All those great 70s and 80s toys I had as a kid have come back into fashion. Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots, Hungry Hungry Hippos, stunt motorcycles (of course mine was an Evel Kneivel, Head Banger football kicker, seems like everything we had as kids is on the Wal-Mart shelves today.
Growing up, I had a lot of toys, but not as many as some kids. When my brother-in-law and I are out looking at toys for my nephew, it seems like he had two or three of every toy on the shelf. One thing we did have, not too long after it came out, was an original Atari 2600. I still remember the Christmas morning when we got the Atari. My mother, sweet as she is, loves Christmas. She had wrapped the console and the games separately. She instructed me to not open the console, but forgot to mention the games. About the second package I opened was an original Pac-Man game. Of course, this took away some of the mystery, but I was extremely excited to open the remaining games and the console itself.
That console ended up being incredibly popular in our house. We played incessantly. One of the games we played was the infamous Atari ET game. Until recently, I wasn’t really aware that this game was one of the worst video games of all time. I played it a TON as a kid, and although I found it somewhat irritating, but didn’t think it was the worst game ever. In fact, it had a bit of an appeal.
The Atari is now dead and gone, I have no desire to go back and play ET for nostalgia, but I do remember the game fondly. It’s just another memory of my blissful youth.