Even
in my mid-thirties I still remember the most disappointing Christmas
I ever had. Now, this particular "disappointing" is from
the view point of a spoiled nine year old little boy. I look back at
Christmas as a child and I count my blessings but back then, boy was
I disappointed. I should have been thankful of how my holidays were
spent before my parents separated, we were a family and always spent
the season together celebrating. Now that seems like more of a gift
than any present I could have gotten.
The
moment I waited for had finally arrived. At last I would not be the
only kid in the neighborhood to not own an NES. I ripped into that
wrapping paper like crazy, little, mad man. Just shredding the paper
so I could see that glorious picture on box. Once the paper carnage
had cleared, there it sat in front of me. First I saw the logo, WoW.
This was odd I thought. Then I saw the name of the system in bold
print. ACTION MAX. Wait a minute, this wasn't an NES at all. That's
right, my little nine year old heart was broken. In front of my eyes
was not an NES, but a World Of Wonder Action Max.
Yup,
I was crushed, however I did not let my parents know this. I acted
excited and wanted the system hooked up immediately, mostly to solve
my curiosity of what exactly this thing was. Now, I would venture to
say that at least 75% of you reading this have no clue what an Action
Max is, and quite frankly even at the time, I didn't know. I would
soon find out.
World
Of Wonder was originally the distributor of the NES until they got
big enough to handle the duties themselves.They were also the
creators of the Laser Tag toy that took over for a few years as the
most popular toy. So they had this genius Idea to get back into the
game system business with a light gun only VHS based shooting system.
I know that doesn't make much sense but it was quite simple really.
You had to have a VCR because the games were actually cassettes. It
also included a light gun and a light that suction cupped on the
bottom right had corner of the television. This gun had to be shot
while the light blinked to count as a hit. There wasn't a winner or
loser and you never beat the game it was a point based system only.
Every
game was exactly the same each time you played it being that it was
in VHS form. Each game was a live action mini movie which you can
view by typing the title into YouTube. it's fairly entertaining to
watch these now and they run about 20 minutes long each. This could
be ultimately why the system failed because it was so repetitive and
the system only had five games that were released. Here are the
titles to the system:
.38
Ambush Alley
Blue
Thunder
Hydrosub:
2021
The
Rescue of Pops Ghostly
Sonic
Fury
I
can only comment on Sonic Fury & Pops Ghostly as those were the
only two games that I actually owned. Sonic Fury was a jet fighting
game that was probably trying to milk off of the success of Top Gun.
I remember getting a bit bored relatively fast with this one. I
didn't much care about shooting jets down with a light gun I guess.
Now
The Rescue of Pops Ghostly on the other hand was played many times by
yours truly. Apparently shooting ghosts while traveling through a
haunted house was just creepy and cool enough to entertain my nine
year old brain. The rest of the neighborhood kids weren't too
impressed with my newly acquired Christmas present. I remember
playing it for a few months before getting completely tired of it. It
was mostly due to lack of games and the repetitive nature of the only
two I had. After that it got retired to the old video game system
graveyard and was never seen again.
It
sounds like this post is a bit of a downer but there is good news. By
my parents getting me this Action Max for Christmas it gave me a
fantastic story to tell now that I'm older. I also appreciate the
Action Max now for being what it was and having the chance to own one
even if it was briefly. If you're wondering if I ever got that NES I
so desperately wanted, there is good and bad news. Just a few short
years later my parents got divorced thats the bad news.
The
good news (but not nearly good enough for a life changing event such
as divorce) my Memaw bought me what I had been wanting all those
years. I got a Nintendo Entertainment System with Super Mario Bros.
3. At the time I was elated but given the opportunity of course I
would have wanted my parents to stay together. Now a days it seems
petty that I wanted an NES so badly when I had a family that loved me
and an overall great life. Sometimes as children its hard to see the
big picture of what we have in life. Of course even as an adult it's
hard to see what we have, so take this holiday season to enjoy every
part of it!
If
you owned an Action Max then you were part of an elite group of
people. If you didn't, well you didn't miss a whole lot except for
some pretty cool nostalgia.
Follow
me on Twitter @richardrants
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my blog at http://richardrants.wordpress.com
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