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OLD SCHOOL ELECTRONIC GAMES WERE RUBBISH

28/2/2017

20 Comments

 
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Kids today, eh? They don't know how good they have it. Things are so good now, that they expect everything to be handed to them on the end of a pizza paddle. Oh, how I hate them...

Look at the Nintendo Switch; a device of almost limitless gaming potential, which works as both an under-the-telly console and a handheld games system. Children of the 70s and 80s could never have conceived of such a thing, and were they capable of doing so their brains would've likely shut down, never to reactivate. 

Here's a trawl through some of the electronic garbage my generation had to suffer through.
SIMON
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Get this: Simon was co-created by Ralph H. Baer, otherwise known as "The Father of Video Games" for his creation of the Magnavox Odyssey games console.

Though presumably named after the children's game Simon Says - the origins of which date back to the 13th Century, when Simon de Montfort captured King Henry III and his son, the future King Edward I, during the Battle of Lewes - there were no such historical connotations to the electronic version.

Simon featured four coloured panels, which would light up and make a sequence of foul rasps. Players would have to memorise these sequences and lurid honks, then play them back by tapping the panel with their hands or sternum. The sequences of lights and pallid caterwauling would become longer and more complex as the game progressed. It was basically the Cro-Magnon version of that Bop-It thing they have now. 

Indeed, following the success of Bop-It, Hasbro - the current owners of Simon - launched two modern versions, Simon Swipe and Simon Air, both of whom sound like people who might work in your office.
MERLIN
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Merlin may look like a phone, but that's only with the benefit of modern hindsight. Were you to try phoning somebody on it, you would've been treated to nothing more than a procession of discordant electronic yelps. In 1978, when Merlin was released, it merely looked like Merlin: the electronic Devil's Novelty.

Featuring six games, which utilised its eleven - count 'em - light-up buttons, these included a Simon-like memory game and Tic-Tac-Toe, as well as a simple music making function. Indeed, Merlin was one of the first affordable electronic synthesizers - pre-dating even the Stylophone, a sort of electronic keyboard thing crossed with a dental probe, that was particularly popular with huffing Antipodean nonces. 
ELECTRONIC BATTLESHIP
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Battleship had been knocking around for years - since the First World War in fact, where French officers played it under the name L'Attaque, while eating onions, and saying stuff like "Le-pompt! L'Attaque mon battleship-le-dooo!"

It was Milton Bradley that turned Battle into plastic in 1967, with its popular Electronic Battleship variant arriving a decade later. It was infinitely more desirable and exciting-looking than its predecessor, with jarring electronic squawking, and real buttons to press.

Despite that, Electronic Battleship was never quite as engaging as the adverts implied, though few 1970s schoolchildren would have never uttered its iconic slogan "Battleship is life... Battleship is love" ("You sunk my battleship!").
BLIP
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Tomy's Blip was a handheld - or, rather, tabletop - electronic LED version of Pong. To play it, you had to literally wind it up, and instead of controlling a bat or paddle, players had to press button 1, 2, or 3 to correspond with the button their opponent had pressed. That was it. Yes... yes... it was rubbish, probably.

Once again, there were no sound effects beyond a distressing mechanical drone, as the timer - and the players' patience - wore down.
RACING TURBO DASHBOARD
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Any child who owned a Tomy Racing Turbo Dashboard was a lucky child indeed. All I ever had was a cheap steering wheel with a cardboard dashboard, which hung off the back of my dad's car seat. I would sit in the back, and mimic my father's driving. To do this today, I would have to drive as slowly as possible, while occasionally clipping the wing mirrors of other cars, or reversing into a low wall. He's 83.

Where I had to use my imagination, owners of the Racing Turbo Dashboard had an actual screen to do the work of their imagination for them. A lurid, scrolling, 3D roadway would occasionally lob other cars in the path of the player's vehicle - accompanied by the sound of your car's engine, in the form of a rowdy motorised clicking.
AUTO RACE
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Mattel's Auto Race has the distinction of being the first entirely digital handheld game, without any mechanical parts. Like most firsts - first drink, first poo, first marriage - it wasn't very good. A red LED represented the cars (the player's own, and the ones they must avoid), and a chain of shrill voltaic paps standing in for everything from crashes to engine noise.
ELECTRONIC STRIKER
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There were numerous ways in the 1970s to play football without actually playing football. Subbuteo was perhaps the most popular. Making a decent grab for its crown was Electronic Striker, developed by Birmingham City and Nottingham forward Trevor Francis, in his garden shed. 

Other things Trevor Francis did in his shed: shiver like a baby bird, sniff his wrench, and count to ten.
STAR WARS ELECTRONIC BATTLE COMMAND
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Ads for the Star Wars Electronic Battle Command game suggested a full-size, Star Wars-style, computer console, so it was rather disappointing to realise that Electronic Battle Command was rather on the wee side. Indeed, the game itself was rather on the wee side, in that it was about as much entertainment value as drinking a bowl of bear urine, through a straw.

Up to four players could engage in this bewildering attempt at recreating the thrill of space combat, by rendering it as profoundly unappealing as possible, and testing their patience with its discrepant synthetic jangle. 
MICROVISION
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Get this: the Game Boy wasn't the first handheld games console with interchangeable cartridges. That accolade can be smeared across the brow and lips of Milton Bradley's Microvision. Released in 1979, the Microvision remained on sale for a mere two years, having been plagued with technical issues.

Only 12 games were ever made available for the Microvision, including the usual arcade clones, as well as Star Trek: Phaser Strike - released to coincide with the first Star Trek movie. It wasn't as exciting as that sounds; the LCD graphics for most Microvision games were made up of simple blocks, whereas the sound was rarely more than a procession of computerised dissonance.
SPACE CHASER
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One of countless attempts to drag Space Invaders out of the arcades, before technology was really ready for it, Space Chaser, was another semi-mechanical folly.

Rather than face an entire armada of alien invaders, Space Chaser players were required to punt a slow-moving missile at a solitary flying saucer, which bobbed around at the top of the screen, like a discarded syringe box in a canal. 
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
THE SCARIEST TOP TRUMPS EVER
READ ABOUT THESE 10 WEIRD EDUCATIONAL GAMES - YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY LEARN SOMETHING
IF YOU'RE NOT TOO BUSY YOU COULD SPEND SOME TIME HAVING A LOOK AT THESE OLD DONKEY KONG STICKERS​

20 Comments
Queef Latina
28/2/2017 09:57:29 am

I had the Tomy Racing Turbo Dashboard! Colour me a lucky child indeed.

I remember when I grew bored of it I left it in my grandparent's cupboard and forgot about it. Then, years later after they both died, I found it again and the batteries hadn't died, which naturally convinced me that my grandparents were haunting it. At the very least they HAD to be haunting the batteries.

I wonder if they still are...

Reply
Queef Latina's Grandparents
28/2/2017 07:31:01 pm

Oh no, we live inside your computer now.

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DEAN
28/2/2017 10:06:32 am

That Tomy steering wheel was the first bit of tech I truly coveted. I vaguely remember considering how it would be the best thing ever and probably so good that I'd be overwhelmed and cry and then smash it.
I think it was my grail in many ways, and that I've been on a quest ever since. I know this: the Switch could be it.

Reply
RichardM
28/2/2017 11:21:48 am

Tomy Dashboard owner here also. It was a strange thing, given that it wasn't really a game at all: you couldn't crash into the obstacles and it just stoped with a strange jerking, grinding noise when the fuel meter ran out. The mechanical gubbins inside were fascinating, though. You don't get springs and levers and so on when you take kids toys apart nowadays: just a spleen (PCB) and some hair (wires).

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Mr Biffo
28/2/2017 11:39:00 am

Tomy dashboard owners can GTF.

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DEAN
28/2/2017 02:22:01 pm

Straight up, man.

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paul
28/2/2017 11:52:48 am

As kids, we were robbed. Where was this gem? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU2qoKn-n3Y

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RichardM
28/2/2017 11:56:35 am

I wish Twilight Struggle came with a nuclear launch button.

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Gaming Mill link
28/2/2017 12:14:46 pm

I used to have some Pac Man clone machine thing. It was blue and I'm sure it had some sort of dual control thing going on. Big John from across the street borrowed it once and managed to smash it. His mum made him give me his Evel Knievel motorbike spinny thing which was rubbish. Ironically, I found out a few years later that Big John from across the street lost a leg in a motorbike accident. Karma.

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Gonko
28/2/2017 12:48:03 pm

Blip was great if you took it apart. You could watch the little light being moved with a series of nylon gears and linkage arms - much more fun than the game.

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Roy (Stuart N Hardy fan)
28/2/2017 01:40:04 pm

I had many of of those toys featured. I was a spoilt brat.
I even had the Rolf Harris stylaphone (used on the Bowie track Life On Mars I believe).
Just glad I never got given Rolf Harris's dictaphone. Made by Ronco I think.
Phew!

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Andee
28/2/2017 01:46:27 pm

Microvision and Merlin - 2 things I coverted from the Bible of Greed (Argos catalogue) but never actually saw in the plastic.
I'm glad they were shit.
I did like playing Simon at a rich friend's house but I suspect the 15 minutes we enjoyed on it were its sum total of entertainment.
I can't find Simon Swipe or Simon Air on electoral role websited - now I am sad.

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Heeden
28/2/2017 07:30:08 pm

As a child who's parents were unable to afford the plastic tat television demanded I possess, I often used to read through the Argos catalogue and imagine what it would be like to play with the toys in there. New-catalogue time was like a really pathetic Christmas.

I told my girlfriend about that recently and she said it was the saddest thing she had ever heard. I think she was sincere.

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Roy (Stuart N Hardy fan)
1/3/2017 07:48:41 am

Well that certainly touched me. But then I look back on my spoilt, toy-filled childhood and start smiling again.
Oh and I used to browse the Argos catalogue, the Freeman's one too but that was in my later childhood and it wasn't to look at the toys.
A-hem.

JABBERWOC link
28/2/2017 02:29:21 pm

I suffered hearing loss from using my Blip game.
The buttons were useless too and a single mega-depression to an unresponsive 1,2 or 3 (oh, the choice) broke the thing. I HATE BLIP.

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Kelvin Green link
28/2/2017 06:49:23 pm

If nothing else, the Stylophone gave us this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_htxLyl9pqg

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
28/2/2017 06:56:06 pm

Blip could be easy "won" by just holding the serve switch after releasing the ball... this would prevent it from locking back into place on your side and you didn't need to piss about with any number buttons.

Electronic Battleship was superb! Even better was the Radio Shack/Tandy version where the vertical panels folded flat into lids to turn it into its own storage.

Fuck all you Tomy Dashboard owners. My parents refused to get me one, claiming I'd get bored of it. It always seemed to be the ultimate imagination tot... it was the car for your quick getaways and driving around adventures and, of course, for lining up all the dining room chairs to play "bus".

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Chomboss Wankuss
28/2/2017 08:37:34 pm

I wish I had a Microvision just because I like the idea of a gaming console with a button called "Balls" - much more interesting than the usual X, Y, square etc guff.

Huffing antipodean nonce - oh my days and nights.

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Blerkotron
28/2/2017 09:18:43 pm

I've still got one of those Electronic Striker games! Works, too. It *is* shit, though.

Reply
Ste Pickford
3/3/2017 03:37:10 pm

I wanted Simon for Christmas. I got Merlin. :(

Reply



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