Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Bat Man vs. Pac Man

Found a couple of cool old 80's handheld pocket games the other day, and for those of you that remember my Jetsons post back in 2018 (CLICK HERE) this Bat Man driving game is pretty much the same wondrous dime store toy comprised of flimsy paper and cheapo plastic. This time you're driving a black car that looks more like a Porsche than the Batmobile, and as you scroll the dial on the bottom left with your thumb, you maneuver the steering wheel with your other digits, dodging DC villains as you cautiously careen around the many twists and treacherous turns. Pulverize Penguin's umbrella at the pass! Run right over Riddler's foot as you race down the wrong route! Get the last laugh and floor it to the finish as Joker Junction eats your holy bat dust!









As usual, fun for about 2 minutes. Tops. The unfortunate quality of this product remains it's greatest obstacle, but it still looks great displayed on my shelf next to the Jetsons game.

Now a much better constructed handheld game, and miles more fun (I actually laid in bed playing it for over an hour the other night), is Tomy's Pac Man Pocketgame based on the super 80's mega arcade hit video game. Move your Pac Man back and forth along the bottom (his mouth actually opens and closes too!) as you release the BB's from the top, catching them in your mouth to SCORE as they quickly roll down through the peg maze above you. Eat 'em up, or they fall into the OUT slot. It's harder than it looks, and brilliantly designed too in its own simple way-- PLUS, it still matches the ingeniously fun concept of the Namco arcade classic, only this time you're silently eatin' balls mechanically instead of lights 'n sounds electronically.





Someone on Youtube shot a video of it in action so I don't have to-- check it out HERE. 
*WOKKA WOKKA WOKKA*

4 comments:

Mr. Cavin said...

Okay, that Pac Man game is cool as cats. I've never sen one designed like that before, and it's brilliant. I'm especially pleased with the simple and effective scoring mechanism.

Craftypants Carol said...

Oh man that Batman game is awesome! It reminds me of one of those old fisher price TVs with the roll of paper that you wind to make the images move across the screen. But yeah I can see it getting old real quick.

Mr. Karswell said...

>never sen one designed like that before, and it's brilliant

It really is, and like the real arcade version, its very addictive. Tomy produced a huge number of these with varying themes and game play concepts. I wonder if kids these days would even give 'em the time of day though. I showed it to Z and he wasn't too impressed at first, until he started playing it.

>reminds me of one of those old fisher price TVs with the roll of paper

Yep, that's pretty much exactly what it is. It's all so cheaply made though that the paper barely scrolls when you dumb the dial... you kind of have to push it along with your fingers right on the paper

Mr. Karswell said...

Haha, I meant "thumb the dial" above... derrrr, speaking of dumb