When the 1980s are mentioned, many images and stereotypes are immediately conjured. From Rubik’s Cubes to the A-Team, this was a decade that had many defining features. A development that was certainly at the forefront of many people’s lives during this era was the emergence of video games.

The early 1980s is often described as the ‘golden age of video arcade games’, and for good reason. This was a time period in which Super Mario Brothers, Ms. Pac-Man and Donkey Kong were created, so how could it not be noted as a period of considerable excitement within this industry?

Some games of the 80s are still very much in favour today, with Super Mario Bros. being the best selling video game of all time and Google even changing its homepage logo to a fully playable version of Pac-Man to commemorate the games 30th anniversary. 80s video game fever has become so apparent that classic games have even made their way in to cutting edge online casinos.

A prime example of this is the Street Fighter II and Street Fighter IV slots that can be found at the likes of Intercasino. These slots feature many characters from the games including Ryu, Ken and Sagat and even include enthralling bonus rounds which consist of choosing fighters and then helping them through fights in an attempt to win you big money.

As a result of the transformation of the Street Fighter games in to slot games, they are currently experiencing a resurgence in popularity. A new version of the game, entitled ‘Super Street Fighter IV’, was released in early 2010 as well as a short film called ‘Street Fighter: Legacy’ that starred characters from the game series.

Street Fighter is not the only video game to appear in online casinos. Inspiration for slot machines coming from all sorts of video games, ranging from Bejewelled to more recent games such as Hitman and Call of Duty 4. There are even casino games available that are designed to rekindle some of the enjoyment that was created during the 1980s. The iconic film series ‘Rocky’ has also provided the inspiration for an online slot machine in addition to the plethora of games based on comic book characters including Superman, The Punisher and Daredevil to name just a few.

More and more themed slots such as these are becoming available on a daily basis. This means that there is now so much choice within online casinos that each and every player is bound to find a game that they can enjoy.

Given the trouble I had trying to track down a decent image to accompany this (I ended up with a rather poor image of a currently available kit of this ilk) it looks as though this is another one of those past times which are gradually fading away as people move towards more immediate (and less messy) hobbies.

My personal memories of this toy are of a Paddington Bear themed set that I must have received as a present at some point. The kit comprised a couple of wibbly wobbly rubber moulds, a big bag of plaster of paris, lots of little plastic pots of acrylic paint and a paintbrush.

You mixed up the plaster of paris, poured it into the moulds, waited for a bit, then carefully (you might want to get an adult to help with this bit) peel away the mould to reveal a pure white statue of, in my case, Paddington. Daub some paint over it and voila, your very own statuette to display proudly on your shelf or window sill.

I remember having this ornament sat on my shelf for many years, as I was really pleased with it and only ever made one of them because we could never find anywhere that sold plaster of paris without having to buy another complete kit.

However, there was always one thing I never understood. Why was it called plaster of paris? Well, thanks to the Internet and it’s ability to know pretty much anything, I now know – apparently the name comes from the source of a large deposit of gypsum, which is located in Montmartre which is near to, yes, you’ve guessed it, Paris! I always imagined the reason must have been something far more interesting than that, but sorry, apparently not.

Whilst Cabbage Patch Kids were still at the height of their fame, it was decided to expand the Cabbage Patch family into the animal kingdom, and so along came the Koosa. These were, if I remember correctly, marketed as pets for the Cabbage Patch Kids.

The main selling point of the original dolls was that each doll was unique, and this concept was carried across to the Koosas. The Koosas came in various fur colours with different head hair styles and different colour eyes. They were also notionally different types of animals, with some looking more like cats, some like dogs and some like bears, but whatever they looked like they were all officially referred to as just Koosas.

My sister had one (she named it Kandy Koosa) to accompany her Cabbage Patch Kid (Melissa Missy, if you’re interested), which I seem to recall looked fairly similar to the one in the above image. Being the good older brother that I am, I used to provide voices for both these dolls during car journeys and other times of boredom, which I’m sure my Mum and Dad found highly irritating…

And in case you think I’m making all this up, and that the accompanying image is just an example of a particularly hairy and extra ugly Cabbage Patch Kid, then here’s further proof of their existence – a US TV ad for them. Apparently the Koosa is also some kind of good luck charm, making you unbeatable at Draughts (sorry, it’s a US ad – I mean Checkers) and better at darts than Eric Bristow…

The Game Of Life is, as the name suggests, based around the story of a person’s lifetime. The idea is as you travel around the game board different events will shape out a fictional life history for each player. Each player chooses a different coloured car, and inserts into the driving seat a little pink or blue peg, depending on whether they are a girl or a boy (though I suppose there was nothing stopping you living out a life as the opposite sex, as the choice of male or female was largely irrelevant).

You car is your playing piece, and as you spin the rainbow coloured spinner to travel around the board there are certain squares you can land on which then add further little pink or blue pegs to your car. First you get married (nope, no choice in the matter on this one) and then further round the board certain squares would present you with a child (or possibly even twins) to build up your family.

Going back though, your first decision in the game was whether you should go to University or jump straight into the world of work. Going to college meant you could get a better paid job, which since the ultimate aim of the game was to be the player with the most money at the end meant this could well be the better route to take. As with life itself though, there was no guarantee this would be the case…

As you progress round the board you encounter various types of spaces, much like any similar board game, with some yielding you extra money, whilst others might mean you have to shell out for a fine or repairs to your house. At regular intervals there were Pay Day squares, which gave you an amount of money depending on what job you ended up getting at the start of the game.

There was also the option of buying yourself insurance and the option to purchase status symbols, such as villas in the sun or flashy cars, which all helped build up a nice little nest egg for you when you reach retirement at the end of the game. Make more than a million and you would end your days in the Millionaire’s Mansion, otherwise it was the slightly less glamorous world of the Retirement Home for you.

In terms of complexity Game of Life sits somewhere between a standard boardgame of the “roll the dice and follow the instructions on the square” style of board game (as almost always featured in those Annual books you can get at Christmas) and something like Monopoly. There wasn’t as much strategy involved as Monopoly, but at least the Game of Life had a definite end point which you knew would be reached within an hour or so of play.

I’ve yet to mention the most stand out (if you’ll excuse the pun) feature of Game of Life though, which was the board itself. It game with a load of little plastic buildings and hills which slotted into the board to make it a little more three dimensional. The biggest of these pieces was the central mountain which housed the trademark spinner, which looked really nice and also meant it was much harder to lose than the dice that come with most games.

The Game of Life was one of my favourite board games as a kid, and I guess I can’t have been the only one. Whilst it has been updated and changed many times, the Game of Life first appeared in the 1960’s and is still going strong today, and is also available in various special editions and in computer game form.

Finally, it may surprise you (it certainly did me) to learn that a very similar game could actually have been enjoyed by someone who could be considered a Child of the 1880’s! Game of Life was originally released by Milton Bradley (actually a real man, and not just the name of a company) in the 1860’s. Back then it’s full title was actually “The Checkered Game of Life” and it was far simpler, being just a square board divided into black and red squares, and more like those Annual style board games I mentioned earlier.

A Stink Bomb does exactly what it says it does. It makes a terrible smell. Usually coming as little glass tubes containing a yellowish liquid, to use them you simply dropped them on a hard floor so they smashed, releasing the liquid which would then react with the air to make an awful stench, normally either like bad eggs or perhaps like bodily functions…

This was the kind of prank you really didn’t want to have played on you! I’m happy to say I never was the victim, nor was anyone I know, but I have experienced there effect, or at least I believe I have.

When I was a kid my parents would often take us to a shopping centre in the nearest big town to where we lived – The Butts Centre in Reading (since renamed The Broad Street Mall). The Butts Centre still had a very late sixties/early seventies feel to it when I was young, with orange and brown signs and decor in the public areas.

The centre was on two levels, with most of the big, well known shops on the ground floor. The second floor was comprised of more local independent shops, and sadly didn’t see as much footfall, so it became a bit of a spot for bored older kids to hang out with their mates.

I distinctly remember one time we went up to this floor to look in a little arts and crafts type shop, but on riding the escalator up to the top level we found ourselves holding our noses as it truly did smell like rotten eggs. I think we ended up spending five minutes in the shop then heading straight back down the escalator!

Galaxian took the general premise of Space Invaders, that of shooting a bunch of aliens lined up at the top of the screen, and made it more exciting by making the aliens behave in a more natural manner for an aggressive attacker from outer space. That is, instead of just plodding slowly along the top of the screen and occasionally moving downwards, these guys would break rank and attempt to dive bomb the player ship.

Instead of the aliens just appearing in rigid formation at the top of the screen, they would first zoom on from the top and sides of the screen in a curvy conga line, firing missiles as they went. If you were quick enough to position your ship in the right place you could actually take out most, if not all, of the aliens before they finished their path to the top of the screen.

As each wave of aliens finished their entrance pattern, they would line up at the top of the screen and slowly jiggle from side to side whilst they waited for the rest of their brethren to join them.

Once all the aliens had reached the top of the screen, they would fire more missiles down at you, and every so often a couple of them would break off and fly right down to the bottom of the screen, attempting to kill you either via more missiles, or in kamikaze fashion.

That wasn’t the only trick up their sleeve though. The ultimate insult was when one of the bigger aliens (who incidentally took two shots to kill) would come down and tractor beam up your ship, returning with it to the top of the screen where it then became part of the alien attack force!

These new features, particularly the dive bombing tactic, which never failed to illicit a quick feeling of panic from the player, added a whole new lease of life to the far more rigid game play of Space Invaders. Improved visuals (multi colour, animated aliens with nary a strip of coloured film stuck over the monitor in sight) and a much needed boost of speed meant that it wasn’t long before Galaxian (and to be fair a host of other very similar games) had toppled Space Invaders from its perch.

Unlike most hippos, these plastic version dined on little white plastic marbles. A number of marbles were put in the middle of the game and each player then frantically pressed their little switches to get their hippo to eat the most marbles and win the game.

Each of the hippos was a different colour (none of them grey, the traditional hippopotamus colour) and apparently they all had names, presumably in an effort to inject some kind of character into them. The purple hippo was called Lizzie, the orange one Henry, green was Homer and Harry was yellow. Over the years replacement hippos were brought in (the original ones presumably bloated from a diet of plastic marbles). Henry changed colour to blue and Lizzie was replaced by Happy, who was pink.

The most recent version has changed the names again, and the current Hungry Hungry Hippo squad are Sweetie, Bottomless, Picky and Veggie (pink, yellow, orange and green colours respectively).

I remember the TV advert being aired incessantly in the run up to Christmas one year, which made me want the game immensely (sadly Father Christmas never delivered). I’ve embedded a clip which appears to be the US version of the advert, but I’m sure the lyrics sound eerily familiar.

It was a big orange plastic affair, with a decent sized main keyboard and a bank of big chunky buttons on the left hand side. Pressing the keys on the keyboard made a strange humming sound at the desired pitch, whilst pressing the chunky buttons produced a chord, although at the time I thought a chord was a piece of thick string so what relevance these buttons had was completely lost on me.

The keys on the keyboard were all labelled, though with numbers rather than letters as you might have expected. The organ came with a song book that used these numbers to tell you how to play a tune. Whilst perhaps a simpler way of learning to play, ultimately the numbers were probably a bad idea as you’d only need to relearn the proper musical notation when you progressed on to a “proper” instrument.

It wasn’t long before we got bored with playing unrecognisable tunes so we starting messing about, and soon discovered that if you held several keys down at once, the poor organ started to struggle to make any sound at all. This has puzzled me for years, but it was only when I came to write this post that I found out why this was.

The Bontempi Air Organ, as the name suggests (although at the time I just knew it as an organ) uses air to produce its sound. A fan blows air through a pipe, and pressing the keys opens and closes little holes in that pipe. Pressing too many keys caused to many holes to open and the air generated by the fan inside was just not strong enough to produce a noise.

Bontempi themselves are an Italian company, and whilst they no longer make air organs, they are still in the children’s toy instrument market, with a range of electronic keyboards, guitars, xylophones and the like.