Knights' Empire Castle wins top toy award

NEW YORK -- After more than 30,000 hours, children still wanted to play with Playmobil's Knights' Empire Castle. That earned the construction toy with trapdoors, towers, a dungeon and rock dropper the No. 1 ranking at FamilyFun's Toy of the Year Awards.

"You can pretend you're getting ready for a fight. You get to do a lot of security stuff. There are swords, spears and shields," said Jason Chin, 10, of Rye, N.Y., at the magazine's annual ceremony in Manhattan.

A total of 520 toys were submitted for review this year; 63 were selected as finalists and 21 received awards after testing at KinderCare Learning Centers across the country.

The other top toys were Zocker Toys' 3D Pool Table; Fisher-Price's Shake 'N Go! Speedway; Tiger Electronics' ChatNow cell phone-style walkie-talkies and Spin Master's Slurpee Drink Maker. Also, Hasbro's Darth Vader Voice Changer; Toy Quest's Go Go TV, which features a camera that feeds video to a TV screen, allowing children to watch their own images compete in four games; Mega Blocks' Pyrates Dread Eye's Phantom, a 100-piece pirate vessel; Funrise's Nylint Rock Crawler; and American Girl's Card Kit.

This year's crop of toys were generally less girlie and less gadgety than in the past few seasons, said Alexandra Kennedy, vice president and editorial director of FamilyFun.