Don’t discount slot car racing.  I did, I thought it was some simple little game where you held a button and watched a car go in a circle.  I never really got into slot car racing, having missed the boom of the hobby and spending most of my racing time digitally.  But after looking into it, I’m convinced, slot car racing is one heck of a great thing.

Based off of actual car racing, slot car racing is a good way to bring all the excitement of turning left into your living room.

In all seriousness though, slot cars have an intersting and rich history.  The big boom of slot car popularity is associated with the 1960’s but really they have their earliest origins in 1912.  Lionel, the popular model train company, found a natural evolution of train with electric automobiles.  By taking a toy train rail and placing it down in a slot, an illusion of a street was created.  It was around this time that Lionel developed a method for independent speed control for their models as well.  Lionel’s model didn’t last long, but over the ensuing years electric toys in their various forms were quite popular. Read the full story

By Stephen Turk

I’ve waited long enough.  So here goes, my favorite sports game of them all, bubble hockey.

The game was the very first coin operated foray of Innovative Concepts in Entertainment, and they named it “Chexx.”  Logistically speaking, bubble hockey (also known as dome hockey, or the greatest game ever) is very similar to foosball.  Players are controlled via bars and the object is to score goals.  There are some key differences; as opposed to foosball, where a bar controls a line of players, bubble hockey guys are controlled individually and move about and spin in a slot cut into the “ice.”  While this removes the possibility of an exciting hockey fight, it also removes the more pesky penalties such as off-sides and icing.  It also allows you to pull of some pretty complex and thrilling moves, what with the ability to rotate your players 360 degrees.

An iconic feature of the game is the large plastic dome that covers the game.  This serves several purposes.  One is that it provides a structure for the nifty electronic scoreboard to hang from, and the other is that it prevents cheating and the loss or theft of the puck and players.  You see, a big factor of the game was its pointed approach.  Whereas foosball has a parlor and garage game legacy, bubble hockey was aimed squarely for the arcades, where no one wanted to take any chances with what kids might to an unprotected machine. Read the full story