I remember in middle school seeing kids hovered around this handheld game, jabbing away at the buttons.
It was love at first sight: Mattel’s football game.
The game play was quick and easy. You used buttons to move your player — a tiny horizontal red dash — across the football field.
Popular at the time, too.
You know “The Logical Song” by Supertramp that was released in 1979? When you hear the words “d-d-digital,” it’s followed by a special effects sound from the game that happens when a tackle is made.
It would be considered a joke by today’s standards. But as kids we loved that game.
News that Sony’s just-released PlayStation Vita might be the closing bookend on the era of handheld video game devices — thanks to the rise of smartphone gaming — had me feeling a bit nostalgic.
By the way, you can still buy one of these old-school handhelds (and plenty others including a Mattel baseball game we enjoyed growing up) at sites including Amazon.
I doubt the Vita is the closing bookend, especially since (as usual) Nintendo’s portable system is blowing the competition out of the water. Sony just released a system to a market at a price point much to high with restrictions that people do not like. Plus it is only digitally backwards compatibly – so those of us with large UMD liberaries aren’t to keen on getting the system.
However I do feel your nostalgia for the old hand held systems. I was born in 75 and grew up playing those little games. That unit that you have pictured is one I spent a ton of time with. I have about five different hand held gaming systems from that era packed away somewhere as well. *Raises a glass to childhood memories.*