Game and Game Community

Review by V. S. Romero for Electronic Carabiner Keychain Game Simon
Rating:
I bought this little gadget over a month ago, but waited on opening it in hopes that someone would compare it to the original. Alas, no one dared to review it on Amazon.com (or anywhere else, for that matter), so I decided to open it. The packaging doesn’t allow for consumer demonstration, so there was no way of telling if I’d like it unless I opened it.

Was the risk worth it? Absolutely!

This is as great a miniature of Simon as one can get. If you’re like me and had the original Simon, it was hard to get used to the newer versions–you know, the ones where the sounds were the same, and the colors weren’t as bold.

My original Simon had the red and green lights malfunctioning, but the sounds were all there, so when either light wasn’t working I could still tell which button it was due to the distinct sound (which was also designed to help memory). After a while, though, it did get frustrating not seeing the lights, and the buttons became stiff, so when I saw this little key-chain I thought I’d give it a whirl.

It’s designed to look just like the original; heck, even the middle sticker has the exact same button layout! But it’s just a sticker. There are no options for levels or games on this carabiner version, but that’s reasonable considering it’s so small. What really impressed me was that the sounds were almost like the original. As I stated previously, the newer versions of Simon all had the same, or else dull, sounds, but this carabiner, despite the seemingly under-par sound chip, retains the original and distinguished sounds from the ’80s.

Since there are no level modes in this, it seems that the makers gave it a level 2 or 3 as the main sequence, so you still get enough lights to drive you mad.

The only main gripe I have is that there’s no “on, off” option. You have to push the middle button to turn it on, but there’s no way of preventing it from accidentally turning on if the middle button gets unintentionally pushed, say, in a backpack or something.

Nevertheless, it’s still a great and nostalgic deal for $10. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed in this travel-sized Simon!

UPDATE 7/21/10:

My family and I recently took a camping trip to Michigan from Chicago. We traveled by car, and I took this Simon with me in my backpack. We had no unusual bumps on the road, so it was pretty much smooth sailin–er, driving.

When we arrived at our destination, we had some downtime so I gave this toy a whirl. To my dismay, I found that the red and yellow buttons weren’t working properly. I had to either push them twice or push ‘em hard for them to register.

I’m not sure if that’s the case for all the carabiner versions, or just mine; but since I don’t see myself spending another $10 to test different one, I’m afraid I have to lower my score on durability from 4 to 2 stars, and my overall score from 5 to 4.

I really hope this is just a specific case to mine, and not to all the ones out there. If anyone else is experiencing the same issues (or not), please let me know.