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You should look here: http://www.virtualtoychest.com/visualfigureguide/visualfigureguide.html
It's amazing how many half-remembered toys I've identified using this site.
Edited by FloydPinkerton
I remember those toys. There was the gun version and there was also a set of air vehicles that had their own tapes where you had to navigate through a canyon while shooting things. They worked similar to the Light Gun games of the time in that the accessories had a simple light sensor and pressing the trigger caused a square to pop up around the target for it to check.
Don't remember the name though... I remember I really wanted one, and was convinced that it worked on any show (I remember daydreaming using it on Sesame Street. Bizarrely enough, someone else built that idea into SCP 674).
I remember them as being out when I was in elementary school, which would put them in the 1985-1991 range, which puts them a little bit earlier than Clinton era assuming my memory is halfway sound.
Sounds a bit like Captain Power And The Soldiers Of The Future.
Nate The Great: It wasn't Captain Power, I've owned Captain Power toys so I know those.
It very possibly may have been in the VERY late 80s, Fuzzy Boots, because what you're describing sounds very familiar. I was born in 85 though so it must have been around at least as late as 89-91 for me to have a coherent memory of it however. My gut tells me 1990-1993 is the window of time I'm thinking of, but I don't know why.
18TillIDie, write to this guy. He's an absolute fiend for toys of the 80s and 90s, obscure and otherwise. I'll bet that he'll know what you're talking about — if nothing else the fact that it was a playset that came with a video tape makes it likely.
Well darn... Captain Power was exactly what I was thinking of, based on the stuff in this article so my recounting of the time period may not help you.
And Lord Dread was half mechanical
◊, not half rock, so there's another strike.
So you already saw all these vehicles and the play sets? Power Base was what came to my mind. The only other one I can recall that played with infrared is Bravestarr but I don't remember there any interactive play sets or interactive videos. Still trying to remember....
I know this! It's hard to find any info on the net, but it's Battlevision from Tiger. The cartoon that was bundled with it that you used for a primitive lightgun shooter is available on Youtube.
Yep looks like that's it!
Yes! I took one look at the red dome in that video and knew exactly that was it! Thanks guys, I knew TV Tropes would find it for me—thus allowing me to never have to look myself because I'm a lazy shithead ;P
I actually had one of those.
Sadly, as a "video game" that used a VHS, it didn't work well. The only feedback was a score counter, and damage done to the base seemed to be entirely random. Plus, there was the oddity that the base existed both in your living room and on the TV, and would get by just fine without your interference.
Ok now this one is TURBO-MEGAOBSCURE, and I've been looking for it with no success for years.
Back long ago, in the wondrous days of the Clinton Administration (no later than 1999, possibly no more than 1997) I saw this commercial for a toy.
I don't recall the name but it was a playset that you use along with a video cassette tape, with the flashing lights and sounds somehow activating little guns and "battle damage" on the playset. The villain, in the commercial at least, was a guy in a blue tunic and half of his body was made of stone like a kind of Two-Face/The Thing crossover.
The playset itself, if memory serves, had a large red dome on one part of it that had a hexagonal pattern to it and, again if memory serves, it was mainly dull silver or grey with orangish parts to it. Maybe some red too.
The whole gimmick was that it was "interactive" and there was possibly some light and sound to go along with it, in fact it may have had some extra figures or little jets to play with too, and the video I presume had a full story of sorts.
If you asked me, I'd say it was between 1993 and 1997, but frankly, for all I know, it was way earlier or even sometime in the 00s. My gut tells me that the dependence on videos means it was in the 90s.
If anyone can tell me what that was called or shit just point me towards some info on the web, I'd be very grateful.