Is anyone there? Seriously, is anyone reading this?

Hey, so it's been over a month since I've posted anything. Part of that is because this last semester is over and my Video Game Art, History, and Culture class is over. The other reason is because I was busy catching up on the sleep I denied myself during finals week and looking for a job. Turns out I landed an internship with a medical device lab and I enjoy it there. Not paying too bad either.

Thing is, I have free time at night and after Heroes and The Office with my dear mom (don't ask me how I've convinced her to watch either of those), it turns out I don't have a whole lot else going on and since most reasonable people like to do this cool thing called sleep, I'm bored through the night. So, without all of the distractions of school, required game reviews, and general life structure, I've decided to start this thing up again, this time cutting loose and putting whatever the hell I want on here.

So expect lots of different things to appear randomly on here. I might review a game I've been playing or one that I've recently picked up again. I might talk about television though I don't watch a whole lot that isn't on Netflix. I might just talk about stuff that's been going on around me and will weigh in on it (which will likely end with me saying something like "...but who's to judge?"). I'm not entirely sure but I will be putting stuff on here that I wouldn't necessarily say in public. Why? Because I'm a quiet, reserved introvert who needs a medium to vent through and I don't actually know who would legitimately be interested.

I look forward to posting on here more often and please, if anyone can hear me, PLEASE let me know. Otherwise I'm shouting out into space. Not entirely bad though. At least I'm saying it rather than letting it roll around in my head like it usually is.


Anyway, I'll be seeing you around.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)

It's always interesting to see the lengths people will go to defend and maintain the status quo, their legacy, their pride, etc. when it's put on the line in a film. Sometimes the more underhanded methods of some only encourage you to cheer on the others to prove that justice still exists in society. This suddenly becomes a very sad story when you realize that "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" isn't scripted; rather, it's a documentary of legacy and how the power of the few can trump the good intentions of a single man.

This documentary follows the events of one Steve Wieve, a newcomer to the competitive classic arcade gaming scene and his main competitor Billy Mitchell, most know for holding the top record scores in games such as Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Centipede for various times. Steve comes from a modest past, being proficient drums, baseball, and mathematics. However he has, as everyone who knows him will tell you, has always come up short: he he long gave up on performing as a profession, his baseball career ended in high school when an injury kept him on the bench for the state championship game, and had recently been laid off his job with Boeing now working as a science teacher.

One of his few hobbies he has is the Donkey Kong cabinet he has in his garage, a game that he had been honing his craft and strategy on since reading of Billy Mitchell's record 874,300, a score held since the 1980s. When he does eventually beat this score with one of his own (an impressive 1,006,600 points) and submits a tape of his playthrough to Twin Galaxies, the official record holders of arcade video games, he opens a huge can of worms as Billy Mitchell, a true puppet-master, maneuvers the game to his advantage to have Steve stripped of his new found title and have him jump through several hurdles to try to reclaim his the top score.

At the start of the film you are introduced to Billy Mitchell as this prodigy child of arcade games, one who put some the highest scores of all time in a short amount of time. He did so while keeping a standard of integrity and good sportsmanship, as seen in his friend Brian Kuh who originally lied about his high scores but was called out and inspired by Billy Mitchell to play and live honestly. Billy Mitchell would go on to run his own restaurant chain and corresponding spiced sauce franchise, a true American success story.

ALL OF WHICH ARE AMERICAN DREAMS!

Unfortunately, all of this would apparently be undone if his claim to fame, the high score for classic Donkey Kong is bumped down to #2 in the world. As he put it: "[in reference to competitive gaming] when you wanna attach your name to a world-record, when you want your name written into history, you have to pay the price!" The price Billy Mitchell had to pay, I can only suppose from watching this, was his humility. Through his claims that a live game is the only real way to ascertain ability and the fact that Steve happened to get the machine circuit board from Billy Mitchell's apparent archenemy gives Twin Galaxies enough doubt to eventually deny Steve his record. And despite Steve's best and honest efforts, Billy Mitchell becomes adamant in not ever speaking to or accepting any challenge of Steve's for reasons that are beyond me. The hypocrisy of claiming live challenges are important and not even accepting live challenges when your opponent flies hundreds of miles to do so is not lost on me.

"Fistfull of Quarters" does nothing to sugarcoat Billy Mitchell's shady tactics and really makes you feel for Steve who just wants to have something he worked so hard on recognized for once. Certainly worth a watch if you don't mind watching big dog Billy Mitchell and his crooked antics. You get a real feeling for classic gaming competition and how an unhealthy obsession can lead to a downfall of character.


Final Judgement: 8/10

Mega Man 2 (1989)

Nostalgia.

As I may have mentioned before (don't worry, I checked), there were some family friends of ours that I would get a chance to play games that I commonly never played. Mega Man 2 was one of those games that I never really got to go very far in but still managed to have fun with. Especially now that I actually have some experience and mastery in gaming, I was able to see the potential this game had.

Capcom, who at the time was only really interested in making arcade games such as Street Fighter, gave a group of six guys a chance to create an original game for home consoles. Keiji Inafune had to design nearly all the characters, enemies, logo, box art, and instruction manual, a task typically reserved for a larger team. Despite their small size, this small team made the very first Rockman game, later renamed Mega Man for North America. They established the anime-inspired and technical limitation stretching artwork, the "run-jump-and-shoot" gameplay, and the idea of facing off against the boss characters in any order you want.

What was very unique to this game was the element of gaining the main weapon of each boss character you defeat which you can use against others. In fact, certain weapons were actually more effective against specific bosses, making the decision of which stage you selected to play next have a strategy element. Add the sometimes very crushing difficulty level and a point system and you had a very solid game. Unfortunately, Rockman/Mega Man was not a huge success. The terribly inaccurate box art for the North American release certainly didn't help (as seen below to the right next to the original).

"Yes, he is Mega 'Man' but what part of you thought he should be YELLOW?!"

However, Capcom was still impressed by the sales that were made despite the word-of-mouth method being virtually the only advertising done. So, they allowed for the production of a second Rockman game as long as they worked on it alongside their other projects. With a slightly larger crew including the original team of developers, Rockman 2 was completed in roughly four months using unused ideas from the first game and improving on the initial design.

In the past, most games that were allowed a second installment had made significant changes to design and gameplay under the impression that most players would be looking for a new experience, often leading to some very bizarre sequels. This low budget approach to making Rockman 2 actually worked to the game's advantage giving gamers a new experience through adding different elements, like the collectible Energy Tanks that could completely revive your character, and taking out unnecessary ones, such as the point system from the first game.

One trait about the Mega Man games that I've come to appreciate was how the game often prepared you for certain traps and enemies before really unleashing them upon you. In many NES games at the time, like Ninja Gaiden, you were often forced to progress through levels by running into random enemies that seemed to spawn out of nowhere and come right at you, forcing you to master the game through repetition and memorizing exact enemy placements and patterns. In Mega Man, however, you instead were often introduced to certain obstacles in a controlled setting before the game decided to throw you into a storm.

Example: When you start the Quick Man stage, you start in a area with the hole in the floor being the only way to go. So you would assume, unlike other levels in the game where you would die, you will have to jump down into abysses to traverse the level and that's what happens for the first three screens. In the next room, however, you are introduced to the beams-of-death that will kill you upon contact. Rather than just assuming that the player will learn to avoid these through dying and anticipating this in the next life, the game actual sets the room as so:

As you can see, the level is literally funneling you towards the hole at the bottom. Combine this with the obnoxious, threatening sound the beam makes, and you can determine for yourself (a) there's alot of falling ahead of you and (b) the beams are a bad thing, all without losing a single life. Now, when you get to the part of the stage where there are six beams and require speed and dexterity to get through to the bottom, you can't blame the game for being cheap and not giving some kind of warning or heads up that that's what you needed to do. Impressive since no one had thought up of tutorial levels yet.

Being ahead of the curve gets you one of these.

Needless to say, Mega Man 2 delivers. It's good, nostalgic, retro, challenging fun that was such an effective pseudo-RPG side-scroller that CAPCOM would tamper and improve those elements for at least 10 iterations and make Mega Man one of their most easily recognizable mascos. Not bad for starting from an afterthought.


Final Judgment: 9/10

BONUS: It was all fun and games...until HE came...
If your still raging about the Air Man stage, just remember you're not alone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opADNvgeZYY

Super Mario Bros. (1985)

I never owned Super Mario Bros. In fact the family that did own Super Mario Bros. that we knew very well was my only access to this one and, more often than not, we were actually more interested in Duck Hunt (1984). To be honest, I was even more interested in a completely different game they had.

I would reset after the Spider-Man level because that was the only reason I played.

After Donkey Kong, Shigeru Miyamoto and Gundpei Yokoi decided making games was fun and profitable so they gave the carpenter (later deemed a plumber) in the game another game called simply Mario Bros. (1983) The game was a bit more simple: hit enemies from the blocks underneath them and, when flipped over, jump up to their level and kick them off screen for good measure. They allowed for head-to-head competition by bringing the plumber's palette-swap brother Luigi. And for a while it was cool.

Then the Shigeru decided that he wanted a game with a bit more depth and focus. He teamed up with Takashi Tezuka and they recycled the plumber brothers and the idea of navigating pipes by making a side scrolling game where the two guys would traverse the treacherous world of the Mushroom Kingdom to save a princess from the clutches of a...dragon-turtle monstrosity. The long trek would be filled with goombas, turtles, turtles with harder shells, hammer throwing jerks, and over sized bullets with faces amongst others.

The worst of them all being called "Disappointment."

Donkey Kong made this game look like Mario went from an everyman to some kind of special ops specialist going into a foreign nation with nothing but the knowledge of height-increasing hallucinogens and his steel toe boots. Power-ups mixed things up by allowing you to get hit once if necessary and smash blocks out of your way, shoot bouncing fireballs at unsuspecting enemies and give you an additional hit count, or made you temporarily invincible and able to just run straight into anything in your way. Even the more crafty gamers could try locating the secret warp zones that allowed you to jump into special pipes that let you skip worlds entirely.

Oh, and this brother could hook you up with an extra life. No charge.

My only problem with this game was how Mario's movements always dictated that he take an extra step when running or jumping forward; he could never stop on a time. This did add some realism amongst all the madness as you don't naturally come to complete stop and made you have to time things like jumps very carefully especially if you need a running start to make a particularly long one.

This game would bring some of the most iconic characters in gaming history to wider fame. Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Bowser, Toad, all the enemies, the power-ups, and even the simple 8-bit music clips are easily recognizable. Why? Because this game had everything you wanted: running, jumping, jumping on bad guys' heads, practical power-up advantages, etc. Hell, the theme music has stuck around as a staple for the character and he's been rocking it for over 25 years. Try and stop him now!

No, really, go for it. They've make him bigger than most buildings now.

Final Judgment: 8/10

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BONUS: Want to play as SNES Samus Aran in the classic Super Mario Bros. game? You can do that and other random combinations thanks to Jay Pavlina at Exploding Rabbit with his cool Super Mario Bros. Crossover. He's made many dreams come true with this one.

Contra (1988)

When games hit the arcade, players are only given a handful of lives with each quarter they put in a machine. To make up for this meager amount of lives, the games themselves get progressively harder and faster, usually pitting the player against a screen full of enemies and limited resources to fight them. While this can be fairly frustrating, the point is to make a quick turnover of players; they will keep pumping in quarters until either they are satisfied with their score or they're done banging against the console and leave.

Ah, look! Another satisfied gamer!

Contra was an example of one of these arcade games that made it over to the Nintendo Entertainment System but while making a few aesthetic changes to accommodate the smaller memory and hardware, was still just as challenging. Is it as bad as Ninja Gaiden? Short answer: No. Long answer: Yes but knowing the infamous Konami Code makes it less so.

Get ready to shoot any and everything that moves!

You start out with four lives and a rifle that will practically require the use of a turbo button if you're to survive. The initial platforming is simple enough, running from left to right while shooting everything. If you can make it to the first base, however, the game takes a perspective from behind as you shoot down a hallway in an attempt at reaching the boss battle at the end, again taking the side-scrolling perspective again. After this stage you then go on to a vertical traveling stage. Most of these stages would be very difficult if not for the ability to point your gun in seven different directions.

Nobody is safe while I can shoot in every direction!

While these concepts were somewhat new and original to the NES, what made the game so popular especially in the arcades was the two player co-op. The game was incredibly difficult with the number of randomly appearing enemies so having additional help was sublime. But another player wasn't the only assistance available; what also became essential in surviving Contra especially when tackling the game alone were twelve buttons.

The Konami Code, otherwise known as the Contra Code, was one of the earlier instances where a code was intentionally put in the game in order to make the gameplay easier. In this instance, putting in the Konami Code at the title screen would entitle you to thirty lives at the start of the game and every time you continued after losing all of them. In my opinion this was almost necessary in order to survive long enough to reach a continue point, a feet that usually took me eight lives just to reach the first base.

While many of the original NES games could easily put me on the edge of sanity, Contra just happens to be one of the few that really push that line. It has one of the harder difficulties where one hit will kill you, an interesting reality in this game considering the amount of bullets you inevitably send and alien foes. That said, Contra does provide the means to beat it; once I figured out the enemy patterns and utilize the code and power ups, I was able to start chug through the game and manage to have some fun along the way.


Final Judgment: 7/10

Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988)

A long time ago, the creators of Super Mario Bros. created a sequel intended to be more of a rigorous obstacle course than the simple platformer the original was. This game was so hard, that the Japan didn't think it would catch on in the United States. So instead they took an existing game (Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic) and refurbished it. Super Mario Bros. 2 (1988) was a wonderful little gem that, other than having Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Toad, looked and played almost NOTHING like a Mario game. You picked up objects to kill things and if you jumped on them you could actually ride on top of them. It was the kind of madness that no one was prepared for and yet left it's mark on the franchise. So much so that Japan saw their own release of the American SMB 2 and incorporated some of the characters to the Mario Universe.

Where would we be without you shy guy?

After the continued success of the Super Mario games, a third one was in the works but the developers Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka decided to add even more changes like how SMB 2 though not as drastic. Like being revealed from behind a grand red curtained stage, Super Mario Bros. 3 brought more diverse and creative changes, many of which have been used continually throughout the Mario franchise. This also happens to be one of the games that defined and started my video gaming career and a childhood relic. So much so that me and my sister picked it up two years ago after dusting off our old NES and kept at it for a straight two hours (one of the few things I know that can keep her attention for that long).

And this grand reshowing of my childhood begins!

What the game did for platform games was revolutionary. Long past were the days of moving through each level mindlessly; now you had this thing called and "overworld." You moved your guy to where ever you wanted to go. If you look to the right, that means you could actually skip level 3 and 4. The catch is skipping certain levels can cut off access to particular points of interest i.e. the mushroom hut which could bestow a power up. Also new to the games were special mini games to help gain extra lives or new power ups and the idea of mini bosses inside the castles and a boss for each world that you could only get to by reaching the castle. Helping the king out at the castle gave you special gift from Princess Peach herself.

Speaking of power ups, you now had something new to Super Mario called an "inventory." With it, you could keep power ups that you receive as gifts and use them before entering a level. These power ups were also expanded from the simple mushroom and fire flower though at the cost of reason. You now had super leaf power ups that gave Mario a raccoon tail and matching ears on his hat; before you question why, also consider that this power up can help you temporarily fly.

Remember in the first Mario where his movements were not as crisp and he had this tendency to stumble a bit forward? Well now that has a real reason to be in the game; if you hold the B button and run, you'll start charging the power bar (seen at the bottom of the screen) and, once filled, can leap farther distances. With the super leaf, you can actually engage in momentary flight. The tanopki suit (or as I used to call it the teddy bear costume), as an added bonus, can make you an invincible stone statue temporarily to let certain enemies pass by. While these make absolutely no sense to anyone, I'm actually pleased that none is completely lost with the hammer power up which lets you dish out pain like a hammer brother. Not than anything was really meant to have any rationality in the Super Mario games but I digress.

These added elements added new elements to the two player gameplay: cooperation and competition. Both players fought for whoever could make it to the end of the world first and could even fight head to head over end level rewards a la the original Mario Bros (1983) style.

Nothing says "co-op" like beating the snot out of each other!

What I found in playing the game recently was that actual cooperation was necessary. Example: A friend and I were playing through with me spearheading the game with my more lengthy experience (playing on the old NES and on the GBA port help a little bit). When I stumbled on a level that I was ill-equipped for, I would skip it and allow my friend to try with a power up he had in his inventory and, later on, he would sacrifice one of his lives so that I would rush in and try to beat a level that I had a power up for. The game changed the dynamic from, "How much farther can I get than you?" to, "How far can WE go working as a unit?"

The levels themselves were always a treat as well. No longer were you confined simple land, cave, or sea levels. Locations were now diverse plains with new and different enemies and difficult challenges along the way. One world is full of levels where everything except you is over sized requiring you to use the full height of your jumps to accomplish the same tasks. Some of my least favorite levels involve the camera moving to the left, forcing you to keep moving or get smashed in between objects and the left side of the screen. This was even worse with the introduction of the giant, man eating fish that incessantly tried to eat you.

Very cool level

Not so much.

I could drool on for hours about how SMB 3 was so AMAZING and what it did for NES games and the platforming genre and the gameplay of Mario games to come and etc. The game was built on an already solid foundation and continued to set the bar higher for gaming. Typical running and jumping wasn't good enough anymore and this game defined what conventional platforming was all about from now on. If you've never played, stop what your doing and play this beauty online. If you have, stop what you're doing anyway and relive this classic. NOW!


Final Judgment: 9/10

Galaga (1981)

I'll go ahead and say it: Galaga is a rip off of Space Invaders. It's the same objective, the same control system, etc. The real concern is whether that matters.

Oh, cool colors and no barriers! Look out guys! We've got a badass over here!!

The short answer is a resentful and factual no. Galaga is actually an improved version of Galaxian (1979) who is the real ripoff of Space Invaders. However, even Galaxian brought a new concept or two. Yes, it's the same formula of shoot the all the aliens in your ship limited to left and right movements. This continues until your either bored or you run out of your allotted three lives.
Awesome.

But what Galaga does different was honestly revolutionary. Namco, who saw the prowess of Space Invaders, had to bring something new to the table. With Galaxian and Galaga, they added something that had not been in many games at the time: COLOR. And not just overlays that gave the illusion of color, we're talking individual colors that would be displayed for the ship, each enemy faction, even the score counter. These games also added theme music for when no one was playing, much more engaging and exciting music for when you shot the bugs out of space with different and cooler sounds. This was immediately a reason for people to be attracted to these games.

Proven fact: flashing lights and music will attract/entrance 75% of the world population.

The Gala-games also had this new concept of not only the ships shooting at you (albeit in a fixed formation that wasn't closing in on you) but also breaking formation to try to either shoot you back or at the very least take you down with them in a suicide bombing run. It was this sort of madness that takes by surprise and keeps them more on their toes; this kept them more engaged than, say, ships with mechanically predictable movement slowly moving down. The random attacks from Galaga and Galaxian was a bit more interesting than the slow, imminent doom of Space Invaders.

On top of that, Galaga would improve on Galaxian simply because it could and wanted to. Gameplay was sped up by giving you the opportunity of shooting, *gasp*, two projectiles onscreen and the ships all moved a bit faster. Enemies would actually do a circle pattern upon reaching the bottom of the screen when on a fire run as a way to try and entrap you. There were more diverse enemies like the ones that would split into three smaller guys when destroyed or take two shots to destroy and come in close to try to catch your ship in a sort of tractor beam. The game kept track of the shots fired and how many were just you going gun crazy and how many you actually nailed someone. They even added this new thing called a "Bonus Round" where all you do is fire like crazy at enemies without consequence but for raking up some points. These changes were groundbreaking for the time and made the game fun because, again, it was more interesting to be surprised and preoccupied.

Of special note is a fairly intriguing concept brought thanks to Galaga involved the tractor beam enemies. If you got caught in their beam, they would steal you ship and hold it as collateral as you went to fetch another one. If you could manage to destroy the thief without harming the hostage ship, the other ship would combine with yours and allow you to have twice the firepower as well as let you take a free hit. Memory isn't one of my strong suits but I don't recall very many games that reward you for achieving payback on an enemy save for the Burnout games for example. In fact, it's actually a legitimate strategy to let yourself get captured specifically for the extra ship.

"When a Maaaan loves a Womaan..!!"

As technology improves and cool breakthrough games come, there are sure to be a couple of freeloaders and copycats. However, sometimes other people have improvements that are always invited and encouraged; I'll gladly forgive a title for being a knockoff if it can wow me in a way that the other one couldn't.


Final Judgment: 8/10

Pac-Man (1980)

An interesting thing that I noticed is that of all the games I've reviewed already, Adventure and this game, Pac-Man, are the only two that don't involve you shooting the hell out of people/aliens/tanks/missiles. I've also noticed that everything else about Pac-Man doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

You tell me about one Pac-Man interpretation, and I'll show you ten more.

I'm not sure where to begin with Pac-Man. You're a yellow ball running around munching on smaller yellow balls or various fruits while evading multicolored ghosts. Unless you can get to the bigger yellow balls that apparently lets you eat the ghosts, these ghosts don't just pass through and leave you sitting on the ground covered in ectoplasm. You actually become possessed and eat yourself alive. Or something to that tune.

I was not prepared for this anarchy!

Why is this game fun? Because we like being the mice running around in the maze looking for the cheese? If you ask B.F. Skinner we are. We like being rewarded (getting a high score, reaching the kill screen, etc.) for certain actions (playing the game) especially if our reward is given in random increments (or just not guaranteed unless we try again). Dying in Pac-Man is easy because there's only one way to combat the enemy; problem is it's limited to four times a round, for a short window of time, and only practical in situations when you're cornered or need a way across the maze. On top of that, eating an enemy doesn't even put them out of the game. They just return to their starting box and come right back out for revenge. That makes evading enemies that much more necessary and that requires you being able to watch the movements of four enemies simultaneously including when they're close to using the warp tunnel that can put them in real close, real fast.

Run, little dude! That's all you can do! Run!

Pac-Man has such a simple yet original concept in how the only goal is to collect all the dots but the phantasmic tormentors are, for all intents and purposes, invincible; this game becomes much more complicated and requires more coordination and strategy than initially thought because of this. It's for this reason that Pac-Man belongs in the pantheon of classic games.

That and reading into it too much is just fun as hell.

Final Judgment: 7/10

Donkey Kong (1981)

As I'm starting to notice about this list of videos games I "have" to play, there happen to be several games that I used to play as a kid that happened to be arcade/console classics. Donkey Kong is no exception. Not only is it the origin of two of Nintendo's most memorable characters, it's also more proof that arcade games were unforgiving as hell.

All that lies at the top is disappointment every time

This also goes to show evidence of how porting games can change gameplay entirely. In my day, Donkey Kong on the Game Boy was actually a combination of Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. (1982) as well as original puzzles of its own. You could back flip onto your hands and then flip back to your feet, giving you a farther jump, or stay in standing on your hands to bounce certain objects, pick up and throw certain objects at enemies, and you could throw you hammer up in the air in order to resume use if caught again.

Though the resemblance is uncanny.

You'd think that those few changes wouldn't change the gameplay of the original seeing how even in the first few levels you can only use half of those abilities. You'd also be dead wrong. Tossing a hammer up to the next level was a Godsend in the Game Boy port because of how small the level was but the first time I tried playing I actually lost a guy trying to do just that. When the barrels would be two deep, being able to flip over them would have been awesome and the bouncing objects in the second level wouldn't need the amount of precision to avoid them if you could bounce them in a headstand instead. But no. Donkey Kong makes me work for every pixel leading to him.

He looked a lot smaller from down there...and all I brought was this hammer.

This really is one of the hardest games I've played though honestly is there a classic arcade game that isn't? Developers had to make sure people kept those machines full of quarters by pushing the gamer's limits and patience. Is Donkey Kong impossible without the additions in the Game Boy port? No but it tests the player in recognizing patterns and being able to make quick judgements such as doubling back or attempting to jump two consecutive barrels. The game is fun in trying to get a bit farther; it just loses appeal with me because I'm used the same challenge but with more options in approaching them.


Final Judgment: 6/10

Space Invaders (1978)

Nothing screams video game nostalgia like Space Invaders. My dad would tell me stories about this one place where you would sit down and play the game through a glass screen in the table (which made me wish all arcade games could be like that). When my dad taught me about the shoot through the barriers for cover tactic, I felt like I had been imparted the most practical wisdom a man could ever give his son. I still have a Game Boy adaptation (with new music, stage introduced enemies, boss fights, and power ups dropped randomly from the bonus UFOs), a copy for the computer with fancy three dimensional graphics, and a PSP version released for the 30th anniversary but with a more trippy, unpredictable gameplay and cool techno music. What makes Space Invaders so durable through the years is because of its simplicity.

Some things never change.

The concept is simple: shoot enemies that usually follow a certain pattern (to the left, down a row, to the right) and sometimes UFOs that provide a bonus. The more you put away, the faster they get. They reach the bottom, your dead. They hit you without a shield, your dead. Lead your shots so you can guarantee a perfect hit.

Okay. I'd buy that.

No overall story. Hardware was custom made for what was at the time unique enemy movement despite being painfully predictable. Yet this game is an arcade classic because literally anyone can pick it up and play. It's straightforward and entertaining to see how many levels you can progress. Sometimes you just can't beat a tried and true system.


Final Judgment: 8/10

Lunar Lander (1979)

Out of most of the games that continue to frustrate me, Lunar Lander is one of the worst. Not that it's really a bad game but that out of all the games that I don't like, this one almost takes the cake.

Nobody likes this kind of "winner."

Before reading about the games history, the vector graphics did not really appeal to me; though it did make it look interesting, in my opinion, they could have easily done this with a conventional graphics system for the time. After learning about it being on early computers years before making it to the arcades it did make sense, for convenience sake, to make it a direct port.

Crap, crap, crap, CRAP!

This game takes a lot of concentration, taking both the conditions you're under (gravity, atmospheric friction), the velocity of the craft, the altitude, the desired landing site, fuel level, etc. I feel like a real astronaut trying to land a spacecraft safely (and find the nearest McDonalds); for that reason, I feel totally unqualified to make a landing. At least, I get that feeling by the tenth attempt. On the training level.

No one can hear you scream in space...as you blow this landing AGAIN!!

One day I will muster the fortitude, patience, and concentration to finally land this thing anywhere and not be so bitter. Until then, I will continue to say this game is inaccessible due to its difficulty and the number of things that you have to be watching.


Final Judgment: 5/10

Battlezone (1980)

In my youth, many ages ago, I owned an original Game Boy, one of those big, black-and-green graphic relics of old. Of course I only owned a handful of games, one of which was deemed too violent for my age and consequentially banned from. And while I still hold on to several of these priceless games, both the original Game Boy and one game in particular went missing, lost to the four winds.

One day I'll send some young adventurer on a quest to find it.

The one classic I happen to be missing would happen to be the double pack Breakout/Battlezone. Breakout was straightforward and easy, thus boring and never played. Battlezone, however, was the boss of this duo. You took the perspective of a tank gunner, rotating the tank gun and moving forward and backward to evade fire from another tank or putting yourself in position to take one out. I can only imagine what this was like in the arcade cabinets; with the size of the screen of the Game Boy, it was easy to become entirely enveloped in the whole experience: watching the radar, hearing the warning that an enemy was in range, performing evasive maneuvers, taking cover behind some random geometric shape, and praying for that direct hit.

He's coming right for us!

As with other games of it's age, this game had no end, forever spitting enemy tanks your way until you eventually died on the battlefield. This only intensified the feeling of the game; the constant stream of enemies kept you on your toes and had you thinking about where the next guy was coming from and if you had run before they caught you by surprise with a clever flank or back stab. Hard to argue with a simple game that kept you busy while being pretty fun along the way.

Final Judgement: 8/10

On a side note: does Battlezone remind anyone of Space Paranoids from Tron? Or vise versa?

Tempest (1980)

A famous game in the realm of arcade gaming, Tempest became infamous for its simple gameplay and unique experience. In a downward tunnel lie enemies that climb towards you, firing their blasters at you. Your goal is to use your ship to navigate around the pit and fire your own blaster before they can make it to the top and attack you directly. You are also given a select number of Super Zappers to destroy all the ships on the screen.

Above: Your impending doom from the abyss.

Though unlike the other games reviewed so far, this one has a unique appearance due to the vector graphics that project the tunnel, ships, and blaster fire with lines. This was probably the more noteworthy aspects that really allow for the believability that enemies were coming up the tunnel in addition to being pretty freaking awesome to watch. One initial problem I had with gameplay was the fact that holding down the fire button fired an almost constant stream of lasers. Though this does make fighting the endless waves of enemies manageable, it does make early states as simplistic button mashing and holding a single direction. However, in later stages this becomes difficult and almost essential.

Soon their fire is less of a threat and instead the only reason they're alive.

Soon the tunnel starts taking on different shapes, making maneuvering much more difficult up until you are on almost flat plane that doesn't allow for circular travel. This almost makes this button mashing and constant fire useful if not necessary as the difficulty rises. Overall I'd have to say that I enjoyed playing this for its different and interesting presentation.


Final Judgment: 7/10

Missile Command (1980)

Nothing can get as straight forward and intense as the classic Missile Command. Your objective: Protect your base from incoming missiles by setting the sky on fire by firing back with the missiles you have at your disposal.

Light up the sky!

The control was as simple as point and shoot. A missile flies to the coordinate and detonates, creating an explosion that can destroy incoming projectiles. While creating a wall of explosions will work in the first few levels, later ones start requiring you to pick out targets and chain together explosions. Shooting down the random bonus aircraft or UFOs also becomes essential when they fire of a shot or two as well. As with most games at the time, Missile Command didn't ever end; it instead just fired more, faster missiles, some eventually dividing into multiple missiles or not having a contrail as to disguise its position. The game taught you fairly well to watch your missile consumption as well because, if you spend those too liberally, you could be left with none to defend yourself, leaving the cities you were trying to protect at the mercy of your enemy. The game over screen took me by surprise as well when one final, giant explosion sound filled the speakers and consumed the screen with a blinking "THE END" as if I had allowed the end of all existence in my territory.

Oh, the HUMANITY!

Honestly in this day in age, a screen like that would have put this game off the market for seizure concerns. However, I could have easily got lost in this game trying to get farther in the levels and racking up the highest score. A truly unique strategy game and a precursor in the tower defense genre.


Final Judgment: 8/10

Adventure (1979)

As part of my latest class, Video Games: Art, Culture, & History of a Medium, I will be reviewing various video games, ghosts of the past that have defined the market ever since. In this review, I'll be putting in my thoughts on three very early titles from what may seem ages ago.

Above: My reaction to a class devoted to video games.

The year 1979 saw the release of Adventure, a title for the Atari 2600 and one of the first action adventure game. Once could not expect much out of such outdated hardware but I've certainly seen some games from the Atari that did very well in producing somewhat recognizable shapes and objects. Unfortunately for Adventure, developers were still getting their feet wet with the hardware capabilities.

Look at those cutting edge graphics! Crysis eat your heart out!

From what I understand, you are a dot on a quest to retrieve a chalice with the help of keys that can open certain castles all while trying to slay man eating ducks (or perhaps dragons?). This game was difficult for me to get behind not so much because of the graphics but how the game was controlled. While picking objects was as easy as touching them, trying to handle one object at a time could get frustrating as I'd be trying to run off with the key and instead grab the magnet as I ran by it. This was even worse when I found myself in the narrow labyrinth trying to run with a key, trying not to touch the bridge, and running from a dragon. A fair amount of knowledge was necessary in order to understand what and how certain objects acted or behaved. Hitting the dragon to slay it was easy; maneuvering the sword to the correct side of my character by dropping it and running to the other side of it was not. And of coarse these ducks were not ones to let an opportunity as a bumbling adventurer screw around with his sword go.

WHAT ARE YOU?! LEAVE ME ALONE!!

This game was frustrating and had some difficulties in how objects interacted, but it still managed to keep my attention. After all, you couldn't let those mutant Big Bird clones get the last laugh!


Final Judgement: 6/10