A Stroll Around Toys ‘R’ Us
November 15, 2007 - 15.13With the first video game set, Atari 2600, entering the National Toys Hall of Fame, I wonder how kids toys are like these days. Had it gone all high tech? It turns out I was still able to find a lot of games I played back in the days but some are with different packaging, styling etc.
This is probably one of the oldest games I played with. It’s a drawing board which you draw on with this magnet pen or various magnet stamps provided. Once you are done, you can wipe the board clean with one stroke of the slider located at the bottom of the board. This one looks a lot different than the one I used but the principle is the same. Mine was red by the way.
I don’t actually have a Life board game. I played it at my cousin’s place. Now there are theme Life games. Just like Monopoly.
We had a set of travel othello (that might still be around the house somewhere). My sister and I used to play this game quite a bit. I played it on my Linux machine a couple months ago. I totally sucked. The AI beats me every time.
Lego!! Lego was my FAVOURITE toy. My uncles and aunts bought my sister and I a lot of Lego sets. And I really enjoyed playing with the blocks. I had this beach set, icy space set, medieval dragon set, haunted house set, rafting set to name a few. Lego today feels a bit different. There are the very customized sets like star wars, harry potter where some blocks are made specifically for the set. It kind of loses the uniqueness of DIY with the generic blocks.
I actually wasn’t a fan of the Mario franchise until recent years. I didn’t own a console until the PSX (first generation of PlayStation). I’ve only played Mario on my cousin’s N64 and Gameboy several times. So I didn’t grow up with any Mario games.
PlayDoh was probably my second favourite toy after Lego. I don’t really remember the sets we had but it was fun to play with. It was a pain when two colours get stuck together. Also, playing PlayDoh required more work. We had to spread old newspaper around on the ground so we don’t leave bits and piece all over the tiles.
