Gyroscopic gladiators

Battling Tops? Why, ‘tis a grand olde European folk game, sir, as famously depicted in 16th century paintings by Brueghel and his ilk. However, we suspect his Battling Tops weren’t housed in a blue plastic arena, presumably didn’t go by such wrestling ring monikers as Hurricane Hank, Dizzy Dan or, er, Smarty Smitty, and were certainly far from Ideal.

Yep, the company that invited you to wind up Evel Knievel was dishing up more red plastic crank-powered fun with their repackaging of an old wooden favourite, with defiantly un-medieval box art depicting various ’50s-type kids and their worryingly Barry Cryer-like dad enraptured by the centrifugal tournament taking place under their noses. A similar game, Space Attack, was an air hockey variant on the rotating theme. Crank the red handle with all your tiny might and stop the spinning top being knocked into a trough with a plastic slider. Or, as they put it, “Fight off the lightning alien attacks!” The “space” theme was provided by a piss-poor “galactic” backdrop on the field of play, with a pointless concentric red ring design overlaid. They might as well have written, “Look, it’s in space, all right? Use your bloody imagination, you ungrateful little sods” and been done with it.

Space Attack and Battling Tops shared one gamplay drawback, though – the frequency with which one of the spinning combatants would be knocked right out of the ring. Frequently the last-man-standing victor would be the one that found its way under the radiator, still merrily buzzing away on the lino long after the rest had limped to a standstill.

No additional TV Cream points will be awarded for spotting that this game and it’s various spin offs (come on, are you having that one? Spin offs! Oh, please yourselves) over the years have left us with the legacy that is Beyblades. Now those things really do look like you can take someone’s eye out with them. They’re like Chinese throwing stars. Seriously, they’ve even got “blade” in the name. Why hasn’t someone reported them to Trading Standards?