I don’t know how this would work, but it makes sense in my head, so roll with it. Recently there was a movie about some guys who were really good at video games that ended up having to save the world from giant video game characters. It was called Pixels and it was poorly received because Adam Sandler is box office poison and I will never see it. But that doesn’t mean all of those low graphics video games are terrible. They’re the foundation for a ton of childhood memories and carpal tunnel syndromes across the world.
I spent much of the ’80s without a video game system at all, and I only managed to get an Atari 7800 at the tail end of the decade. That’s right, I’m the kid who was playing his Atari when the entire universe had moved on to Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Funkadelic Nintendo, and whatever other versions came out. I was still shooting at caterpillars when others were having Mario save the Princess. For far longer than other kids, Mario for me was just a guy that jumped over barrels thrown at him by a damn dirty ape. That’s how cool I am. Please restrain your envy.
But that doesn’t mean I was completely video game deprived in those years. I was able to play them at arcades and at school and on random consoles here and there. It only made it that much sweeter when I had my own . . . which was outdated already when I got it, but I loved it so shut up!
Nintendo has been getting a lot of attention recently from things like Figuarts and Jakks Pacific and even NECA’s video-game versions of movie properties. Pac-Man will occasionally get a toy line that quickly stalls due to the wrong approach or awkward toys. Most Atari properties don’t get much love. That’s a shame to me because I have fond memories of all those games. In fact, if I were to do a toy line, I’d make all of them part of the same universe.
What if the Pac family was called on to save the world from alien caterpillars, and they had to fly the ship that destroyed them, and the space spider, and all those things. What if . . . guy from Pitfall‘s knowledge of pitfalling teamed with Dig Dug guy to fight underground creatures?
What if Mario and Luigi had to put aside their enmity for apes to work together against those aliens from Galaga, before joining Pac-Man to fight the Centipedes? And these are all toys, by the way, in case that wasn’t clear. Awesome centipede toys that break apart and yet still move independently while the music gets faster and faster oh crap don’t panic!
Want a knight on an Ostrich? You’ve got Joust.
Want a soldier that teams up with the Pac family and the Mario family against Centipedes and aliens? You’ve got Super Joe from Commando.
You can even have a Kangaroo in there. Anyone remember Kangaroo? Specifically, a Kangaroo with boxing gloves. The forces of evil will tremble in fear when faced with such an opponent.
If some of the unbelievably primitive bad guys were fleshed out — mainly from the package art used for the games — there would be some awesome army-building opportunities for the good guys to fight. Like Space Invaders or the aforementioned Galaxian and Galaga aliens.
Plus the tons of robots that could be made from games like Berzerk.
We’ve already got an E.T. action figure; he could fit in there somewhere. But as a good guy or a bad guy? His video game is always referred to as one of the worst ever, so maybe bad guy. He always seemed fairly sinister, with the glowing finger and all. He’s like the most sinister proctologist ever.
With Nintendo getting a ton of toys over the years, it’s time for Atari to get similar treatment. With a decent storyline that brings all of them into the same universe, it could be more than a random smattering of weird elements and become a fully fleshed-out universe with a bunch of cool toys, some of which are recognizable, others a little less so.
As long as Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and Pac-Man Junior all get fantastic figures out of it. But really, this is an all-encompassing line. Release them in packages that resemble the original boxes. And have someone come with a tiny replica of the Atari joystick. Atari Legends can do all of this. Am I nuts or are these the Greatest Toys Never Made?