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Five Things – 10.29.12

Oct 29, 2012 ·

1. Construx – Introduced by Fisher Price in 1983, Construx was a line of beam-based construction sets.  Using the beams, connectors, and other pieces you could build pretty extravagant structures.  I preferred these to LEGO as a kid because the Construx peices looked more futuristic and industrial – it was easy to play out space scenes on futuristic prison planets with Construx, which was a frequent scenario of mine. The sets also included things like pulleys, winches, and other tools to add more function to your structures.

The packaging was pretty slick, too:

 

Construx packaging

 

And here’s some marketing stuff for it.

 

Construx Ad

 

 


2.  Disneyland Board Game – Dreams of Space has a great post about an old Disneyland Board Game from 1957.  As usual, the artwork is pretty great:

 

Disneyland Board Game

 

Disneyland Board Game

 

3.  The Cars of Tomorrow – Here’s a fun short made in 1948 about the cars that we will drive IN THE FUTURE.

 

Basically what I gather from this video is that in the future  we will develop fantastic new  technology but keep 1940s notions of style and design.

 

4.  Low G Man – Another forgotten game that I gave a lot of attention to in the 1990s, Low G Man (also known as Low G Man: The Low Gravity Man for those who enjoyed redundancy) was a mostly-platform game with one great gimmick.  Can you guess what it is? The titular character, Low G Man, can jump much higher than a normal G man can.  He also had upgradable weapons that turned you into a real force to be reckoned with, but if you died you had to spend a bunch of time rebuilding your weapons and were basically forced to be puny and weak until that happened.  At least, that was how it felt.

 

Low G Man
Nonetheless, the game’s got pretty good graphics for NES era.  The story is laughably basic (“But then they came.  We’ll send in Low G Man!”) but the bosses are fun and the worlds have a cool look to them.  Also, its fun to jump real high.  Here’s some gameplay.

 


5.  Orbital: Doctor Who – We just returned from Moogfest in Asheville, North Carolina, and we had a blast.  There were stellar sets by some “newer” talent (Pantha Du Prince, Miike Snow), great performances by established legends (Thomas Dolby), but the best experience for me was Orbital – an act I’ve been dying to see since 1995.  Orbital’s set blew me away.  In honor of that, here’s a video of them performing the Doctor Who theme song – which, when played at Moogfest, caused the geek part of my brain (all of it) to liquify and spill onto the floor.


Can’t wait for next year’s Moogfest!

 

-ds

news cars of tomorrow, construx, disneyland board game, low g man, moogfest, orbital

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