Goodbye. Perhaps

So, I already played Archon, and Star Wars, and to be honest, I'm just not feeling it anymore. I'm still going to finish the book, no doubt about it. But perhaps, I think I'll leave the blog to it's own demise.

Hey, if you HAPPENED to like these, or were maybe following them, hit me up with an email. Maybe I'll consider starting this up if people are actually reading this. Until then. It's been fun.

Bye bye.

-Ultimate-Gamer

#0049 I Robot

Alright! Time for the new format of 1001 Games To Play Before You Die. Today we played I Robot, the very first 3d platformer. It was one of the first games ever to use 3d polygons.

Overall, it was okay, it was a tad confusing at first, but after you get used to the strange concept and the controls, it's fairly easy and straight forward. Not that bad, but not great either.

Up next: Archeon

#0048 Sinistar

Alright! Today we finish up 1982 with one of my favorite arcade games, Sinistar, an arcade SHMUP developed by Williams, and is one of the first arcade games to feature not only stereo sound, but voice acting as well. This one isn't actually on the list, but was instead requested by my Mom so shout out to her! This is probably going to be the only time I accept a request though as 1001 is a lot of games as it is.

Sinistar is, and say it with me now, "a game where you play as a small ship in space shooting aliens". Only difference here is that rather than being a "like Space Invaders but..." Game, this is a "like Asteroids but..." Game. It is VERY obvious that this game was directly inspired by Asteroids, not only because of the top down all range motion of your aircraft, but because the main thing you'll be doing is shooting Asteroids. Except, unlike Asteroids, you actually have a reason to be shooting them.

The controls are simple, a control stick, a button for firing bullets, and a button for firing bombs, this control stick is different from other joy sticks of the time, it's a 49 way joystick and I was able to map my controller to it and have nearly full range motion. It's awesome. Another way it's different from other games is that running into normal enemies does not harm you, you just bounce right off them. Most of them ignore you and shoot asteroids and collect the crystals that come out of them. The crystals you collect turn into bombs, and the red drones that you see try to steal them from you, because they're using them to create a FAR more powerful weapon, Sinistar, voiced by_. Sinistar is a SERIOUSLY tough bad guy, and is probably the first enemy on this list to make me legitimately anxious. He's enormous, can fly far faster than you, can kill you in one bite, and it takes dozens of bombs to take him out (that's why you're collecting crystals in the first place), overall, he's very well designed and very intimidating,but killing him is the only way to advance to the next level.

Overall, Damn, this is a FUN game. I seriously enjoyed it. The Graphics are finally at true 16 bit, the sounds and voice acting are incredibly memorable and iconic. The controls are very finely tuned for a game in the 80's. Honestly. It is quite possibly the best game behind Missile Command I have played in this list. It's fast paced, it's addicting and'll have you coming back again and again. Seriously, check this game out.

And that wraps up 1982! A great year it was. Now it's time for my favorite bit, where I name game of the year. Let's look at the contestants:

Gravitar

joust

The Hobbit

Choplifter!

Robron 2084

Dig Dug

Miner 2049er

Moon Patrol

Mr. Do!

Xevious

Sokoban

Tron

Time Pilot

Utopia

Sinistar

And game of the year for 1982 is:

Robotron 2084!

Yep. I couldn't help myself. Not only is this my favorite game this year, it's one of my favorite arcade games of all time. It has so much constant nonstop chaotic action. The duel control sticks is genious and the gameplay is absolutely adicting. I just don't know why I didn't know about it sooner.

Last of all, I think I'm going to be doing these reviews a little differently. Who wants to read huge walls of test about old games? Noboby? Good. I'm thinking of making these reviews more condensed, and more easy to swallow. Easier for the average casual visitor to consume. If you like the original format, leave it in the comments and with that, I'll see all of you in 1983, the year of the great Video Game Crash.

Next up:

I Robot

#0047 Utopia

Ah, finally, you have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this. The award for the hardest game so far to play goes to, Utopia. A 1982 strategy game developed by Don Daglow for the Intellivision.

I thought Sokoban was hard to find? This game was near impossible. First, it's an Intellivision game, meaning that I needed to find a whole new emulator to play this game. Preferably one that's been updated since 2005. Second, with Intelivision, it's apparently illegal to include the BIOS files with the emulators, meaning that you have to find them separately. Let me tell you, these are NOT easy to find. Intelivision is a fairly obscure system now-days, so support for emulators is fairly limited. I searched maybe a dozen rom sites and downloaded some shady stuff that probably gave me spyware, and I still couldn't find those damn BIOS files, rendering the entire emulator completely usless! But it doesn't stop there, unlike Sokoban, this game has not been ported to many other systems. In fact, back in the day, it was only released on the Intelivision, and the Mattel Aquarius, a home computer that was so unsuccessful that it was discontinued only four months after it's release. But it was my saving grace when it game to this game. I found an Aquarius emulator, and Utopia was bundled right in with the ZIP file! The quality was terrible, and a manual for this rather complex game was completely nonexistent, but hey, I was finally able to play the first real time SIM game.

So how does this game work? Well, you use one half of the keyboard to control one cursor, and the second half of the keyboard to control the other cursor. This game is multilayer only, and while playing alone for a high score is possible, it's just not very fun. The object of the game is to accumulate as many points as possible before the end of your term as set by you at the beginning. You accumulate points by having happy, plentiful residents. You can make your island residents happy by buying a lot of amenities that they might need such as fishing boats, crop fields, factories, hospitals, schools, etc. Keep your residents happy, and your population will rise, make them upset, and they'll start to rebel, lowering your score and possibly even destroying buildings.

So how is it? How is the first real-time SIM game? Eh, it was okay. Although it really wasn't the game's fault here, I had such a hard time figuring out the controls and what the HUD meant that it just really sucked me right out of the experience. Once I finally got the hang of the basic controls, I found that it was nearly impossible to collect money to expand your island. A rain cloud must pass over your crops to earn money from them, and your fishing boat must be anchored over a school of fish to make money. Neither of which are easy to do, especially when you can't figure out the button that allows you to steer the boat. The graphics on the port are terrible, even compared to the Intellivision's lackluster display. At least the colors are nice to look at.

Overall, this was a valiant effort, and was a great attempt at something new. It was the birth of a new genre and I can easily see why it was on the list. While it may not be perfect, and I can't honestly recommend it, I still appreciate the effort and attention to detail that went into creating this game.

Normally this game would be where we wrap up 1982, but I still have one more from this year, a request, from my own Mom actually. Normally I don't accept requests as 1001 is a daunting enough challenge as is, but because I'm not going to count GORF as a game that I must play before I die, I'm substituting it for the game that should have been on the list.

Next up: Sinistar

#0046 Time Pilot

Alright! I think we have a new record holder for hardest game so far! Today I played Time Pilot, a multi-directional scrolling shooter designed by Yoshiki Okamoto (you might remember him as the creator of Street Fighter II) of Konami in 1982.

At first glance, the game seems pretty tame, it asks you to “please” insert a quarter to play. Well! Since you were so polite, I suppose I just might! After I inserted said immaterial quarter though, is where the polite nice guy front ended. Soon I was bombarded by enemy bi-planes from 1918 all trying to gun me down. I tried to out fly them in my futuristic fighter jet, but my 22,000 horse power jet engine was apparently no match against 97 year old propeller engines and they got behind me, I couldn’t turn around, they had me at every turn, until I was shot out of the sky by a bi plane coming in to my left that I didn’t even see. I had lasted ten seconds.

In Time Pilot, you play as some futuristic fighter jet. Your job is to travel through time to rescue pilots from 1918 bi-planes and zeppelins, 1948 mono-planes and B-25 bombers, 1970 heat seeking missile launching helicopters and Boing Vertol CH-46 Sea Knights, 1982 Jets who fire even more homing missiles that travel faster than you do and Boeing B-52 Stratofortress’s, and then finally all the way into 2001 where you fight the UFO’s from Asteroids who fire homing laser orbs that travel twice as fast as you and are near impossible to hit. Did I mention this game doesn’t allow continues?

The controls are simple, but are what threw me off at first. The game is obviously inspired by Asteroids and it definitely shows in the last level with the UFO’s. After playing Asteroids and Gravitar, I was expecting my plane to behave in a similar manner, i.e. the left and right arrows rotate your ship while pressing up thrusts you forward. I was wrong. Instead, the game actually behaves like modern games where pressing a directional arrow takes you in that direction. No Resident Evil controls here folks! After figuring that out, the game was an incredible amount of fun, constant threats coming at you from all sides, intelligent enemies keeping right behind you, it almost feels like a real dog fight. The gimmick of traveling through time is a very fun idea, I really love the idea of going through these different time periods trying to kill planes from that era, and I would love for a game to do that today, kind of makes you appreciate how aerial combat has advanced. The Graphics are nice and crisp with surprisingly smooth animation, overall, the game is a joy to play and one of the most entertaining of ’82 so far.

I do have one or two issues with it but I assure you they’re minimal, like Xevious, I wish this game had a better soundtrack. I don’t actually remember background music at all. I think that would really add to the fun, especially if the music changed with the era. Also, 16 directions is just not enough for a game as crazy as this. I often tried to shoot down planes who were just 15 degrees off from where I was directioned, meaning I had to do some weird maneuvering to make sure I could hit it accurately.

Overall, while the game is stupid hard, it’s at least fair, and a lot of fun to play. Unless you’re a big fan of classic multi-directional shooters, chances are you haven’t heard of this game, but it’s one I suggest. Give it a shot, I think you might be surprised.

Up next: Utopia (ooo an Intelivision game! A multiplayer only intelivision game, not sure how I'm gonna pull this one off.)

#0045 Tron

So today on 1K1VGYMPBYD (I need a shorter title) we look at Tron! A 1982 arcade game based on the hit Disney movie by the same name.

Okay, I gotta be honest here, I've never seen Tron. One of the first movies based on video games and I've never seen it or it's sequel. I heard that it was slow and not that great when I was a kid so I just was never really interested. So to be honest, I couldn't tell you how accurate it really is to the movie, I just know that the game was based on an early script of the film.

So this review is gonna work a little differently as this isn't so much one game as four separate games in one. A neat idea if they can pull it off. You start each game session by being able to choose which “color” you want to play, each color represents a different game, and you don't know what game that is until you play it. So what I'm going to do is do little mini reviews for each of the four games and then an overall review of the game as a whole.

Okay, so the first game in Tron is the I/O Tower. Basically, in this game you play as some dude in a tron costume and you have to make your way to a circle in the middle of the screen while avoiding little spider like creatures that come and attack you. You throw these little disks in order to defend yourself. The closest thing I can compare it to is Venture where you cross a SHMUP with a maze game into something more resembling a top-down adventure game. This one’s okay. You use the joystick to walk around and the dial to aim your disks, it’s a little awkward at first, but after you get used to the controls, it’s really not that bad.

The next game is MCP Clone. In this game you use your disks again to destroy a multicolored wall that slowly moves down the screen. Your goal is to make your way past the wall into a cone at the top while the wall is constantly spinning. Kinda like a mix between Space Invaders and the boss from Phoenix. This one’s okay as well, I found it a tad easy on the first round as all you have to do is fire at an angle in the opposite direction that it’s spinning an you’ll open up a small passage for you to slip by in no time.

The Third game is Battle Tanks. In this game you play as a red tank. Your goal is to kill the other tank on the screen using the joystick to move the tank and the dial to aim the cannon. This one is a lot like Combat for the Atari 2600 except with a computer controlled tank that is far more powerful than you. This one I found frustrating. Remember Combat? Where both tanks were equally powerful? Yeah, I miss that game. In this one the enemy tank takes three or so shots to kill, it’s attack is slower, but that doesn’t make me feel any better when it can kill me in one hit every time.

The last game is by far the best, and most famous. Light Cycles. This is what everyone thinks of when they think of a Tron game. Basically, it’s like a fast paced, competitive version of snake. You drive a motor cycle that trails a wall of light behind it. That wall of light never disappears, and if you run into anything, you lose. Your goal is to get your opponent to crash into a wall while staying alive yourself.

I gotta say, this game was kinda fun. I enjoyed riding side by side with my opponent only to take a sharp right turn at the last minute and then another and finally pulling away at the last second to box it in and just watching that yellow bike scamper around the edges of the walls until he's got nowhere to go. Awesome.

Overall, with the exception of the light cycles, I thought the game was rather underwhelming. I beat every game at least once and when I did that, I really had no motivation to play past that, which a really bad thing for arcade games because they’re entire point is to draw you in and keep you standing at that machine spending quarters as long as they can. If you don’t feel like continuing after a few levels, then you’re going to leave that game to play Donkey Kong again at your next game over. It was okay, I can’t say it was bad, but I just really wished all the games were as fun as the light cycles level.

Up next: Time Pilot

#0044 Sokoban

Man this one took me back. Remember Chip’s Challenge? A puzzle game that was included in the Microsoft Entertainment Pack for Windows 98? I had no idea that one of the key concepts of that game (pushing blocks) was introduced by a Japanese software house called Thinking Rabbit in 1982. That’s right, today we’re looking at none other than Sokoban!

First off, let me say just how hard this game was to find. Not because it’s rare, not at all. It’s the opposite that’s true really. There are SO many versions of this game, that I was completely unable to tell which version came first. So I settled on a nice flash version that you can see above. Courtesy to Sokoban.info for providing this amazing game free of charge.

Sokoban is a puzzle game developed by Hiroyuki Imabayashi. Basically, it’s “Walmart Truck Crew The Game”. In this game you play as a warehouse foreman, your job is to push crates (you can’t pull them) onto specific dots. When you push all your crates onto all the dots you move on to the next level. It is an extremely simple concept and has been implemented into nearly all genres of games.  All Pokemon Games, nearly all Zelda games, Professor Layton, Prince of Persia, Half-Life (kinda), Tomb Raider, you name it. Basically it’s the block puzzle of all block puzzles.

What can I say, this game is a classic. It is a video game stripped only to its bare essentials. If video games had a minimalist movement, this would be a good contender. It is so simple that you can’t take a single element from it and still have a playable game. Story? None. Music and Sound? Not nesesary.  All it needs are graphics good enough to distinguish what is what. It is so simple that it can be recreated FLAWLESSLY on the Atari 2600. That’s right, a console from 1977 with graphics that couldn’t even perfectly recreate Space Invaders can play this game without any hickups.

Being so simple makes the game nearly flawless, there’s not one bad thing I can say about this game. It’s addicting, I actually had to tear myself away in order to write this review. If you’re a fan of puzzle games, I’m sure you’d get a kick out of this. I’d tell all of you to go play this game, but, let’s face it, in one way or another, you already have. Now go play Pokemon, and move some rocks!

Up next: Tron

#0043 Xevious

Alright we’re finally back to SMUPS after quite some time of not trying to copy Space Invaders. Today we’re looking at Xevious, a scrolling shooter developed by Masanobu Endo of Namco in 1982 running on the Galaga hardware.

In this game you play as an aircraft called the Solvalou, armed with forward firing blasters for air targets and air to surface bombs for ground targets. In this game you fly over surprisingly detailed and varied terrain such as forests, airstrips, enemy bases, ocean, etc. Your goal is to reach the end of each area without dying, destroying enemy ships and structures along the way to score points. At the end of several stages (they flow seamlessly so it’s hard to tell when one ends and another begins) is a boss called the Andor Genesis, marking the first Boss on this list since Phoenix.

While having no in game story, squeals, spinoffs and apparently even a short story by Endo himself apparently tell a very complex story of a battle between mankind and a supercomputer named “GAMP” But I have no official sources to back this up as Wikipedia quotes Hardcore Gaming 101, and while I can’t dis on HG101 (they’re awesome guys seriously, check them out) they didn’t site any sources either, so I can’t, in good conscious, quote anything. All other Google results for “Xevious Story” or “Xevious short story” to find that short story I mentioned earlier all quote the Wikipedia page verbatim. And Wikipedia cites the International Arcade Museum as a source for said short story which isn’t mentioned anywhere on the site. This is why you don’t use Wikipedia in serious research assignments kids!

But! This is an arcade game, not a CRPG, stories in SHMUPS are like the articles in a playboy magazine, they really don’t matter; and let me tell you, this game rocks! This is probably the biggest step forward in terms of both graphics and game play since Galaxian back in the 70’s. This is one of the first SHMUPS to have a scrolling vertical background, and one of the first to not be set in space. The graphics in the game are nothing short of gorgeous. Apparently set in Peru, game goes beyond simple 8bit graphics to deliver believable, highly detailed backgrounds that are unlike anything we’ve seen so far. Seriously, this is the first time on the list that it’s NES counterpart can’t compete with the arcade in terms of graphics. Here’s two screen shots from both versions, the NES version is on the right. Notice the difference.

The detailed graphics truly give the sense that you’re flying above sprawling forests, oceans and enemy bases. Just earlier this year some developers were still having difficulty with pixel art, so I would expect a game this ambitious to feel cluttered, confusing or sloppy but the devs over at Namco were very careful to make sure that you know exactly which enemies are stationary ground enemies, and which are airborne.

Not only are the graphics incredible, the game play is very fluid with rapid fire double blasters that are easy to aim with and cross hairs for your bombs that make bombing targets a thousand times less rage inducing than games like Scramble. I found the difficulty to be fair, finding that perfect balance so that you don’t die too often and get frustrated, but don’t get too far and not spend more quarters. Plus, this marks the first time on the list that I’ve felt intimidated by a boss. Yeah, that Andor Genesis I mentioned earlier is quite a tough boss and I was honestly a little intimidated by it, which is always a good sign.

But, for how awesome this game is, it does have some flaws. For example, the music is very grating, it’s the same notes looping every several seconds, and not fun music like Dig Dug or Frogger either, it’s short blips that just loop continuously. I would have loved some more exciting music to go with killing enemy aliens. Not only that, but I would have loved to see more variety in the enemies. The designs of both the ship and the enemy ships are fairly uninspired. Most of them are circles or other geometric shapes. Also, lots of games are including a continue function now and of all the games I’ve played this is the one that I was really wanted a continue feature and had none.

Overall though, this game is amazing. The graphics are gorgeous, the setting is innovative, it puts just the right spin on an old formula to make it fresh again. I highly recommend this game, if you can pick up the 3ds classics version in the 3DS eshop, it's one of those games where the 3d effect really adds to the experience. You won't be disappointed.

Also,the main theme of this game (start at around 0:10) makes a cameo in a certain SNES game. First person to name which game and where gets bonus points.

Next up: Sokoban

#0042 Q*Bert

Alright, today's a pretty big one. Today on 1K1VGYMPBYD we look at one of the most beloved and memorable games from the Golden Age, Q*Bert. An arcade isometric platformer with puzzle elements developed by Gottlieb in 1982.

Qbert represents the first video game played from an isometric psudo third-dimensional viewpoint. You start at the top of a MC Escher like pyramid, with 28 cubes. The whole game is played with a bizarre 4 way joystick rotated 45 degrees. In this game, you play as a... Whatever named Qbert who starts each level at the top of the pyramid and moves by hopping diagonally from cube to cube. Landing on said cube changes the color. The object of the game is to change every cube on the stage to the target color while avoiding a surprising variety of enemies, and avoiding jumping off the pyramid itself.

The idea of Q*Bert was thought up by Warren Davis and Jeff Lee. Basically, Lee drew a pyramid of cubes inspired by M. C. Escher and said “Let's make a game out of this!” And they did. Drawing inspiration from comics, cartoons, Mad magazine and even Ed Roth if you can believe it, they created an armless character who shot projectiles called “mucus bombs” from his nose at enemies (this was later removed during production). Qbert's design later included a speech balloon with a string of nonsensical characters, “@!#?@!”. Lee originally presented this as a joke.

Wanting to create a high quality game both in graphics and sound, they implemented a MOS Technology 6502 chip that generates sound effects, and a separate speech synthesizer to generate voices. David Theil originally wanted to use the speech synthesizer to create English phrases for the game, such as “You have gotten 10,000 bonus points”, but the closest he could get the machine to say was “bogus points”. Frustrated, Theil finally said “screw it, what if I just stick random numbers in the chip instead of all this highly authored stuff”. The result was the exact Qberteese that's used in the game. That was the cherry on top, and Q*Bert as we know it was born.

Alright, I'm just going to say this now, Qbert is amazing. It ranks up there with Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Missle Command as a near flawless masterpiece of a game. The concept is simple, anyone can pick it up, yet there is an almost chess like strategy in watching where all your enemies are and being able to predict their movements. Figuring out the best route to clear the stage keeps you on your toes. The graphics are clear, sharp, and the pixel art is top notch. The colors are vibrant and bright but not obnoxious, the characters designs are up there with the best like Pac-Man or Donkey Kong. Honestly, everything about this game is so well made and nearly every thought, every idea that went into making this game was to make it a better play experience. I especially love the little touches such as in the actual arcade machine, when Qbert falls off the pyramid the sound actually follows him to the ground and a pinball knocker makes a thud sound when he hits the ground. Little things like that are just not expected and go above and beyond to give a unique play experience that simply can't be replicated even today.

If I had to gripe, and I'm really nitpicking here, I suppose I would say I had a little trouble adjusting to the control scheme. Seasoned gamers especially are going to have a hard time with those controls. I got game over within a minute of my first playthrough due to accidentally jumping off the pyramid or into an enemy when I meant to go a different way.

After you get used to them though, the game gets surprisingly fluid, it's a game of watching what your enemy is doing and thinking on your feet. Overall, I'd say this is an amazing contender for game of the year, a near flawless execution of a unique and addicting concept with humor that always makes me smile. If you haven't played this game, it's five bucks on steam, go play it for an hour or six.

As a side note, I did the math earlier, and turns out I did roughly 40 games last year from the time I started, to newyears. Meaning that if I keep this same pace, I'll finish 1001 in roughly 25 years! That's... Shocking. I didn't even fathom just how long this was going to take me. It's a strange feeling, I love doing these reviews and playing these old games, but it's just so surreal to think that I'll be 50 before I finish this book. Taking into consideration that I'll have kids some day, and have a career, I might not even be able to do 40 per year for long. Suddenly this challenge really does seem like a bucket list, something to try and finish before I die. It's just weird to think that this is something I'll still be doing as an old man... Kinda makes me feel my own mortality...

Up next: Xevious (Aw hell yeah!)

#0041 Mr. Do!

Kase Iemochi paced the dull, sterile boardroom. A blank whiteboard at his back, he scowled intensely at his partners as they met his gaze like a cow might stare at an oncoming train. He tapped a marker impatiently on the table.

“So we have nothing? Kazutoshi Ueda is going to walk through those doors any minute expecting the next big arcade hit and we have nothing to give him! We have been here all day! Just give me something!”

“Space Invaders!” Mitzusaka Katai blurted out, shifting his eyes nervously down to his hands as if he knew this was a stupid answer. “Different space invaders. It'll be in color and the enemies will fly down and attack you”

“No, we've been through this a million times. It's been done, It's all been done. Space Invaders, Pong, Pac-Man, everything.” Iemochi replied rubbing his eyes with aggravation.

“There's nothing left! Video games have reached their limit! Everything that can be thought of has already been thought of!” Katai wheezed through panicked breaths.

“You can't think like that.” Tsutomu Yoshimochi said finally speaking up to reassure his comrade.

“C'mon guys work with me here! Okay who's the protagonist?” Iemochi said marching over to the whiteboard.

“A blue hedgehog!” Katai blurted out again, fidgeting uncomfortably in his seat.

“Shut up Katai” Iemochi snapped not even bothering to look at him.

“How about a clown?” Yoshimochi asked.

An awkward pause filled the room as every man looked to one another, trying to judge whether or not the idea was a serious one.

“Really? A clown?” Iemochi procured, a look of uncertainty on his face.

“Um, yeah.”

“Okay! Clowns are creepy but we got nothing else!” Iemochi proclaimed scribbling the idea down on the whiteboard. “Okay, he's a clown, what do clowns do?”

“They eat things” Yoshimochi replied, almost too quickly.

“Really?” Katai started “Is that what clowns are known for? I've never heard of that bef-”

“Alright alright, we'll have him dig for them” Yoshimochi interrupted

“I love it.” Iemochi stated. His hand flying across the whiteboard.

Katai glanced at the whiteboard, a look of bewilderment on his face,“I'm not sure I'm following your logi-”

“Hey don't worry.” Yoshimochi interrupted again “There'll be weird dragon like creatures to balance it out.”

“You have a gift my friend.” Iemochi gushed giving Yoshimochi intense eye contact.

“I'm sorry” Katai chuckled “But this is actually starting to sound like another game, has anyone played Dig Dug?”

“Katai I swear to god if you don't shut up. This is nothing like Dig Dug, it's about a clown. Now if you're not going take this seriously-” Iemochi hissed through gritted teeth.

“What if we make a game about an Italian Plumber” Katai's nervousness cracked in his voice “And he need to save the princess from a giant spiky turtle?”

“Katai you're fired get the hell out of my sight! Now, let's put it all together. We have a clown, he digs through tunnels for food and must avoid dragon like creatures. What do we call it? It must be something catchy, something to do with the fact that he digs, or is a clown. Something...”

“I got it!” Yoshimochi suddenly sprang from his chair so fast that it fell behind him “We'll call it... Mr. Do.”

Yeah, that's is how I imagine the idea for this game came up. Today we're looking at Mr. Do, a strange arcade made in 1982 by Universal, and winner of the “Weirdest Idea for a Game So Far” award.

Mr. Do is about a clown, who must dig through the ground to collect cherries while avoiding being attacked by weird dragon like creatures. You must either collect all the cherries, kill all the bad guys, or spell “EXTRA” by killing the alphabet monsters or whatever they're called in order to advance. You can kill monsters by either dropping apples on their heads, or throwing a ball at them. When you throw your ball, however, you can't throw it again until it either hits a monster, or you catch it again. Once per level, a monster with a letter will appear, either E, X, T, R or A. If you collect them all and spell extra, you instantly advance to the next level and earn an extra life.

At first glance this really does look like Dig Dug's ugly cousin. I mean, you dig through the ground, you kill bad guys, and... Drop things? Honestly, once you actually start getting into the game, you start to realize that this game resembles Pac-Man more than it does Dig Dug.

In Dig Dug, your goal is to kill the enemies, period. You have a reliable weapon that is useful for doing this. In Mr. Do, your ball is more of a last resort type weapon as when you use it, you don't always get it back. Most of the time you're trying to run from the bad guys, digging mazes that confuse them, and eating in order to advance to the next level. Sound familiar?

The game is polished fairly well. The concept, while bizarre, works to create a hybrid of several games that together create a very unique maze experience. It's like playing Pac-Man, except you create the maze rather than just navigating it. It adds another level to a very solid concept and the game is stronger for it. The music is catchy and the colors are bright without being obnoxious.

If I had to find a flaw, it would definitely be with the ball weapon. I know it's to make the game balanced so it's not just a Dig Dug clone, but when you're cornered the ball is nearly worthless. Also, I would have liked more variety in the level design. Changing colors just doesn't give me enough variation to want to keep playing. Maybe adding different features to each new level or new enemies would definitely make the game much better.

Overall, it's not bad. You really have to get past the whole Dig Dug thing and just appreciate it for what it is, no matter how weird it might be. Honestly, I say give it a shot and at the very least play a game that you might not have even heard about.

Up Next: Q*Bert

#0040 Moon Patrol

Alright! Today we look at another unique game on the list called Moon Patrol, a 1982 Run and gun Vehicular combat game developed by Irem. It's quite possibly the first of it's genre.

In this game you take the role of a Luna City police officer assigned to Sector Nine, the roughest toughest area of the moon. You control a moon buggy that travels over the moon's surface. Your goal is to make it to the end of each coarse while avoiding craters, UFOs and other obstacles along the way.

At first glance Moon Patrol looks fairly laid back. You're in a slow moving moon buggy jumping over or shooting through obstacles and shooting down UFOs. Just by reading the description and looking at screenshots, I almost thought it was a PC game. Maybe something along the lines of Choplifter. So when I saw that it was an arcade game, I was a little surprised. Due to the extremely competitive nature of arcades, most of the time arcade games need to be fast paced and action packed in order to keep pre-pubesent kids from getting bored and moving on to play Galaga for the forty millionth time. But believe me when I say that Moon Patrol is no slouch when it comes to shoot em up action. Sure, it might not be Centipede, but combine the SMUP style of classics like Galaga, with the side scrolling action of Scramble or Defender, and topped off with a driving sim that hasn't been seen on the list yet, and you have a recipe for a unique and refreshing take on conventional arcade games.

The graphics are decent, you can tell that pixel art is starting to become more complex as people are starting to realize what you can do with it. The colors aren't obnoxious like a lot of arcade games at the time were. Plus, to top it off, this game introduced Parallax scrolling to video games, a pretty big step forward in terms of graphical presentation. The controls are simple, just a joystick that controls your speed, and buttons for jumping, and shooting. I also really liked the setting for each stage. Each one seems to offer something a little different, just enough to make you look forward to seeing what comes next. Plus this game has a continue function which is starting to become more common in arcade games. Something that I really appreciate.

If I had to point out some flaws I would say that the music really isn't spectacular. It's just the same four or so bars played over and over again. I mean, that was excusable with games like Space Invaders, or even Donkey Kong as both complimented the atmosphere of their respective game and for the most part were a product of their time, but considering the fact that we've heard some really inventive music from arcade games recently, I think that repetitive music can now be considered a flaw.

Overall though, the game is solid, and was a lot of fun to play. I probably won't come back to it many times like I do with other games like Donkey Kong or Ms. Pacman, but I'm still glad I played it. If you're looking for a classic arcade shooter that's not like you're traditional SMUP, go pick up Robotron 2084. If you've already played Robotron 2084, go play it again and maybe play this one as well.

Next up: Mr. Do! (Is that a frickin' clown? Creepy.)