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How VHS Gaming Conned Us | Nostalgia Nerd

Nostalgia Nerd

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Head to https://www.squarespace.com/nostalgia... to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code NOSTALGIANERD.... Please note, these games use *FLASHING LIGHTS*. It was bound to happen eventually. I couldn't get away with it forever. VHS Gaming. It was inevitable. The Action Max, Video Challenger, Hasbro Control Vision/NEMO, ViewMaster Interactive Vision, Sega Video Driver and everything inbetween. It's all here, and I've had to endure it. So I thought I'd dive in with the key question: How it conned us, and what I mean by that is; how any of these "game consoles" convinced us that they were something worth dabbling with in the first place.

Personally, having gulped an exceptionally large dose in one go, I don't want to play another VHS based game for a several months, possibly years. Thanks to Quang for letting me borrow his Interactive Vision (even if he doesn't know I did).

Thanks again to RetroReplay. Please find his view Interactive Vision video at InteractiveVision Review (View-Master)

Index:
0:00 Intro & Backstory
2:28 Connor VideoSmarts
3:50 Worlds of Wonder
6:02 Action Max
13:25 Video Challenger
17:34 Captain Power
19:57 Sega Video Driver
21:29 Hasbro Control Vision
26:26 View-Master Interactive Vision
30:00 Atmosfear
30:52 TV Teddy
32:14 Toby Terrier / VEIL
35:27 Closing Thoughts

🔗Video & Reference Links🔗
Nintendo Training Video: Nintendo Training 1991
Action Max Commercial: 80's Action Max Commercial
After Burner (Video Challenger): Video Challenger - Afterburner - Takara
Road Blaster (Video Challenger): Video Challenger - Road Blaster - Takara -...
Pops Ghostly (Action Max): Action Max Game Video - The Rescue of Pops...
Ambush Alley (Action Max): Action Max - .38 Ambush Alley
NES UK Advert: Nintendo NES UK Advert - 1989
Captain Power: Captain Power Intro
Night Trap Scenes: Night Trap HD-ish All Rooms Perfect Ending...
Dragon's Lair: Showbiz Pizza Place Dragon's Lair 1983 TV ...

📚Reference Material📚
ComputerSmarts: https://nnerd.es/3dj8Pki
Teddy Ruxpin: https://nnerd.es/3m4ItpW
WoW: https://nnerd.es/3di4kX7 / https://nnerd.es/3ub0eHg
Action Max Discussion: https://nnerd.es/3wgUm0H
Video Challenger: https://nnerd.es/3u0pPm2 / https://nnerd.es/3wgjG6Y
Encoded Light: https://wikivisually.com/wiki/Video_E...
VEIL Press Release: https://nnerd.es/3rL3kjD
Anime Bargain Bin: http://www.anime-games.co.uk/VHS/anim...
Sabre Star: http://d19cgyi5s8w5eh.cloudfront.net/...
VEIL Interactive: https://www.veilinteractive.com/about/
Light Gun Technicals: https://www.epanorama.net/documents/j...
NEMO Briefing: https://nnerd.es/2O8ehhj
Polygon Sources: https://nnerd.es/31vFGwN
Kotaku Video Tape Report: https://nnerd.es/2PGaLLA

Continue? The Boss Fight Anthology (book)
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Errors and omissions excepted.

Some material in this video may be used under Fair Dealing / Fair Use. Where under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 (UK: Sections 29 and 30 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988), allowance is made for purposes including parody, quotation, criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, education and research. Fair Dealing / Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.

20 Comments

@Nostalgianerd Creator 5 years ago Pinned

Please remember to SmAsH tHaT bElL <3

Also I forgot to mention in the video, but the average length for a Video Challenger video is about 7 minutes. 20 for the Action Max. 10 for the Sega Video Driver. 30 for the Interactive Vision and the Toby Terrier bundled video is 3 minutes... THREE. Basically, you're not really getting a lot for your money in terms of "game material".

@povnw8985 5 years ago

This is like the advanced version of giving your little brother the broken controller so he can think he's playing too.😆

@jmtrad1906 5 years ago

It's the same feeling of giving a unplugged controller to your small brother while you play.

@keith_dixon 5 years ago

My Aunt Ann and Uncle Larry got me one of these for Christmas in 1988. Everyone was super excited to try it out and quickly realized that it was not fun at all. I'm still grateful for the gift, they couldn't have known how bad it would be.

@JackstandJohnny 5 years ago

Im realizing that as a child playing our Action Max, we never once hooked up that red light. My childhood was a lie.

@SuperNicktendo 5 years ago

Ah the 80s where the toys did everything you wanted provided you have a high quality television studio to edit out the frustration

@L99GameChannel 4 years ago

I remember we got an action max for Christmas one year. I had to wait till the older siblings got bored of it before I could try it. That was about 20 minutes.

@tophatjones179 5 years ago

“He started going to the air force base every day, for work. Time and again, military base officials had to break the news that he wasn’t actually a pilot.” 😂🤣

@joeblow5214 5 years ago (edited)

The amusing thing is that it tries to trick you into thinking you are actually pointing and hitting what you are shooting at when in reality you are just following the target.

@nukelex 4 years ago

Watching the section on the ActionMax made me want to cry for all the children who received it and the parents who bought them.

@meidomiseri 5 years ago (edited)

The way they used the vhs frames to hold scenes for Night Trap like that is actually pretty ingenious

@PoignantPirate 4 years ago

Just an extra note: the captain power toys in the U.S. would actually respond to the TV show as well as the VHS. There were several other toys along with the ship that all had the small video sensor in them, so if you were watching the show on TV while holding the toys they would do things like flash, play audio clips, or let you shoot at the enemies and react to the events in the show.
And every single one of the captain power toys would go absolutely ballistic during the 'armor up' scenes (aka:magical girl transformations)...

@MikaelMarius 5 years ago

Why hasn't ActionMax developed a lively homebrew scene? Imagine the possibilities...
"Nana's 80th Birthday: The Game"

@superpj 5 years ago

As a kid living in a trailer the Action Max was the most awesome game system. The local police that would come by for uhh, reasons, actually played the haunted house game a bunch then one day 2 of the officers came by after school and gave me Ambush Alley and it was probably the coolest day of my life. One time a few months later a neighbor got pretty drunk up and cops were called. One of the cops was walking around their trailer and I heard him radio it was all clear and the response call was "STAY ALERT BABY, STAY ALERT" They were quoting Ambush Alley in what I later found out was a drunk guy with his x-wife at gun point in the house.

@DirtCobaine 3 years ago

That captain power toy was pretty genius. An arcade game that allowed pvp multiplayer. I would’ve loved it as a kid. Especially the cockpit flying open and ejecting to give you an actual consequence. Pretty sick.

@ClamBake7525 5 years ago

Even as a kid I had serious doubts about these things, so glad I didn't have to experience them.

@MrJC1 5 years ago

"Even to this day, this kid, now a grown man, believes entirely that he is an ace pilot. it was the Action Max that made him this way, and it's that kind of technology that you need in your life"..... ahhahahahaha classic.

@wmlukepriest8012 5 years ago

So far I haven't had a personal connection to any of the technology being discussed in any of Nostalgia Nerd's videos that I have watched, but the quality of research, writing, editing, etc. keeps me coming back for more. I don't have any of the nostalgia, but the nerd is fascinating!