Which toys/games of today would you loved to have had as a kid?

Having an iPad, Kindle Fire, or some other nice tablet would have been badass as a kid! To have games and tons of books on one device? Hell yeah!

Ha, if i’d had an iPad as a kid it’d been full of vidz of me playing kissy catchy with the local girls.

^^ Yep. what @WillWorkForChocolate said.

When I was a kid we had a computer. It played chess. Most of the time.

I do have to say I grew up in the best possible era for video games. And by that I mean that the lion’s share of video games now are too much for kids, unless you stick with Mario and Sonic and Pokemon. Even Zelda games are too much for a 5 year old – all that reading. I have an NES emulator on my son’s computer. Contra he can play. Call of Duty, not so much.

Other than tech toys like tablets and laptops, I think toys today generally suck. Everything is either Barbie, HotWheels, or based on some stupid Disney movie or bad Nickelodeon show.

When I was a kid, there were toys that were just… toys. We played with yoyos and hula hoops and Tomagotchi and Lincoln Logs and Erector Sets and Lego sets that didn’t cost $60 a box. Lego is just absurd. I used to like to get dress-up clothes. Not costumes of TV characters, just dress up clothes. Pirates and ninjas and princesses and cowboys. Now you can’t be a Cowboy, you have to be Woody. You’re not a princess, you’re Merida.

Nothing like squashing creativity with consumerism.

Maybe we could flip this to include stuff you had as a kid that maybe your kids would love…hmmm.

Nothing. I was content with what I had as a kid. My Game Boy was the greatest thing I owned and it is what you can all thank for paving the way for the iPhone and iPad. Nintendo invented the portable handheld device.

Really? IPads and other games, tv included, bore me as hell…

My childhood isn’t as far away as I could say that there were many different toys, Smartphones and Tablets excluded, and I can’t say that I missed something.

None. I liked playing outside, being exposed to germs, playing in the forest with action figures (and subsequently burning them). It’s too easy to stay inside and get fat with your eyes glued to iPads.

Edit: Kids having access to technology is not bad. They are wonderful learning tools. I mean to say that thinking back when I was a kid, I wouldn’t have traded that for more access to technology.

I don’t know whether to be happy or sad that my son will likely never blow up green army men with firecrackers, like I did.

One of my favorite games that I play now with my daughter is Just Dance for Xbox Kinect. I would have loved to have it when I was growing up, but I agree with some of the others here. I can’t say that I feel like I’ve missed out on some of the new technology that we have now. I spent most of my time outdoors when I was a child and I have wonderful memories of exploring the huge library that we had in Las Vegas and flipping through books made from paper.

Lego mindstorms. Über-cool!!!

I can’t think of anything.

As others have said, tons of time playing outside. Plus, I grew up in the 80’s, and 80’s toys were like tubular.

My son grew up with computer, cell phones, all the cool stuff. Some of his favorite toys when he was younger were his Thomas the Tank Engine trains, legos, my brothers old He-Man toys. He had a playstation and a computer but I tried to limit his time with those and encourage creativity. He had a cell phone at the age of 11, but only because I started work before he left for school and I needed to be know that he was safely on the bus.
Now he’s 18 and I can’t get him away from technology.

If the Sims existed when I was a kid I never would have left the house.

Interesting the way people have gone straight to technology, although that’s inclusive it’s not exclusive to the point I was making. Look at the variations on an existing theme that have enhanced/upgraded a tired old formula. Dolls, that not only talk, but pee & rely on comfort to keep them content rather than your basic old fashioned dollies that look & act more like frozen miniature zombies.
RC cars that are way more advanced, robotic toys, okay we’re back on technology again, but not just with boring old tablets & the like.

^ Dolls suck. I beheaded my Barbies and hanged them from the ceiling fan.

Ha, i’d yank dolls heads off that belonged to girl friends & stick a candle in the neck hole, made bedtime stories more sinister, which I liked.

As a boy, I had this really great stick. OK, not great, but a very good stick. You could whack most anything with it, including the occasional out-of-line, loudmouth friend, or the neighbor’s dog if it tried to bite you on the ass.

You never had to plug it in, recharge or reboot it, or purchase an upgrade….ever. I never considered the possibility of ‘stick envy’ until I was drafted into the Army, and they wouldn’t let me take it to Fort Dix.

When I got home two years later, my wonderful stick was nowhere to be found, and nobody knew nothin’.

Bastards….

@Mama_Cakes Like, ohmygod, could you like, solve the Rubics Cube?

@Katniss Just one side, lol!

@Mama_Cakes Hahahaha! Me too! And I was damned proud of it!

I had everything I ever wanted as a kid. I had a full line of farm equipment. And a bike.

When I was young I often looked for hours at “good” toy at stores and wished I could own it. I even made a list of wanted toys and plan to buy all of them when I grew up. Now I’ve grown up, and I don’t even remember where that list is. But I don’t care, because I’m grown out of toys now :)

Gorram Rubik’s Cube.

Yeah, I was always out playing, the street & everything in it was my playground, even stuff that was meant to be off limits. Scaling buildings just to jump off again, climbing up street lights & sliding down them “batpole” style.
However, living in “oh look it’s pissing down again englandtown”, stoppy in days were quite frequent, toys came in handy then.

Remember when kids were allowed to play in the RAIN? Now they just melt, don’t they?

We played this game, “dodge the raindrops” ...yes that’s right, we were as mad as a box of frogs, but happy.

I wish my kids could have the toys I had as a kid. However, they’re illegal now because they’re freaking DANGEROUS! We were unsupervised, played in the rain and the mud and were always barefoot.

@Seek_Kolinahr Oh, I encourage my kids to play in the rain, as long as it’s not cold outside! I’ve run off our patio and danced in the rain, to get them to come out and join me.

What could be better than having trees to climb?

A pet monkey to swing with?

@ucme Sounds like fun!

@janbb They didn’t call me “Tarzan boy” for nothing, actually…they just didn’t.

I can think of so many more toys that I wish I had. I don’t care for modern toys. The first thing I think of is electronics, and that sounds like a terrible, depressing toy. If some ultra-rare universal phenomenon occurs and I end up caring for a child, I probably won’t give them electronic toys like iPads. They should have an age restriction for Apple stores.

^ you say that now…

For serious, though, I am happy to teach my kid how to use electronics. It’s the age we live in. So what if his handwriting isn’t as good as his typing, if 99% of his correspondence will be typed?

@Katniss @Mama_Cakes You’re better than me, but my boyfriend solve it in a few minutes ;)

A Razor scooter looks fun. A Kindle too, of course!

^ I have two razors. One for my kid, and one for me. They’re hella fun. I don’t do tricks, though, because I’m awkward. ^_^

I would have loved one of those two wheel scooters. Other than that I had everything I wanted . I hate to think of having spent my childhood indoors. I was always outside even in deep snow. Skinny, silly and laughing!

And you never felt the cold, @Aster!

@Dutchess_III I did feel the cold but I thought everybody did; that it was just part of winter . Wet socks? Part of it. Frozen face? No biggie. Wet, frozen hair? Sometimes.

I don’t remember the cold. I just don’t. I remember all the fun that surrounded it.

Breaking through the ice on the creek, in water up to your knees. By the time you made it back to the house your jeans were frozen solid!

Remember running your frozen hands under cold water to thaw them out? Warm or hot water HURT!

Snow angels, forts, snow ball fights, shaking trees so the snow would fall.

For too many kids today it’s “No, you can’t go outside. It’s too cold.” pffffft!

I would have bought a Playstation just to play Grand Turismo.

@Seek_Kolinahr Now you can’t be a Cowboy, you have to be Woody. You’re not a princess, you’re Merida.

Ugh, yes. I hate this. When we were planning a pirate and princess party, I had to repeatedly explain that it wasn’t a Jake and Disney Princesses party. It’s so limiting and kind of depressing.

And while I have nothing against each Disney princess individually, I really don’t like the whole combo marketing thing that they do. I can’t put my finger on why exactly I find it so off-putting.

It’s not a toy or a game but it would have been great to have had an Amazon Kindle when I was still a young man. I have been a seriously avid reader all my life and it would have been great to have had dozens and dozens of books at my fingertips at any one time.