Robosapien comes with a large white infrared remote control, and its clear button layout makes it look similar to any number of other household remotes. This remote allows for a virtual shedload of commands, all clearly marked and easy to access. Many buttons have a double or even triple use as the ‘select’ button acts as a “shift” to the green and orange levels of the control menu, in other words one button may lower Robo’s arm, but when used after the select button the same button will make him perform a pre-programmed ‘pick up’ movement. Thus dozens of movements are available from just the top ten buttons on the remote. I’m sure Wowwee would say there’s a logical reason but the buttons on the remote are reversed, meaning if you want Robosapien to turn right, you have to press the left turn button and the left arm buttons control the right arm. These are obviously transposed to being the right way round if the robot is facing you but it still seems an unnecessarily cack-handed way of doing it for someone who’s used to controlling radio-controlled cars etc.

Robosapien also comes with a cup to play pick up with. This doesn’t work quite as well as I’d hoped and the cup has to be in just the right spot for him to pick it up successfully. Disappointingly you can’t just make him bend over and pick something up, it’s all done in a pre-programmed sequence. You can’t really even make him open his hand and take an object from someone either, his ‘fingers closing’ movement is linked to his elbow rotation, so nothing is as controllable as you’d like it to be.

Robosapien doesn’t pick his feet up very far and relies on his rocking gait to transfer his weight from one foot to the other, and small leg/knee movements to make good progress and walk. This means he walks much more smoothly on tiled or laminated floors and struggles on even quite short carpet. Robo’s centre of gravity is also quite critical to smooth walking, so that if you try and walk him along with one of his big heavy arms extended he will struggle and tend to wander off-straight or not move at all. His rate of turn is amusingly slow too; he wiggles and jiggles, will turn through full 360° in about the same time as your average oil tanker.

You can send your Robosapien into sleep mode (from which you can wake him up via the remote) or power him down, which means you’ll have to turn him back on with the button on his back. He has three demo modes, which cover all his movements including an amusing (like your Dad at a wedding) dance sequence. He has seven sensors which will make him go ‘Ooh!’ or ‘Ouch!’ and stop if he touches something when you’re controlling him. You can program him to perform a set sequence of up to six moves on reaction to his left, right or sonic sensors. These can also be triggered by pressing the L, R or S buttons on the remote. You can set up a Master program of up to 14 steps that can include all three of the sensor programs, meaning you can set him off and he’ll keep going autonomously for ages! This is all spoiled a bit by that fact that his memory clears as soon as you turn him off.

Even with his limitations I can’t help feeling that Robosapien is amazing value for money, I got one from eBay in excellent condition for under £15 inc. P&P. He’s fairly robust and not likely to fall apart in your hands, but then again, I don't suppose he'll get that much use compared to some toys. It doesn’t seem like so long ago you’d have had to pay a fortune for something like this and it would have been made by a Sony or Honda research team. There’s definitely something endearing about a robot that burps, farts and wolf-whistles. He also offers a high five (well, more like a ‘high three’ really), goes “Ayyye” like the Fonz. What more could you want?