Electronic Battleship

Sure, we all loved regular ol’ Battleship, but let’s be honest. Something was missing.

Seriously, how much fun is just sitting there saying ‘hit’, when your little brother got that lucky shot on your destroyer?

Fortunately, the geniuses (‘genii’?) over at Milton-Bradley felt our pain, giving us 80s kids* a little bit of electronic flair when it came to our favorite game.

*Yes, technically Electronic Battleship debuted in 1977, but we’re still considering it an 80s toy. Besides, in the late 70s, all the kids were too busy listening to the BeeGees to play Electronic Battleship. It didn’t really get popular until the 80s. Look it up.

Suddenly, we no longer had to, well… talk when we played Battleship. And how awesome was that ‘beeeeeeee-oooooooo BOOM!’ when we scored a hit? It’s like we were really shooting torpedoes! Of course, on the flipside, the ‘miss’ was a little more heartbreaking– just that single sonar blip, reminding us how we failed. Damn. Harsh.

Of course, it was all just a desperate attempt to compete with the ever-growing video game industry. Really, if your favorite toy didn’t have a computer chip in the 80s (with the lone exception of the Rubik’s Cube), you may as well have been playing with a rock.

Hey, whatever… it worked. Suddenly Battleship (that game -eww!- your parents used to play) was cool again.

We ♥ Electronic Battleship.

~ by weheart80s on March 22, 2011.