Pretty cool.
Speaking of shaking...were you a Coleco or a Mattel man?
Do you remember these?
I, personally, owned and preferred the Coleco, on the left.
However the Mattel was the standard bearer for handheld games. Close my eyes and I can still hear the beeps and tweets that emanated from this little device. This was the scourge of study hall teachers everywhere when I was in Junior High. I think I just read that there was now an app that recreated that Mattel model for your phone or ipad. Even technology likes to go old school.
Those two beauties were not to be confused with the table top electronic football game.
This was essentially an electronic vibrating pad that had little plastic football players dancing around the field like a bunch of drunken Bart Starrs. I don't think anyone I knew actually played by the rules, for instance there were felt footballs that you could (supposedly) have your quaterback throw and have your kicker boot. That never happened. What happened is that you would spend about an hour lining up your team in the most creative formation you could think of whilst your opponent did the same thing.
Then you'd flip the switch and watch the players seizure their way down the field. If I remember right once a player from the other team vibrated into the player "carrying" the ball, it was considered a tackle.
Take a look.
The last time I played this my team lost 2-0. The other team got a safety on the last play of the game. My team had one yard to go for a touchdown. I spent forty five minutes lining up my team for the winning touchdown. My opponent (Dave Cloutier) did the same. I flipped the switch ready for victory. Instead all eleven of my players vibrated into a scrum in the middle of the field and commenced to work their way backwards 99 yards, all the while protecting the quaterback from being touched by the other team, until we got into our own endzone. This is when they decided to make like Moses and part the Red Sea so that the other team could make the big play. Dave still claims it was his strategy all along.
Oh, and this was just last night.
Geeks.
That's when we broke out the table top hockey game.
This, on the other hand, was all about the skill. You had to push,pull, and rotate the levers to control the players on your team. Compared to this, foosball was for kindergartners. We'd get so animated playing this that we surely dug a few trenches into some kitchen tables.
Ah..good times.
I think that's it for today. I have to return Dave's Merlin game to him today...that is after I figure out the pattern to magic square.
...now where did I put those penlight batteries?
Peace out.
