Just wanted a decent Christmas gift
The goal was simple: find something cool for Christmas. My kid’s into anything that roars, has sharp teeth, and ideally shoots stuff. I saw the Robo Alive Dino Wars T-Rex — bright red, armored, cannon on its back. Looked like a solid win. Ordered it.
First few minutes after unboxing? Pure joy. He crawled after it, made dino sounds of his own, named it “T-Rex Defender.” The toy is impressive, I won’t lie — it walks, lights up, growls, and shoots missiles. Basically three toys in one. No batteries included, of course, so I had to pull them from the TV remote.
And then the fun began. For him.
When the dinosaur is the third one to wake you up
By day three, I was being woken up not by my alarm, but by something growling and stomping across the floor. My kid had gotten up early and decided T-Rex needed to start the morning with an attack mission. And let me tell you — when it’s still dark, and some red, blinking thing rolls toward you and growls like it’s alive — you don’t think “fun toy.” You think “What the hell is that.”
Instead of coffee, I spent the morning crawling under the couch looking for a plastic missile because “T-Rex accidentally shot the bear.”
The turret makes a loud clicking noise when you reload it, and the growl sound? It’s the same every single time. Constantly. By day five, I was hearing it even when it wasn’t playing.
To be fair, it’s well-built. It hasn’t broken, nothing’s snapped off, and it still works great. But I’ve reached the point where I “accidentally forget” to put the batteries back in. My kid suspects something, but he hasn’t called me out yet.
Oh — and it slides weirdly on tile. Sometimes it hits a wall and lets out this choking roar that’s somehow both hilarious and disturbing.
Still, I’m glad I bought it. My son is totally into it. He’s built missions, bases, enemies — he even made up a “launch password.” And that’s the thing: even if I’m losing my mind hearing that dino growl in my sleep, his imagination is fully switched on.
And honestly, that’s all I really wanted from this gift in the first place.
