E3: The Flying Toaster is Baaaaaack

Lots of games here at the Electronic Entertainment Expo are based on new movies and hit TV shows. Some are based on popular cartoons and comics. But an old screensaver?

Vivendi Games Mobile's Flying Toaster is a cell-phone game that brings back the beloved (well, well-liked) winged appliance from Berkeley Systems' After Dark, which spawned an entire industry of animated screensavers back in the 1990s. (Actually, After Dark starred a whole fleet of flying toasters, but the game seems to involve just one of 'em.)

You zip though various worlds facing off against bread and bagels, and can turn into Super Toaster at key moments. Here's my shaky and amateurish video of the demo, with a surprise cameo by a man who happened to walk in front of my camcorder at one point:



Incidentally, while blogging this, I did something I'm doing more and more lately: I did a bit of research on Wikipedia (yes, it has an After Dark entry) and learned stuff I'd probably never have known otherwise. Were you aware that the flying toasters have been the subject of two lawsuits...one involving Opus the Penguin, and the other Jefferson Airplane? Or that the creators of the airborne toasters went on to form the political activism site MoveOn.org? (Who knew a humble screensaver could have such an eventful history?)