At Flashbaks: When Video Games Became Board Games

This week at Flashbak I also remembered video games that were “ported” to board games in the 1980s.

Here’s a snippet and the url (http://flashbak.com/bored-games-remembering-video-games-became-board-games-1980s-61318/ )

“Just imagine this scenario. The year is 1982 or 1983. You are 11 years old. You beg and plead for your parents -- or your aunt or grandparents for that matter – to buy Pac Man for the Atari 2600, or Donkey Kong if you own Coleco-Vision. 

Your mind immediately conjures images of hours spent in front of your TV and Atari, or other console, having fun with an exciting new game cartridge. You’ll be the envy of all your friends.

Then your birthday arrives, and you unwrap your gifts only to find that you have been swindled. Your relative have given you the board game version of the video game you wanted.

This is no idle nightmare, my friends.

This actually happened to untold numbers of kids in the early 1980s. Game companies such as Milton Bradley and Parker Bros. turned a generation’s favorite video game excitement into “board” -- bored? -- games.

Below are five such offenders from an era when game makers managed to make new video games feel, well, old hat.

Seriously I love (and collect) old board games. They had great art-work and inventive play.  Still, this trend was such a disappointment.

Still, these board editions of video game properties did have one major benefit over their video game originals. 

At least you wouldn’t get Atari’s thumb while playing them…”

Please continue reading at Flashbak.