Pocketeers. Remember them? I didn't until just now. And then I remembered that I owned tons of them. In fact, I owned every single one on this list - and more. What a horrible spoilt child I must've been.
How is it possible I could've forgotten them though? What else have I forgotten? Where am I? What happened to my trousers? What's all this soft stuff in my undies...?
Tomy's Pocketeers - distrubuted by Palitoy in the UK - were pre-electronic games; wind-up handheld whimsies, which sometimes attempted to emulate popular arcade games through mechanical and magnetic means.
I mostly recall being bought them for long car journeys - in motorway service stations and the like. Though given the precision required for most of these games, it's unlikely that a bumpy car ride was particularly conducive to success, not least when being slapped by your mother for asking "How much longer in minutes?" over and over and over.
In an age before smartphones, before the Game Boy, before Game & Watch even, Pocketeers were the only way kids could enjoy on-the-go gaming. Here are the ten Pocketeers I remember best, sort of.
How is it possible I could've forgotten them though? What else have I forgotten? Where am I? What happened to my trousers? What's all this soft stuff in my undies...?
Tomy's Pocketeers - distrubuted by Palitoy in the UK - were pre-electronic games; wind-up handheld whimsies, which sometimes attempted to emulate popular arcade games through mechanical and magnetic means.
I mostly recall being bought them for long car journeys - in motorway service stations and the like. Though given the precision required for most of these games, it's unlikely that a bumpy car ride was particularly conducive to success, not least when being slapped by your mother for asking "How much longer in minutes?" over and over and over.
In an age before smartphones, before the Game Boy, before Game & Watch even, Pocketeers were the only way kids could enjoy on-the-go gaming. Here are the ten Pocketeers I remember best, sort of.
GRAND PRIX
Rotating the dial on this game would make the four primary-coloured cars perform laps of the track (via a magnet concealed beneath them). Presumably - given that this wasn't a multiplayer game - the challenge came from placing bets on which of the cars would win. Thus, Tomy and Palitoy were responsible for an entire generation of gambling addicts.
We used to play a version of this at school, in the back of our exercise books. We'd draw an obstacle-filled track, and make our way around it by each pressing different coloured biro into the page, and flicking it so that it left a mark. The good thing about this game is that you could play it during lessons without getting into trouble. Unlike a game called The Screaming Game, the aim of which I'll leave to your imagination.
We used to play a version of this at school, in the back of our exercise books. We'd draw an obstacle-filled track, and make our way around it by each pressing different coloured biro into the page, and flicking it so that it left a mark. The good thing about this game is that you could play it during lessons without getting into trouble. Unlike a game called The Screaming Game, the aim of which I'll leave to your imagination.
STEEPLE CHASE
Do you remember the playground rhyme that went "Here's the church, and here's the steeple/Open the door and see all the people", along with its accompanying hand gestures? It has nothing to do with the Pocketeers Steeple Chase game. I just thought I'd mention it.
A shrunk-down version of the popular Screwball Scramble, the aim of Steeple Chase was to guide a ballbearing to the goal - over see-saw bridges, winding staircases, and a turntable. To the best of my knowledge, this was the most complex - and certainly most aesthetically pleasing - Pocketeer ever released.
Hang on. I just remembered another version of that playground rhyme, which was taught to me by a boy called Ian Grewcock (real name). It went "Here's the church, and here's the steeple/Open the door and look - it looks just like a girl's fanny."
A shrunk-down version of the popular Screwball Scramble, the aim of Steeple Chase was to guide a ballbearing to the goal - over see-saw bridges, winding staircases, and a turntable. To the best of my knowledge, this was the most complex - and certainly most aesthetically pleasing - Pocketeer ever released.
Hang on. I just remembered another version of that playground rhyme, which was taught to me by a boy called Ian Grewcock (real name). It went "Here's the church, and here's the steeple/Open the door and look - it looks just like a girl's fanny."
RAT-A-TAT
A simple shooting gallery game, with you flinging ballbearings - via a sort of tommy gun-style catapult - at a gangster wagon. Each successful shot would cause the vehicle to move closer to the mobsters' hide-out. Which, somewhat incongruously, had the word "HIDE-OUT" emblazoned on the roof. You know: just like real gangster hideouts during the Prohibition era.
RALLY
Using similar "technology" to Grand Prix, there was seemingly no real aim to Rally - you merely steered a car around the streets. It was a sort of step up from those fuzzy toy car play mats, and undeniably a precursor to Grand Theft Auto. Albeit without the option to run over pedestrians. Unless you imagined them...
BIG MATCH
I didn't like football, but that didn't stop me pretending to like football so that I felt less of a social leper. Along with Panini sticker albums, scarves, footballs, and Subutteo, I also owned Big Match - one of the few multiplayer games in the Pocketeers range; two players face off in an attempt to flick a ball into their opponent's goal. In every respect it was better than real football - and cost significantly less than your own football stadium, and hiring 22 wankers.
CASINO
I didn't know what the ruddy Hell I was meant to be doing with this - and looking at it now I'm still none the wiser. Nonetheless, there was a nice tactile sensation when you pulled back on the buttons, and released to make the dice wheels spin around.
For added fun, you could make up your own rhyme: "Spin spin spin, go the dice! Spin spin spin goes the rice!"
"What are you doing? Why are you throwing rice everywhere?"
"Ha ha!"
"What is wrong with you? It's all over the living room. Just wait until your dad gets home."
For added fun, you could make up your own rhyme: "Spin spin spin, go the dice! Spin spin spin goes the rice!"
"What are you doing? Why are you throwing rice everywhere?"
"Ha ha!"
"What is wrong with you? It's all over the living room. Just wait until your dad gets home."
BIG HIT
If there's one thing I find more boring than foot-o-ball it's cricket - a game so tedious they'd have been better off calling it "Dull-fard"!!!! Perhaps I was sucked in by the name of this Pocketeer - Big Hit, rather than the more obvious "Cricket". Something about it must've appealed, and I certainly remember getting plenty of play out of it. Look at the players on there though: the bowler and batsman are considerably more cartoonish than the fielders. Sloppy.
SPACE INVADER
Probably my favourite Pocketeer after Rally, Space Invader - narrowly avoiding a copyright infringement case - required you to fire the inevitable ballbearing past the moving barriers to hit the UFO at the top. In a nice touch it depicted the invasion occurring over the UK; the US version of this game ditched the globe for a more blatant "homage" to Space Invaders.
SPLASHDOWN
This was a nightmare. The aim was to connect a helicopter at the top of the screen to the astronaut at the bottom by building a line of ballbearings - connected to one another via the miracle of magnetism. Suffice to say, you haven't experienced frustration until you've tried to connect a sequence of ballbearings to one another via a weakening magnetic field.
MONKEY PUZZLE
This game had it all going on - spinning two wheels on the sides of the Pocketeer would cause the monkeys to ascend towards their home, into which they must deposite a ball. For reasons known only to the monkeys, the ball could only be ferried to its destination by balancing it between their bottoms. Instead of balancing, couldn't they have just jammed the balls right up there? You know: right. Up. Their Arses?
Or, y'know, just used their prehensile tails, or something?
Or, y'know, just used their prehensile tails, or something?
For more on Pocketeers check out this exhaustive guide by Stuart Campbell.
RSS Feed
