#0018 Pac-Man

Before the blue bomber was defeating Mavericks, before a hedgehog was tearing up asphalt on blast processing machines, before an ape was kidnapping pretty ladies, and even before an Italian plumber was jumping and hitting blocks, there was a yellow puck with a mouth named PAC-MAN. That's right, just in time for the recent SSB4 announcement, today we're looking at one of the most iconic symbols of video games of all time.

A 1980 Maze game developed by Tōru Iwatani over at Namco. He noticed that video games at the time were mostly space shooters, as Space Invaders and Asteroids were the two most popular games at the time. He also noticed that all of them were directed at teenage boys. Wanting to appeal to a wider demographic, he wanted to make a game that could be appealing to women and children. So, he thought, what do women and children like? Well they like cute things, they like desserts, mazes and eating. One day, while he was eating a pizza, he noticed that a pizza with one slice removed looked like a head with it's mouth open, that's when inspiration struck. Why don't we make a game that looks and even feels more like a cartoon, where you play as an animated pizza looking guy that eats everything on the screen and have cute little ghosts chase you around a maze! So when Joe brings his new girlfriend to the arcade to show off his mad skills at Defender she'll see the cute Pac-Man game and drag him over and now we're getting income from both of them! And it worked! The simplicity of the single joystick and no buttons, combined with the cute visuals and lack of explosions and violence that we had recently been seeing more of lead to the game being popular with not only teenage boys, but younger children and, yes, women. For the first time, women were starting to be considered a demographic for video games.

The result was nothing short of phenomenal. The game exploded like nothing the world had ever seen at the time. It was a HUGE success, by 1990 the the game grossed over a billion dollars, surpassing the gross revenue of Star Wars, the highest-grossing movie at the time. To this very day it is the most popular,and highest-grossing arcade game of all time. In the wake of it's popularity Pac-Fever struck. For the first time ever, video games had a mascot. This wasn't the Space Invaders Turret, or the Asteroids ship, this was a character that you could look at and say “that's pac-man”. His iconic “missing pizza slice” design has become a video game icon and according to the Davie-Brown Index, pac-man has the highest brand awareness of any video game characters. Everyone knows, Pac-Man, I own roughly 10 T-shirts that I wear in my closest, 8 of those are video game t-shirts, and of those eight, two of them are Pac-Man shirts, one day I was walking through walmart wearing one of my Pac-Man shirts, this one, in fact. And a five year old kid looked at my shirt and looked up at his Mom and I kid you not, said,

“Look Mommy! That's Pac-Man!”

Even children who's parents are too young for Pac-Man still know this icon of gaming culture. Soon after the game's release, a huge variety of Pac-Man merchandise was marketed with his image, the first time marketing on this scale had ever happened for a video game. from toys, to books, to t-shirts, and even Pac-Man Kraft Macaroni and cheese, and a terrible animated TV series!

Not only was the game a huge success both from a critical or marketing standpoint. But it was also surprisingly influential. Not only was pac-man the first gaming mascot, This game introduced the first cut scenes, something that nearly all video games these days still use, the first power-ups, and even invented a genre that was not derived from or inspired by an already existing game. Guys that is huge. Nearly every arcade game at that time (especially those on this list) could have it's ancestry traced back all the way to Pong. Defender was inspired by Galaxian which was capitalizing on the popularity of Space Invaders, which was inspired by Breakout, a sequel to Pong. So... Yeah... Pac-Man is big. Still big today even. Something no other game developing company can claim as he's even older than Mario.

So how does the most popular arcade game of all time hold up? Great! The game is truly timeless, as no matter how far video games advance, the simplicity of the graphics and the charm of the characters causes this game to practically never age. There have been tons of Pac-Man clones, including that abomination that was the 2600 port, but none come close to being the near timeless gem that Pac-Man is today. People, if you're one of the unlucky few that have never played Pac-Man in their life, do yourself a favor and track down an old arcade and waste some quarters on this. Because not only is this game worth playing, it is a piece of history that will never be forgotten. For as long as there are pellets to eat, and a yellow circle with a mouth to eat them. Pac Fever his here to stay.

Next up: Phoenix

#0017 M.U.D.

Today... Was a surprise. I honestly didn't expect to see these games for at LEAST another 15 years. Yet, here it is, I'm looking at it, I'm playing it. Today I played M.U.D. (Multi User Dungeon) a text based RPG developed by Essex University students Roy Trubshaw, and Richard Bartle on a holy crap massive computer, the DEC PDP-10 in 1980. It is, and I kid you not, the world's first virtual world, and the world's first MMORPG. That's right, here in 1980, we have an Internet Multiplayer Online Role-playing game.

No this isn't my screenshot, but it is exactly what I ended up doing in the end.

Okay, the history for this game is a little confusing, but I'll do my best to keep it brief.

MUD began production in 1978 at Essex University, England on a DEC PDP-10 using the MACR0-10 assembly language. The game was finished in 1980 and became the first MMO as Essex University connected it's internal network to the ARPnet, one of the world's first operational packet switching networks, and the first network to use TCP/IP. Basically, it's the grand daddy of what is now the modern internet.

The University allowed access to it's DEC-10 via British Telecom's Packet switch stream network during the normally idle times between 2am and 8am. And became a fairly popular game around the world, even having a several magazines articles wrote about it, and ran for many years on the University's computers. MUD was then licensed to CompuServe in the mid 80's where it ran, still fairly popular until 1999.

So yeah, this game was a big deal, not a big deal as in cultural phenomena like Space Invaders, but a big deal in that there were some hard core fans, people really played this game for a long time! Almost double that of how long WoW has been around. So what do you do in this text based MMO? You adventure through a large virtual world filled with secrets, mysterious puzzles, and dangerous monsters in a quest to become a Wizard or Witch. To become a “wiz” you must earn 102,400 points. Points are earned by either “Swamping treasure” which I think means finding treasure and dropping it in the swamp... For some reason.. Or, killing the game's creatures or other players. So yeah, this ancient MMO was ruthlessly PvP, not unlike games such as DAYZ.

So! The big question is, how did I like the game? Welllllll... Let me just walk you through my experience of the game.

When I first log on I find myself in an Elizabethan tearoom, with exposed oak beams and soft, velvet-covered furnishings. At first I thought this was a strange choice for an adventure game. A cozy tearoom doesn't exactly scream “ADVENTURE”. Then I remembered that this game was British, so, you know, tea. When I left the tea room I was flung into a strange, timeless realm full of dense forests, swamps, rivers, caves, everything you could ask for in a fantasy RPG, but as I wondered around gathering branches and imagining I'm looking at beautiful scenery, I noticed something strange, like something was just not quite right about this place. What's the most important part of a Multiplayer game? Especially a PvP MMO? Multiple players! That's right, nobody was playing. Not a single other person. It kind of took all the magic out of it. Like when all your friends are home sick from school and you try to play Wizards all by yourself at recess. So after about 30 min of wandering around killing the poor random animals that happened to cross my path, I decided that this probably wasn't going to get much better flung myself off the closest cliff and logged out.

So, with all that in mind, did I like the game? No. It was really boring. But that doesn't mean the game isn't good. In fact, this testimony from a guy who used to play it back in it's heyday makes it sound like the game was a blast! So no, I can't judge it too harshly, especially given the game's legacy. But I just wish I could have played the game with actual people.

Up next, just in time for the recent SSB4 announcement: PacMan!

#0016 Tempest

Alright, on to the only game on the list that someone actually requested, (By requested I mean asked “are you playing this?”) Tempest! a 1980 shoot 'em up, and the very first "tube shooter". It was developed by Atari, who seemed to be one of the only companies capable of making good arcade games back then.

An interesting fact about this game,  back in 1980, Dave Theurer was looking through Atari's big book of game ideas and found one for a first person space invaders. The idea sounded pleasing, but it was never quite good enough to make into a full fledged game. That is, until Dave Theurer had a dream about it. He dreamed that hideous monsters were trying to claw their way out of a hole in the ground, and he had to kill them before they made it to the surface. He combined his dream with his already half complete game, combining the concepts along with brand new color vector technology and voila! Tempest was born.

This game was a little tricky for me,  because, rather than a joystick that moves you around in eight directions,  you instead have a rotating nob that let's you spin around the "tube" allowing for fast and tight controls. This was tricky because when you emulate the game, that nob turns into buttons and are very finicky, and it was near impossible to move around with any real accuracy, something that's essential to the game. So, rather than put up with a crappy control scheme, I sought to play the original arcade cabinet! Luckily a local arcade just happened to have less of classic arcade games and this was one of them,  meaning that for the first time in the list I played the game on the original intended platform (excluding the computer games, and even those are played on a modern gaming computer, not a commodore 64 or Apple II).

So! In this game you play as a claw, perched at the top of a big "tube" and your job is to spin around the "tube" and kill the "monsters" before they reach the surface, dodging little balls of energy and spikes along the way. Literally the stuff of nightmares.

This game... Is probably the most fun I've had so far with this list. I mean it, I found myself having to force myself to walk away .It's really an exciting and truly addicting game! I was surprised by the features that it introduced, such as the ability to choose your difficulty, and actually let you "continue" after a game over. I honestly had a LOT of fun. The graphics are superb, using vector technology to it's maximum potential and the game has aged very well for being 34 years old. I honestly think that anyone who loves video games, especially shoot 'em ups could pick up this game and really enjoy themselves. I highly recommend this game.

Up Next: MUD (MultiUser Dungeon)/British Legend

#0015 Rogue

Alright! Time for another issue of “1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die”. Today on 1k1VGYMPBYD we look at Rogue, a 1980 Dungeon Crawler created by Michael Toy, Glenn Wichman, and Ken Arnold for the Unix mainframe systems and ported to IBM, PC and Macintosh.

The trio wanted to design a game that they themselves could play. See, the problem with playing games that you developed is that you already know what's going to happen, you know all the traps, what to avoid, where to go. The three wanted to make a game that they could play, and still be surprised at every time. That's where the mechanics of randomly generated Dungeons came into play. Every time you play the game nothing is the same, the dungeon layout is different, and even the potions and scrolls do different things every time. And thus a genre was born! “Roguelikes” as they're called are games like “The Blinding of Issac”, “Don't Starve”, or “Dungeons of Dredmor”. They all use the elements of randomly generated environments, and permadeath and are actually growing in popularity. Making it the only genre that's on the list so far besides RPGs that are still popular today! Back in 1980, the trio probably didn't realize they were inventing a new genre at the time, but because of them, they ended up making a game who's influence could be felt more than 30 years later.

In Rogue, you play as a smiley face on an ASCII interface where everything from potions to monsters are represented by letters and symbols. You move around the randomly create dungeon with the arrow keys. The dungeons themselves must be explored before you see them on the screen. The game starts out in a small room with at least one exit and as the player moves around the screen, more of the dungeon is revealed. Your goal is to make it to something like the 25^th floor of the dungeon to recover the Amulet of Yendor and bring it safely back to the first floor. Which is NOT an easy task considering how hard even the earliest levels are. I can't tell you how many times I died because I rolled the dice and drank a potion only to discover it was poison. And it's not like you can just remember which color potion is which, because they change every game. I never even made it to the tenth floor!

All in all, it wasn't bad. It was the first Roguelike I've ever played, so it was nice to start with the one that started it all. I enjoyed it, I found myself playing it over like five times and I really liked exploring each floor for potions, armor and weapons. Overall, if you're a big fan of games like “Don't Starve” or “The blinding of Issac” you might just get a kick out of playing the game that gave those games their start. I would say go play it, but I'll be honest, it was NOT easy to find. I had to hunt for it on some website from like 1999, and even then the game is so old I needed DOS Box (which is awesome BTW) to even play it. Which is understandable... Considering that it did come out 36 years ago... I should be thankful that I could play the original version at all.

Okay! Up next: Tempest!

#0014 Missle Command

Alright, time for another segment of “1001 Games You Must Play Before You Die” today I played number 14 on my list, Missile Command.

Released in 1980, Missile Command is an Arcade Shoot 'em Up developed by Atari and surprisingly does not have vector Graphics for once, I'm hoping the vector craze is starting to wear off. Though Battle Zone did make good use of them. So we'll see. Anyhow, in Missile command, you are in charge of defending six cities from annihilation via missiles. You must destroy these city annihilating missiles by firing your own missiles at them. You play as a cross hair and fire missiles from three batteries, two on the sides, and one in the middle. You must be fast as the enemy missiles fall with increasing speed not to mention there are planes that fly across the screen that drop more bombs so you have to take out the plane, as well as missiles that split off into more missiles, as well as weird bomb-oms that fly that I'm sure do something but never drop missiles I'm not sure I was too busy trying to save my country from nuclear holocaust.

This game is a lot like Space Invaders but instead of a turret, you have three battalions and a cross hair, instead of aliens you have missiles, instead of lives you have cities. I've noticed a lot of games falling into the “Like Space Invaders But...” Category. It's interesting to see first hand the evolution of genres. It's why I started doing this list in chronological order like this.

The Graphics for Missile Command are decent, they didn't blow my mind in the way Battle Zone or Galaxian did, but they were good. The variety of attack methods from your enemy was impressive as well, no two games will ever be the same as missiles fall in a random pattern, planes fly in at random points, you never know which missiles will split into more missiles This all adds to become a very hectic and cluttered, which is important for shoot em ups. The sound quality from this game is impeccable. Each missile explosion sounds fairly legit and as you see the missiles falling out of the sky panic sets in as you realize that your three battalions cannot defend against all these missiles No matter what you do, no matter how many you destroy, they just keep coming and city after city is wiped from existence until you run out of missiles that's when you realize in horror that your other two battalions have already been destroyed by enemy missiles All you can do is sit and pray while you watch the sky fall. Your remaining civilian cities vaporizing one by one. Until you're met with a quite jarring game over screen:

“The End” Wow, that's... Actually kind of... Grim... I mean, I'm used to game over screens now 'days saying things like “You Are Dead” but that's still not as final as “The End” as in, that's it. There's nothing left, mankind has been killed because you were not fast enough to destroy all soviet missiles

So yeah, for those who haven’t connected the dots yet, this game was made during the cold war, and it really shows. The game is shocking enough watching as all your cities get destroyed but try to imagine being a kid growing up and coming to the horrific realization that this could actually happen. That nuclear war could break out at just a twitch of a finger... And there would be nothing we could do to stop it. Because no matter how many soviet missiles you destroy, you just can't get them all.

Now! Because AmzRigh mentioned it, I now intend to watch the Extra Credits video and post my thoughts:

Wow... I'm almost tempted to erase my previous post and just say “Go watch this video” because it says everything I said about the game much better. I never even thought about things like moral choices, or being put in the role of someone who probably never thought this day would come. Now when I play it, it's not just a fun experience of shooting pixels at pixels, but a stressful yet none the less enjoyable experience of defending human life from their inevitable destruction.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that they're right. This is one of the few games that tells a very emotional and grim story simply though it's game play. It seems that in most video games narrative and gameplay are two completely separate beasts that cannot be mixed. Early games brushed stories aside, if you wanted to know the story you read the game manual, or watched the title card opening. Things like JRPGs seem to go out of their way to keep the gameplay in a completely separate room from the story. Even games such as Half-Life 2, where the story is told as you play, not interrupting you is still treating narrative and gameplay as two completely separate things that must be forced to work together. Basically, as much as I love games like Half-Life 2, it's story works in spite of being video game, rather than the video game BEING the story. This is where Missile Command is different rather than telling a story, and having gameplay that compliments that story, or vice versa. The game IS the story. And while when I first finished playing I thought it was pretty good. Now it is my favorite classic game I've played on this list so far. I highly recommend this game. Not only to anyone who's bored, but to anyone who considers themselves a gamer.

Next up: Rogue

Now I'm going to go sit in the corner and think about my life for a bit... Wow...

#0013 Eamon

Alright! Time for another installment of “1001 Games to Play Before You Die” where I play my way though video game history one game at a time. Today I played Eamon, a 1980 Text based RPG developed by Donald Brown for the Apple II. It is one of the earliest Computer RPGs (though not the first by far, that honor goes to Dungeon, which isn't on the list). And one of the first games that was made famous not by it's game play, but by it's community.

In 1980, Mr. Brown created the game not with the intent on selling it, not to make a profit, but with the intent on creating an open source game that anyone could play, and create games for. And he succeeded! The Eamon community grew quickly and wrote nearly 250 different adventures spanning nearly every genre. While not every one was a jem, the fact that these fans, all came together, writing newsletters, and reviews long before the days of internet is simply astounding. We take for granted these days just how easy it is to create a fan base. I couple of clicks and you can have a dedicated facebook page for nearly any fandom you want.

The game it's self is fairly simple, you start out in the “Main Hall” naming yourself one of several humorous names including Floyd the Barber, Tom Zucchini, Bill of Accounting or my favorite, Zeus Hightower Flabbergibungander. Yeah, as you can tell, the humor is fairy meta and quirky, and honestly reminded a lot of EarthBound's humor. From the main hall you can go on an adventure, buy weapons, buy spells deposit/withdraw money etc. Once you choose one of dozens of adventures that come with the stock Eamon Deluxe, you can then explore the world that is described to you by entering commands for example, if it indicates that there is a wand in front of you, you can say “get wand” and your character will obtain the wand. All commands are done this way and it's surprisingly intuitive, the only hiccup I had was trying to communicate with NPCs, which apparently is not allowed, the closest thing you can do is “smile” at them, and see how they react. And while I can imagine getting lost in some of the more complex maps, the one I played was fairly straight forward, and honestly, very nicely written. Considering there's no graphics, all imagery must be described to you, and the adventure I played wrote a very detailed account of just where I was and what was going on, it's not often video games these days make you use your imagination, but when this game forced me to, I was surprised at how immersive it could be after a while. After a little bit, I no longer saw simple text on a screen, but a sprawling dungeon with a gorilla that's trying to kill me. And like I said earlier, the humor is actually pretty funny, I found myself chuckling a little while I played through most of games.

Overall, the game was a lot of fun! This is the first game on the list that I actually played for more than an hour and did not feel like I experienced everything in the game. And the best part is, it's still free! You can still download the game completely free and start playing and even creating your own games here! I highly suggest anyone who has a couple hours to spare download this game and give it a shot, you might be surprised at just how much fun you can have with words on a screen.

Next up! Missile Command.

One more thing, for those who don't know or haven't figured it out yet, I'm using the book “1001 Games You Must Play Before You Die” and using it as a literal challenge, I'm playing every game in this book in chronological order. From 1971's Oregon Trail to 2013's Bioshock Infinite. So far I've completed 13 games. I have a few more to go before I reach the end, but as I was searching the internet, I realized something. A lot of people have tried this before, and by a lot I mean like maybe a dozen, max. Do you know how far these bloggers and youtubers have gotten?The furthest I've seen so far is Lunar Lander, and none are still updating. Which means that as far as I know, I'm the only person to have ever gotten this far! So yeah, you guys are lucky enough to be witnessing video game and internet history here! Aren’t you guys lucky!

#0012 Defender

Well, for those who don’t remember, I’m in the process of attempting to play my way though video game history. Being a Nintendo Fanboy as an adolescent I missed out on a lot of really solid games, and I’m making up for that by playing every notable game from every generation, and then I come here and give it a short review. I used to do these maybe once a week, but with school and work, they’ve become less and less frequent. But enough of that, you want to know which fossil I’m playing tonight! Tonight it’s none other than the Willams Classic: Defender

This game actually seems rather ahead of it’s time. It’s a shoot em’ up, like we’ve seen with Space Invaders, and Galaxian, but rather than just playing the Space Invader Clone game, Williams decided to do something different with the genre. You play as a cool looking ship that flies around blows up green bloby aliens. Not much too it. But we’ve seen games where you play as a cool looking ship and blow up green blobby aliens. What Williams did differently was not the concept, was it’s execution. This game is not just a joystick and a fire button oh no! It’s a joystick and fire button and reverse button and thrust button and smart bomb button and hyperspace button. Yeah, this game doesn’t mess around and actually can get kind of convoluted. Not only does it have more options than the standard shoot em’ up, but it’s also the very first side scrolling shoot em’ up, and the first shoot em’ up to feature random enemy placement. Every game you play is different and makes for a unique experience.

Overall, not bad, it had me coming back at least five times after game over. I must commend this game for it’s learning curve though. It’s probably the deepest game I’ve played so far, and honestly seems like true strategy could be applied. I enjoyed it. Maybe not quite as much as Galaxian, because, let’s face it, it’s a little sloppy. Other than that though, it’s a solid game and I can honestly see why it’s such a classic.

Next up: Eamon (WTF is that?)

#0011 Battle Zone

Alrighty! Now that Compy is back to her normalish self again! I can finally get back into playing my way through old games that nobody cares about anymore. And today’s distant memory that your parents might remember is Battlezone! Probably the first ever tank simulator published by Atari in 1980. That’s right folks! We’re officially in the 80s now! a LOT of gems come out this decade so I’m PUMPED! Anywho, Battlezone is a tank simulator and I must say, look at this thing! I mean, seriously! that is probably the most unique and immersive cabinet I’ve ever seen! You use the sticks to control your tank, and the button on the top fires an exploding dot at the enemy tank. In order to see you must look through this porthole that apparently always smells like feet and old band aids. Just like a real tank! As cool as this design for the cabinet is, the real impressive thing are the graphics. Done in vectors, because it would seem that Atari has a vector fetish, and it actually works surprisingly well! I mean, more so than pixels could in this case. See, this is the first game that I have played on my journey to attempt 3-D graphics. And, well, they pull it off! I’m serious! Here we are, 1980 and we have honest to goodness scaling! Not even the pixelated “scaling” that the SNES tried with several games, the vectors look like honest to goodness wire frames that shrink and grow depending on how close or far you are from the object.

So how does the game hold up? Surprisingly well actually. The graphics have aged nicely into something that’s retro, but still looks good. The controls are simple, and immersive, and honestly I was impressed, maybe even more than I was with Galaxian. I highly recommend it!

Next up: Defender

#0010 Lunar Lander

Okay! It’s been a couple weeks but I’m finally back on my quest! Today I played Lunar Lander, probably one of the first flight simulators by the juggernaut that Atari is seeming to become. In this game you play as an Apollo Lunar Module attempting to land on the surface of a ridiculously mountainous and jagged moon. (And considering how porous and craterous the moon can be, I don’t think it’s that farfetched.) You start off falling from the sky and must adjust your trajectory by turning your craft in the air and using your thrusters, while also conserving rapidly depleting fuel to maneuver and then eventually slow down enough to land on a flat surface of the moon. Come in too fast? Explode. Land on a hill? Explode. The narrower the surface, the more points you receive.

OMG I HATE THIS FRICKIN’ GAME! Don’t get me wrong, I can respect it for what it is. The physics feel tight, and surprisingly realistic. The attention to detail is astounding listing your fuel, altitude, even your vertical and horizontal speeds. While it isn’t Galaxian in terms of graphics, the vector graphics are still crisp and detailed, and everything is very clear. But it’s just so frickin’ HARD! And believe me, I know hard games, I’ve beaten Castlevania 3, I played through a good amount of Demon’s Souls, and even Battle Toads. But this game… Wow… If you land just a TINY bit too fast, or have just one leg land on a gentle slope? Explode. I kid you not, I was going so slow that a butterfly landed on my craft to sit and rest for a while before spreading it’s wings and flying off again. But as soon as I touched the ground my craft exploded into a huge fiery ball that was visible from earth. I’m sure my Mother cried when she saw it live on the news.

Seriously though. Not bad. I don’t think I’ll be playing it again soon, but overall, at least it was better than Asteroids in my opinion.

And that finishes up the 70’s! All you 80’s Kids can eat your hears out because from here until Wonderboy III: The Dragon’s Trap, all the games I list will have been made in the 80’s!

Up next! Battle Zone

#0009 Galaxian

So today I played Galaxian. A 1979 Shoot ‘em Up developed by former Merry go round repair company, NAMCO. ’78’s Space Invaders was such a huge phenomenon in both Japan and America, and countless clones were soon popping up around the world, all trying to cash in on this latest craze. NAMCO, not satisfied with making yet another clone, asked themselves what they could do to make Space Invaders even better. The result was Galaxian!

OMG you guys, how did I never hear about this game? This is by far the biggest step forward in Video Game history I’ve seen so far on my quest. This is the first arcade game to use RGB color! Some games were using primitive ways to give the appearance of color, and the Atari 2600 was in color… Kind of. But not only was it in color, it had a little theme song at the beginning, the FIRST game to have a theme song, it had enemies that not only moved across the screen, but would actually attack you and come after you and would behave differently depending on how many there were left. IT HAS STARS! AND THEY MOVE! Keep in mind that this game came only a year after Space Invaders. I highly recommend this game, if you can find a way to play the arcade version (there’s a lot of crappy flash versions that are NOT galaxian) and keep in mind that this came only a year after Space Invaders, and Galaga had yet to improve on everything, then you will not be disappointed.

Up Next: Lunar Lander

#0008 Asteroids

So! Continuing in my quest to play my way through video game history brings me to the celebrated hit, “Asteroids”. Developed in 1979 by Atari, this game, along with Space Invaders, ushered in the “Golden Age” of video games. It displaced Space Invaders in terms of popularity and became Atari’s highest selling Arcade Machine of all time with over 70,000 units sold, and was so popular, that some of the larger arcade operators had to install larger coin boxes to hold the amount of money that people were throwing at this game!

So yeah, this game was a big hit. So just what do you do in this game? You play as a triangle and you shoot rocks. Oh, and the occasional UFO that flies by… That’s it! There’s really nothing more to this game, very blue collar.

I remember as a kid there was a “Classics” section at my local Arcade and one of the games there was Asteroids and I remember playing it and not really being that impressed. Now, nearly 20 years later, I was reading about the hype for this game and thinking to myself “why didn’t I like this game as a kid”, well, after finally finding a version that works I can safely say, I remember now! The game has just no real challenge. Unlike Space Invaders, where the aliens would speed up as time goes on causing you to panic and hurry up and shoot them. Asteroids remains just as difficult in the beginning as at the end, the only real challenge is dodging the debris that comes your way. It is very easy to clear the entire screen which is pretty anti climactic. Something like that should be very difficult so that when you finally pull it off, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Now, do I think this game is bad? Of course not! In fact, I’d say the game is pretty legendary, and even fairly revolutionary as it is the first game that I’ve played so far that has an actual physics engine. I just didn’t like it as much as Space Invaders.

Next up! Galaxian!

#0007 Adventure

Okay! So from here until Rogue, the following will all be taken from where I originally started posting these on the starmen.net forums. People started asking me to document my progress as I continued this challenge, thus, I started posting short reviews in the “How are you” topic. Eventually the reveiws became longer and longer until I started feeling weird posting them in the topic, and that's when this blog was born, I went back and made reviews for the games I had played, but hadn't yet posted. And from now on, all my reviews will be right here in this blog. With that said what time is it?

Adventure time!

Yep, that’s right, today I played “Adventure” for the Atari 2600. A precursor to pretty much all fantasy or adventure games. You play as a dot, and your goal is to get the “chalice” back to it’s home in the gold castle. To do so, you must navigate mazes, crawl through dark chasms, slay those stupid ducks, find keys to unlock the castles and most frustrating of all, avoid the godamn BAT! That dick will fly around and grab any item it sees and then fly it around the entire map laughing at you attempt to chase it around to get your stupid key back that you worked so hard for!

The game it’s self is surprisingly enjoyable, for something so primitive, they really really added quite a bit. For example, one of the mazes is dark, so you can only see a few feet in all directions, something that video games still use today when you’re exploring dark caves. The map it’s self is surprisingly expansive for something that’s only four kilobytes in size. (For comparison, Just Google’s logo is 8kb). Honestly, if you’re in the mood, I suggest checking it out. Just don’t expect too much and you’ll probably enjoy yourself. Or at the very least throw your joystick at the TV because that STUPID BAT STOLE THE CHALICE THAT YOU FINALLY MANAGED TO LOCATE!

Up next: Astroids!

#0006 Space Invaders

We hit another milestone today as we reach “The Golden Age of Video Arcade Games”. That's right, while when and if we've reached the Golden age of console gaming is widely disputed, it is generally agreed that the golden age of arcade games occurred right here in 1978.

As much as pong might have started arcade gaming in the 70's, arcades were still fairly low key, and hadn't yet become a cultural phenomenon. That is, until Space Invaders rocked the scene and took the world by storm.

Developed by Taito in 1978, the game was designed, and programed by Tomohiro Nishikado who designed custom hardware for the game and was one of the first arcade games to have it's own dedicated micro processor. He drew inspiration from games like Breakout, and other media such as The War of the Worlds, and Star Wars. And when the game released was in Japan, it was a HUGE hit like you have no idea. People started closing their own stores to become dedicated Space Invaders arcades. Not only that, but it actually caused a shortage of 10 yen coins that the machines took. The Japanese mint had to make more coins because these machines were eating them at a rate unheard of in video game history. When it was released in the United States by Midway it had a similar effect, to put it simply, it was the SHIT. Overnight video games went from being a quaint fad that the children liked, to being an international phenomenon. It put Japan on the map for being game developers, and proved that video games could be a HUGE hit. Without this game, companies might not have seen a future in arcades and might have continued to make more pong clones, but this game proved that a big profit was to be made in the video game industry, and paved the way for ALL your favorite hits like Galaxian, Asteroids, Battlezone, Centipede, Defender, Pac-Man, Tempest, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Galaga, indeed hundreds of arcade games owe their very existence to this game and it's success. But just what about this game made it a classic today?

Well you play as a weird turret on the bottom of the screen, your job is to fend off wave after wave of alien invaders by shooting them, while avoiding being hit yourself. A simple concept not unlike that of Breakout, but what made this game different was the mechanics. See this is one of the first games to have dedicated music that played during gameplay, those same four notes that played over and over synched up with the movement of the aliens, and as you destroyed the aliens, the aliens got faster, as did the music, the tempo increased from a slow crawl, to panic inducing fast as the last alien tears through your sheilds evading your shots growing ever closer and closer until you can smell the stench of their putrid musk. So close you could reach out and touch their slimy tentecles, but they're just too fast, you can't get them, you're hands start to shake and your palms start to sweat as you try desperately to take at least ONE floating freak with you before all of humanity is killed by an onslaught of Space Invaders.

So! how does this game hold up after 36 years? Good actually. Amazing if you only consider what came before it. Compared to clones such as Galaga that used Spaces Invaders formula, it's very much lacking, but this is the first game on the list that actually had me worried that I might lose, the feeling of dread that comes over you when you realize that you have no chance of winning is something that no other game before this had ever instilled in me. Overall, I really liked it, and I honestly believe that this is one of those games that every gamer should play at least once. It's a surprising amount of fun if you take it in context and I think that if you give it a chance you may be surprised by just how addicting it can be, and maybe understand what it was like to live in the late '70s and experience this for the first time. An online version can be found here at www.freeinvaders.org.

Up Next: Adventure

#0005 Combat

 Well here we are. The Second Generation of Console Gaming. Today we're looking at 1977's Combat, the pack in title for the Atari 2600. And being that this marks a very important point in video game history, and since Combat it's self doesn't have that much to talk about, I think it's fair to dedicate this article to not only Combat, but to the Atari 2600 it's self.

When most people think about the first video game console, the VERY first video game console, many people will say “The Atari” talking about the Atari VCS, or later called the Atari 2600. But the 2600 actually marked the second generation of console games, not the first. Quite a few console games came before it such as 1968's Brown Box, the Magnavox Odyssey, Atari's own Home Pong, Binatone, Coleco Telstar, and even the Nintendo Color TV Game (it was aweful, Nintendo clearly didn't know what it was doing at the time.). At the time, all these console games either played Pong, (which people were actually getting tired of by '77, can't blame them) or were just... Aweful and a pain in the ass to play. all these Pong ripoffs and terrible home consoles led to Atari trying new and inovative new things. One of which was collecting all their arcade hits, and putting them all one one home console under code name Project Stella. This lead to the invention of the Atari 2600. A console in which you could play ALL your favorite Atari games simply by switching the cartridge. Only the second console in history to do so. it was also one of the first consoles to be in full color. The console it's self didn't catch on right away, in fact, it wasn't until 1979's release of Space Invaders on the 2600 did it really start picking up. But unfortunately, due to Atari's poor quality control on it's own games, tons of shovelware and crap games flooded the market. This lead to the biggest crash in video game history, the crash of 1983.

See, back in the 80's, you didn't have the internet as a guide to helping you find good games, even dedicated magazines were a rarity. This means, that if you went to your local Sears to buy a new game for the 2600 your Grandma bought you two years ago, you had to choose your game based on the cover or game description alone! So, not knowing what to pick, you see a game on the shelf called “E.T. The Extra Terrestrial” “Hey!” you think to yourself, “I love E.T.!” So, not knowing any better, you purchase your game, and throw that sucker into your console... You later regain your consciousness in your back yard after an undisclosed amount of time, holding a baseball bat and shouting profanities at the plastic remains of something that might have, at one point, been an Atari game sitting in a mutilated heap on the back porch, and having no recollection of just what happened during that time. This was a problem. With so many terrible games on the market and no way of knowing which ones were good, or even playable, people stopped buying games all together, it would be two years before Nintendo finally came to the rescue and finally revived the video game console industry.

I'm going to say right now that while I'm not a huge fan of the Atari 2600, I will give it credit in that it brought video games back into the public's eye once again and had one of the longest runs of any console to date (it wasn't discontinued until 1993!). And while it did cause the Video Game Crash of 1983, and it had notably bad graphics compared to what Arcades were doing not even a year later, and led to thousands of bootlegs and crap games due to the fact that ANYONE could publish for the system. It still holds a place in Video Game history, and even I have to admit that all it's weird quirks makes it kind of charming. With that, let's get back to 1977, into the number one game that most people played when they turned on their Atari for the first time.

Combat was packed in with the system until it was replaced with Pac-Man in 1982. This game was advertised as being twenty seven different games. “different games” in this case means changing the type of bullets the tanks fired. In this game you play as either a tank, a bi-plane, or a jet, depending on which mode you choose. Your goal is to kill the other player's vehicle by shooting it, or by dropping bombs. Not much to it!

See, what puts this game on the list (other than being the number one most played Atari exclusive) is that it's pretty fun. Yeah, it's multiplayer only, but that's okay because I actually enjoyed running around trying to kill my brother's tank. Basically, if you go in expecting a tank game where you and a friend try and kill each other on an ancient console, then you won't be disappointed as the game has plenty to offer. But to be honest, the game it's self is not ground breaking or really addicting. If you're curious and have someone to play it with, give it a shot, otherwise, I'd say it's okay if you skip this game.

Up next: Space Invaders

#0004 Boot Hill

Boot Hill! A 1977 arcade game developed the late Midway Games (RIP). And is a sequel to the relatively lesser known game Gun Fight.

The game cabinet is something to behold. It has two joysticks. The much smaller joystick on the left moves your character in eight directions (which was twice or even four times more directional freedom than most games at the time), and a much larger two directional joystick with a trigger on it that aimed your gun and fired (does this duel joystick setup sound familiar?). The most impressive thing in my opinion is how the game managed color. See, rather than having a simple black backdrop like Pong, or using clear colored strips across the screen to simulate color, this game used mirrors to project a hand drawn landscape of a western town onto the game console. Take a look at the screen shot above, this game looks pretty good! It's also a shame that I was not able to play this on it's original cabinet as the game loses a LOT in the emulation process as both this beautiful hand drawn landscape is replaced by a simple black screen, and the keystrokes used in lieu of duel joysticks aren't nearly as immersive. But, sacrifices must be made in if I'm going to complete all 1001 games. I should count myself lucky to be able to play this near 40 year old jem at all.

In this game you play as a cowboy on boot Hill and you're in a gun fight with some loser on the other side of the screen. Your goal is to bust a cap in the butt of this moron while avoiding getting smoked yourself. The game introduces strategy by only giving you six bullets and you can't reload. You must decide between firing all your shots at once in a hailstorm of bullets, or carefully picking off that asshole with precisely aimed shots. It's a type of strategy that you don't see in modern shooters, conserving ammo and only firing when the timing is perfect was not in my nature, it was kind of a different experience. This game marks the first shooter on the list, as well as the first game with weapons, guns, an opponent, a human opponent and killing said human opponent.

While it is a first for many things, it is actually a lot like Pong, but instead of making sure you avoid missing the ball at all costs,  in this game you cannot get hit by the bullet at all costs. This is one of the reasons why I started playing this list in chronological order. To see the evolution of genres happening as they did back even before the “Golden Age”. This “It's like Pong but...” applies to a lot of games that would come in the future. Pong became Breakout, Breakout inspired Space Invaders, Space Invaders inspired Galaxian, Galaxian became Galaga and so on.

Overall, I enjoyed this game more than Pong or Breakout, as it was the first one that after my Game Over I actually wanted to play it again, more than once. It was fun, but if anyone REALLY wants to play this game, I HIGHLY suggest tracking down an arcade that still the original old school cabinet.

Next up: Combat