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Milton Bradley’s FIREBALL ISLAND!

Yay, done. Sorry, had some siiide business going on and it had to take precedence, because I wanted a reason to use the word "precedence." But now I'm here, and we are one again. Bet you thought it'd feel more special. Specialer? Course, I'm zipping back out in a minute anyway, so don't get used to me, I'll only disappoint. Before the big return to my casket of choice, as Uncle Louis would say, the blesss-sing: Fireball Island was one of the best games ever in the entire world, and clicking that link will take you to my tribute hof hit. It's the tale of multicolored explorers traveling the uncharted jungle on the hunt for jewels and on the run from fireballs, told at last.

Posted by Matt on 01/26/2005. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 157 comments

Has anyone see this? Bible stories told by Mare and Mark Winningham’s aplenty: http://www.thebricktestament.com/

Chestnuts roasted by trajeal @ 01/29/2005 2:44 PM

Goody-

I believe the dracula game you’re talking about that left the little dots on your finger was called ‘I van’t to bite your finger’ by Hasbro
I hated that game. My brother would make me play it with him. I think you would wind clock hands around and if you were unlucky the dracula’s arm would fly open (would reveal his face) and scare the poo out of you! Then I think you got ‘bit’.

Chestnuts roasted by Sorcha @ 01/29/2005 5:19 PM

"Zoghade,
This was the post I was referring to in regards to SHRIEKS AND CREAKS. I have no clue what game you are trying to find. Sorry.

Posted by The Manimal @ 01/29/2005 01:49 PM EST"

Ah, ok. Your post sounded a lot like it was referring to mine after I looked it up, with the voice thing in the center and all. Thanks for letting me know.

Chestnuts roasted by Zoghade @ 01/29/2005 7:05 PM

My brother sent me this review and I absorbed the whole thing, it was great! I not only dragged my dad and brother and sometimes my unexpected mom into playing this game with me while I was a youngster but I recently brought it to my house at school and tried to get my roomates to play.

Well dad came by and played, kicked his butt! And my girlfriend played with me when I’d guilt her into it… but my roomates just would never play!
What kind of people are they?! I just don’t get it, they clearly do not know all of the fun they’re missing out on. They’d rather watch tv or play xbox or computer games..

Alas I know there are others out there still holding on to their age old board games in hopes of playing again and one day passing them on to their kids..

Chestnuts roasted by Blizzard @ 01/29/2005 7:42 PM

Matt, you got me excited for this treasure from the past. I started looking around the net for a copy, and people are asking for over $100 for copies. I should never have let mine go.

Chestnuts roasted by Shelby @ 01/29/2005 11:44 PM

Five minutes …untill I take over..HAHAHA

Quote "Oh yeah…THE OMEGA VIRUS. I should have mentioned that one instead, though I didn’t own it, a friend did. THE OMEGA VIRUS is a board game that tries to win itself, basically, and you have to beat it or the space station it’s attacking will be taken over. You could just remove its batteries, but then you wouldn’t constantly get grunted verbal barbs like "I…will…destroy you…FOOL!" Boy, we loved saying that….and it DOES win itself; it’s way too hard to beat it.

Posted by Mars @ 01/27/2005 12:56 AM EST"

Chestnuts roasted by -Brandon- @ 01/30/2005 12:31 PM

Hey Traj, I’m around; I didn’t even realize how long I’d gone without commenting. I work in taxes and this is a crazy time b/c of all the deadlines so I’ve been busy. Manimal: she’s adorable, just gorgeous. Neo: hang in there buddy, patience is a virtue. Meditate on the Chia plot for awhile; it’s like a koan or some shit.
Sis and I http://www.livejournal.com/community/picturing_food/1018422.html">went to a book signing for Alton Brown today. Can’t really make a connection between that and flame spitting Tiki Gods, I just wanted to share. I did hear a commercial on the radio for Mare Winningham’s http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0406046/">new TV movie on the way there, though.
http://www.gameroom.com/gamebits/RULES/13_Dead_End_Drive_Rules.html">13 Dead End Drive was that game where you had to set up a little mansion that was booby trapped to kill off all the other characters, and it looked so cool in the commercials, but I remember that the chandelier was such a bitch to set up that it was played exactly twice before being sentenced to permanent banishment to the back of the closet.

Chestnuts roasted by squee4224 @ 01/30/2005 1:03 AM

LOL, as you can see, I’ve been off so long I can’t even remember my own name.

Chestnuts roasted by squee4242 @ 01/30/2005 1:11 AM

…I’m an idiot for not looking at prior comments. Thanks to Brandon, I now know that the game I was thinking of is The Omega Virus. Thanks for posting that Brandon, I would’ve never known! Boy did I love that game as a kid. I’m surprised that it costs so little on Ebay right now. I might have to see about buying one for old time’s sake.

Chestnuts roasted by Zoghade @ 01/30/2005 4:27 AM

Heh. Good to see all these fun gaming bits. But I am a gamer in the tabletop sense so I love these kinds of things. (Gotta second the nomination for Heroscape. Its like crack in a box!) My favorite kiddie era game was the GI Joe missile base game, with Crossbows & Catapults in second, followed up by the Pac Man and Zaxxon games. As an adult Heroscape and Warhammer 40,000.

Chestnuts roasted by Bloodcat @ 01/30/2005 6:00 AM

Hey, squee. Tax prep, huh? Ugh. All that adding and… subtracting. I finally got my story uploaded at Gay Paree under Crystla Lil. Takes long enough.

Has anyone else seen the Bad Hair Day calendar? http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=2616586&cat=124531&type=3&dept=3920&path=0%3A3920%3A58437%3A124531 They actually had it at the Dollar Tree. Whee!

Chestnuts roasted by trajeal @ 01/30/2005 9:07 AM

That game looks awesome. It looks kind of like Monopoly except better because there are fireballs.

Chestnuts roasted by Pigleg @ 01/30/2005 11:59 AM

There should be a board game called Whip A Fire Ball at A Friend. Those jawbreakers called Fire Balls are good, but they’re hard as rock (so they would be good to throw at a friend if thet loose to you in the board game.

Chestnuts roasted by Pigleg @ 01/30/2005 3:31 PM

It has taken my an hour, but i finally figured out (with the help of google) what this game reminded me of.
Forbidden Bridge. great game! almost the same little adventurers (with the addition of packbacks) and pretty much the same idea, except it was smaller, and, it was motorized.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/3945
http://www.samstoybox.com/toys/ForbiddenBridge.html

Chestnuts roasted by Xero @ 01/30/2005 4:10 PM

and speaking of games this reminds me of, does anyone remember a game where you are these little adventurer guys and there is a giant bird (a buzzard perhaps) that would circle around from time to time and pick up the pieces on little towers? i cant for the life of me remember the name of it.

Chestnuts roasted by Xero @ 01/30/2005 4:18 PM

That bad hair calendar reminds me of the http://www.candyboots.com/wwcards.html">1974 Weight Watchers recipe cards.
Gay Paree does take awhile to get approval, but I see the story now. I’m trying to add more reviews http://www.dymphna.net/gayparee/index.php">over there and I’m trying to get other people to do the same thing ;)
Anybody watching the new http://www.livejournal.com/users/squee4242/58714.html">I Love the 90′s? I can watch "the 70′s" over and over again, but it’s just not doing it for me this time around.

Chestnuts roasted by squee4242 @ 01/30/2005 4:51 PM

I loved this game, but it hurt me most of the time because when I would beat my brothers they would kick the s**t out of me.

Chestnuts roasted by K @ 01/30/2005 6:19 PM

Never played this game but I was wondering if you could substitute Red Hots for the fireballs. And when you knocked someone over, you would only not send them into the pit but also enjoy sweet, sweet victory.

Chestnuts roasted by Another Matt @ 01/31/2005 2:33 PM

To Matt and Everyone,
I need to fill you guys in on what you can REALLY accomplish with Fireball Island (with the help of a little game called CRASH CANYON: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/44749), which is quite possibly the greatest superhuman board gaming feat EVER. It’s simply amazing. As kids, my brother and I owned Fireball Island, but we also owned the similar game Crash Canyon. Same ENORMOUS plastic game board, except this one required that water be put into the hollowed out "lake areas" of the game board that your car could jackknife into! So Crash Canyon is a board game that actually uses Micro Machines as game tokens, with the game essentially being a race to the finish through the most dangerous of canyons, you guessed it, effing CRASH CANYON. The game comes with some knockoff cars, but it’s compatible with most any damn officially licsensed Micro Machine in your collection…ensuring that the game will be fun, customizable, AND you won’t get stuck with 1 of their 4 shitty pre-packaged cars. Imagine the possibilities. Also, with the 3-D game board, if you roll and land on a downhill slope, your ass is rolling down the plastic slope, like, 8 more spaces (and no one can bitch about this totally legal move)! This can also mean that if you are trying to get UP a hill, it can be a real bitch.

SO, on a long boring afternoon, my brother and I got the idea to LINK the games. An entire game would consist of this: Racing to the finish line in Canyon, which afforded you a free boat trip to Fireball Island. Then you had to race to get the jewel, make it back down, and race BACKWARDS in Crash Canyon. You can imagine that this is the greatest, most epic board gaming experience known to man. It literally takes HOURS to complete, but not in the way Life or Monopoly takes hours, and leaves you feeling empty and hating life. Also, if your poor brother is stuck in Crash Canyon, you might already be making your way up the hill in Fireball Island. You’re playing two mega-games at mega-once! What does everyone think, ever tried this? Hey Matt, have you played Crash Canyon? Have you tried this epic experience? It’s about time to try and write about it…

Chestnuts roasted by Chris W. @ 01/31/2005 4:47 PM

I actually remember owning this game and using it to recreate out of scale adventures with my G.I. Joes.

Of course I did the same thing with the impenitrable cobra fortress "mousetrap". A pretty silly thing to do in hind sight, but given the assinine nature of most of Cobra Commanders plots I think I was justified.

Chestnuts roasted by dantewyrmfoe @ 02/01/2005 12:23 PM

This was was the best board game ever made. If I remember correctly the secret of winning was to wait for somebody else to get the jewel, then take them out with a fireball. That is why I love this website it always brings back wonderful memories from childhood.

Chestnuts roasted by AgentPothead @ 02/01/2005 5:38 AM

I wouldn’t mind a board game based on Conan O’Brien’s Woman Island.

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash @ 02/01/2005 5:21 PM

Hi guys. Long time no post.

Anyway, the one time I ever got to play Fireball Island was with 90% of the pieces missing, including the Tiki God, and so my stupid friend used other objects like ugly little pebbles for the guys and one superball for all of the fireballs. I bitched to him that I didn’t wanna play because all of the pieces were missing. He didn’t seem to care.

I still have Omega Virus. That game is the coolest gimmick boardgame ever.

Another one that I like is Weapons & Warriors. My brother still has his castle set and his pirates set. The basic objective of this game was to nail your enemy with orangish-red marbles using various weapons such as catapults, a cannon, and a giant crossbow. It also had kick-ass set pieces (castles & forts (both of which had triggers that caused cool things to happen when hit), ships, forest trees, etc.) and tons of these little dudes for your army. I have fond memories of my brother, my friends, and I having it all laid out on the floor and blasting each other’s armies.

Chestnuts roasted by Nate @ 02/01/2005 9:10 PM

Thanks for the review. I saw the game at Toys-R-Us back in the day and after looking at the back of the box it became my "must-have" game for that B-Day/Christmas (I can’t remember the occasion). The board was just unbelievable, though I think it was a while until I bothered playing it the right way… it was too fun just messing around with the fireballs.

I remember it as the same era as Torpedo Run. You ought to consider reviewing that game, if you had it (or can find it).

Chestnuts roasted by Bobak @ 02/01/2005 11:36 PM

I still have this game and all its pieces. The paint at the peak of the mountain is wearing in exactly the same way.

They really should have glossed that part up or something.

Makes for a fun drinking game

Chestnuts roasted by spazzamatic @ 02/02/2005 1:30 PM

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 26th, 2005 at 9:47 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.