

Average time: The world record for average time per solve was set by Feliks Zemdegs at the Melbourne Cube Day 2013, with a 6.54 second average solve time.

One-handed solving: The fastest single time of solving the cube with one hand is 8.75 seconds by Antoine Cantin at the Toronto Fall 2014. The fastest average time of 10.87 seconds was made by Antoine Cantin 

Feet solving: Gabriel Pereira Campanha solved a Rubik's Cube with his feet in 25.14 seconds at the Nova Odessa Open 2014.

Group solving (12 minutes): The record for most people solving a Rubik's Cube at once in twelve minutes is 134, set on 17 March 2010 by school boys from Dr Challoner's Grammar School, Amersham, England, breaking the previous Guinness World Record of 96 people at once.

Group solving (30 minutes): On November 21, 2012, at the O2 Arena in London, 1414 people, mainly students from schools across London, solved the Rubik's Cube in under 30 minutes, breaking the previous Guinness World Record of 937. The event was hosted by Depaul UK 

On November 4, 2012, 3248 people, mainly students of College of Engineering Pune, successfully solved the Rubik's cube in 30 minutes on college ground. The successful attempt is Recorded in the Limca Book of Records. The college will submit the relevant data, witness statements and video of the event to Guinness authorities.

Blindfold solving: The record for blind solving is held by Marcin Kowalczyk of Poland, who solved a cube blindfolded in 21.17 seconds (including memorization) at PLS Szczecin 2014

Multiple blindfold solving: The record is held by Marcin Kowalczyk of Poland, who successfully solved 41 of 41 cubes blindfolded at the SLS Swierklany 2013.

Fewest moves solving: Tomoaki Okayama (岡山友昭) of Japan holds the record of 20 moves set at the 2012 Czech Open.

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Gundam Models



Gundam models are model kits depicting the vehicles and characters of the fictional Gundam universe by Bandai. These kits have become popular among mecha animefans and model enthusiasts in Japan and in other nearby Asian countries since the 1980s. Gundam modeling spread in the 1990s with North America and Europe being exposed to Gundam through televisionvideo and manga. Gundam models, as well as the hobby of assembling and painting them, is known in Japan as Gunpla (ガンプラ Ganpura\), a portmanteau of "Gundam plastic model", plastic being the most common material for the retail kits.

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Beyblades -Gasing



Originally developed and manufactured by Takara Tomy, first released in 2000. The toys include a 'launcher' – a device for bringing the spinning top up to speed in a plastic arena known as a Beystadium, with a slightly dished base, where they subsequently strike each other. The last top still spinning wins. Beyblade is largely a game of power and angle, although many players believe a particular launch style can influence the outcome of a game.

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A toy is an item that can be used for play. Toys are generally played with by children and pets. Playing with toys is an enjoyable means of training young children for life in society. Different materials are used to make toys enjoyable to all ages. Many items are designed to serve as toys, but goods produced for other purposes can also be used. For instance, a small child may pick up a household item and "fly" it through the air as to pretend that it is an airplane. 


Most children have been said to play with whatever they can find, such as sticks and rocks. Toys and games have been unearthed from the sites of ancient civilizations. They have been written about in some of the oldest literature. Toys excavated from the Indus valley civilization (3010-1500 BCE) include small cartswhistles shaped like birds, and toy monkeys which could slide down a string.
The earliest toys are made from materials found in nature, such as rocks, sticks, and clay. Thousands of years ago, Egyptian children played with dolls that had wigs and movable limbs which were made from stone, pottery, and wood. In Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, children played with dolls made of wax or terracotta, sticks, bows and arrows, and yo-yo. When Greek children, especially girls, came of age it was customary for them to sacrifice the toys of their childhood to the gods. On the eve of their wedding, young girls around fourteen would offer their dolls in a temple as a rite of passage into adulthood.
      

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