Vehicles
There are three different car types that you can choose from when you buy the Battle Machines at the store. The core vehicles are a 1968 Camaro, a 2005 Ford Mustang and a big Chevrolet Dooley pickup. Each car also comes in several color and livery combinations. In all, there are ten styles of cars that can be purchased in twin packs or single packs.

If you buy the vehicles in a single pack, it comes with a laser scope that allows you to play the laser tag component of the game alone. The cars come in two different frequencies and each frequency has three channels so six cars can fight in one battle.

In Use
The RC cars themselves are full function and the player has total control over the speed, steering, and direction of the RC vehicles. All of the cars have about the same level of performance. The cars are easy for novice drivers to control and they don't move so fast that kids will crash into things accidentally from the car going too fast for them to control.

The laser battle function of the cars is very easy to use. The cars each have a sensor on the front and rear of the vehicle. You line your car up with the front or rear of the enemy and press a red button located on the back of the remote. A laser sound activates and if you register a hit, one of the enemy's red LED lights goes out. Each player has three hits before their car is deactivated. Once one of the cars is deactivated, they can be reset by pressing a silver reset button on the rear of the vehicles.

The cars are very easy for kids age 6 and up to control. My four-year-old daughter had a hard time controlling the direction of the car with the wheel on the remote, but that is to be expected. I had a lot of fun driving the cars too. They have enough speed and power that you can spin out and just have fun. The cars are very low to the ground, which means they won’t run on rough surfaces well and they did get stuck on the transition from the road in front of my house to the driveway.

If you have thick carpeting, the cars have a hard time driving on that as well. You can forget about driving the Battle Machines RC cars on grass or dirt surfaces, the ground clearance just isn’t there and the cars are not sealed against moisture and dust.