#0030 Frogger

I loved Frogger as a kid. I remember jumping and hopping trying to get across the street and then across the river to the other side. Then I remember moving on to the lily pad level where you had to ride logs to the various locations of your baby frogs while dodging things like dogs. Then the machinery zone where you have to ride gears and such. Then the cave zone where Frogger has to go skiing. I never got any further than that as a young ten year old, but the game always stuck in my mind as a classic. The music was fun, and the graphics were pretty good for a game released in 1997. Overall, I recommend giving it a shot, you might just get addicted like I did as a child.

Up next: Star Fox 64

Yeah okay, this isn't about the 1997 remake, but I really did enjoy that one as a kid. Today we're looking at the 1981 classic arcade game developed by Konami (and not Sega like I originally thought, but they did publish it).

In Frogger, you play as an enormous car sized frog that must cross a five lane road where for some reason every other lane is going a different direction. You must then cross a very crowded river full of logs and turtles. You do this by riding on the turtle's backs and riding the logs to the other side, because apparently this giant semi-aquatic amphibian can't swim I guess.

Technically, you should never die in this game. Frogger is one of the only games I've played where everything in the game doesn't even care about you. They just go about their business, hundreds of identical cars all commuting to wherever it is they're going. You only put yourself in danger by jumping in front of the cars, or jumping off a turtle at barely the wrong time. The only problem is that everything can kill you. In fact, this is probably the arcade game with the most ways to die, such as being hit by a car, jumping into the water, running into snakes, or otters (I think) or into an alligator's jaws, jumping into a home invaded by an alligator, staying on top of a turtle as it dives, riding a log, alligator or turtle off the side of the screen, jumping into a home already occupied by a frog, jumping into the side of a home or the bush, or by running out of time before getting a frog home. Whew. So yeah, Nothing actively tries to kill you because there's so many environmental hazards as it is.

So how is the game? Really fun. Like, I haven't played the '97 version in over a decade, and it still felt like coming home. The levels are just the right amount of difficult, hard enough to keep you putting in quarters, but not so hard that you get frustrated and move on to playing Pac-Man. The music is a lot of fun, and is the best music I've heard yet in a game, the graphics aren't great, but then again, Nintendo seems to be the only ones who know anything about pixel art at this point, plus it's Konami, so it's a huge step up from Scramble. Overall, anyone who hasn't tried this game really needs to, you can try the original arcade, or you can find the '97 remake, to me, both are just as good, but personally I think the original arcade game is better, if only because of the legacy it left behind.

Up Next: Gorf

#0029 Ms. Pac-Man

Here's something you might not have known. Ms. Pac-Man is not just Pac-Man wearing drag. It's true! Not only do you see them both on the same screen during the intermissions, but there's actual gameplay differences between the two. Am I the only one who didn't know that? Yes? Okay. On to the review.

It may interest you to know that Ms. Pac-Man was not a Namco production in any way. Rather, in 1980, there was a small company called the General Computer Company. Today they make printers, but back in 1980, they found themselves making mod kits for arcade games. Which in and of it's self isn't so bad, there's lots of mod kits out today for games like Half-Life2, but it became a bit of an issue when they decided to sell their mods as separate games, which is a no-no. They got in trouble from Atari when they were sued over their game Super Missile Attack, a mod of Missile Command. They settled out of court, and part of the settlement terms barred GCC from selling future conversion kits without consent from the original game manufacturer.

After that whole fiasco, rather than scrapping a game that was to be a Pac-Man mod called Crazy Otto, they decided to show it to Midway, Namco's distributor in the United States. Midway was already impatient in waiting for Namco to release it's next Pac-Man game (Super Pac-Man, which isn't on the list) and saw this as a good opportunity to act as something to hold over the fans until Super Pac-Man arrived. They bought the rights to the game and changed the sprites to fit the Pac-Man universe and renamed it Ms. Pac-Man since Pac-Man was the first game to have a largely female player base, this was their way of thanking all the ladies who enjoyed it. It was released in Arcades in late 1981.

When the game made it big, Midway and GCC had a brief legal battle over royalties. But this all ended when Namco got wind of the game all the way over in Japan. Turns out the game was made without Namco's consent, meaning that both the companies had to turn the rights of Ms. Pac-Man over to Namco. Unfortunately, this was only the first in a series of unauthorized sequels and Namco and Midway eventually went their separate ways To this day, there is no mention of Ms. Pac-Man in Namco's official archives.

So that was some fun history wasn't it? The gameplay is nearly identical to the original, you earn points by eating pellets and avoiding ghosts. Eating a power pellet causes the ghosts to turn blue allowing them to be eaten for extra points. You complete the level when all the pellets are consumed. So what makes this game different from the first one? Like I said before, this isn't just a Pac-Man reskin, it's actually a different game.

Visually, the game now has different mazes. Four different mazes to be precise, each are a different color rather than the standard blue. Three of these four mazes actually have two warp tunnels, as opposed to only one in the original game. The spaces have also been filled in, making it a little easier to immediately see where the boundaries are.

Mechanics wise, the ghosts behavioral patterns are different, including semi-random movement, rather than predictable algorithmic movement. Meaning that you actually have to be good at this game and you can't just follow a pattern. Instead of the fruit appearing in the center of the maze, the fruit bounces in through one of the warp tunnels, and bounces around the screen and eventually leaves through another warp tunnel. Other than that, some animations are a little different, the music has been changed entirely.

So how is the game? Honestly? I think it's superior to Pac-Man in every way. The level designs are progressive, and don't get old nearly as fast as the original Pac-Man maze, the music is vastly superior, and the new ghost mechanics means that you don't always know what they're going to do, which keeps you on your toes and really brings that good tension up when they're close to cornering you. Overall, there's a reason it was number 10 on Game Informer's lit of top 200 games of all time. It's a really fun game, one of those timeless games that you can keep coming back to over and over again. One of my favorite arcade games of all time. Also it helps that Ms. Pac-Man was the very first female playable character in arcade game history. Something that's still an issue today as females continually fail to have good honest representation in the video game industry.

Next Up: Frogger

#0028 Venture

I have to admit, when I saw my first screen shot of Venture, my first thought was, “oh look, a nice relaxing adventure game on the 2600?” Not only is it not a 2600 game (graphics are way to good if you can believe that), or even a computer game. This is an arcade game made by Exity, the genius' behind such amazing games such as “Football”, and “Circus”. And this isn't a slow dungeon crawler either. There's a reason it's an arcade game and not a computer game. Here, see for yourself.

In this game you play as Winky. That's right, THE Winky. We have another character to add to the growing list of timeless video game icons, first Pac-Man, then Mario and Donkey Kong, now Winky. Your goal is to collect as much treasure as you can. You're equipped with the slowest bow and arrow ever conceived, and you must roam a dungeon with rooms and hallways. The hallways are plagued by the aliens from Space Invaders it seems and cannot be killed, injured, or stopped in any way. Once you're in a room, you must avoid the monsters including slimes, skeletons and even sperm (No joke, check out 1:14, I think they're supposed to be snakes, but you an I both know better). You can kill the monsters, in theory, but that's a lot easier said than done, you're mostly better off avoiding them anyway, as their corpses are poisonous I guess. Just a single touch of a monster's corpse will kill you. If you stay too long in a room, however, the hall monitors will phaze through the walls and try to kill you, so you can't joke around, you have to get your treasure and get the fuck out! That's really all there is too it. When you complete all four rooms in the dungeon, you'll move on to the next level.

Question is, however, is the game good? Yeah. For all my bitching and moaning I have to say I enjoyed it. If only because of the faster pace than most dungeon crawlers, and the surprisingly good music. Yeah, this isn't the first game to have back ground music, but this is probably the best so far. Even better than Donkey Kong because let's face it, as much as I love Donkey Kong, and I loved having back ground music that wasn't just a heartbeat, it was only five or so notes repeated over and over again. So yeah, it was good. It wasn't a classic like some of the others I played, but it was still enjoyable.

Next up: Ms. Pac-Man

#0027 Stargate

Alright, today we look at Stargate, a 1981 side shooter developed by Vid Kidz, Published by Williams, and designed by Pinball fame Eugene Jarvis. It's a sequel to the immensely popular Defender.

Ah Williams, I remember they used to come up with some classic arcade games. Such amazing games like Defender, Stargate, Joust, Sinistar and... Um... Joust 2? Okay so they were'nt the biggest arcade developer, but they did know how to make them. In an earlier review, I said Defender was okay, ahead of it's time but still a little sloppy. And as far as sequals go, this game is much better.

Just like in Defender, you play as a cool looking space ship, your goal is to defend planet earth from alien forces. And if people thought Defender was complicated, then you should see Stargate.

See, Most arcade games at the time had maybe two directional buttons and a fire button like Galaga, or a joystick and a jump button like Donkey Kong, or even just a joystick like Pac-Man. But Stargate had two directional buttons, a fire button, a thrust button, a smart bomb button, a reverse button, a invisibility button, and a hyperspace button. Yeah, I grew up with complicated 8 button plus D-Pad controllers and I was still feeling overwhelmed. Not only that, but there were fifteen varieties of enemies that could attack you, and every one had a distinct appearance and behavior patterns. The mini-map also made a comeback, which really comes in handy when you got like 45 mutants trying to chase you down. Basically, this game has a lot going on. It's no wonder this game had a reputation for having a very steep learning curve.

So how does the game hold up? Pretty good! I'm enjoying this “trend” of doing something other than a Space Invaders clone. The game came out four years ago guys. Get over it. The graphics are incredible, probably some of the best I've seen so far on this list. The color range they're able to achieve seems to be beyond even what the NES could be capable of. In fact, looking at the NES port, this game DOES have wider color range as both the title screen and the laser blasts don't have that cool rainbow effect. I'm not sure how they did it, but it sure is damn impressive. The learning curve is steep, but it just makes it even that much more impressive to watch a truly skilled player play the game. The variety of enemies and your methods of killing them keep things interesting and different each time you play. Overall, I liked it. I'm not sure why this game isn't as well known as it's predecessor as this game is truly superior. Basically, if you like Defender, you're gonna love Stargate.

Oh, and this was the first game where I was able to enter my full name! Not just my initials.

All that's missing is the hyphen

Next up: Venture

#0026 Scramble

Alright, today we're looking at Scramble, a 1981 Side-scrolling shoot 'em up developed by newcomers Konami.

This game marks the first true side-scrolling shoot 'em up! See, while Defender might have had the side view aesthetic, it has little in common with the side-scrolling shoot 'em up of today. Scramble on the other hand uses forced scrolling and has multiple distinct levels, things that side shooters still use to this very day.

In this game, you play as the Planet Express ship and your goal is to make it through five different levels to bomb an enemy “base” at the end. You must dodge landscape obstacles which range from mountains to buildings, while avoiding and/or destroying enemies, all while making sure your rapidly depleting fuel supply doesn't drop to zero. You can refuel your ship by bombing or shooting fuel tanks that are scattered throughout every level. If you successfully make it to the enemy “base” and destroy it you're rewarded with text congratulating you on your accomplishment, then starting over from level one with slightly increased difficulty.

This game is... Not that great. I have to be honest here, I didn't care for it much. The controls are okay, we finally have rapid firing. It only took what, four years now? But the bombs are atrocious! They don't just drop straight down, nor do they follow the inertia of your ship, they kind of shoot our ahead of you then kinda fall at a weird angle that is near impossible to aim with. Now, this wouldn't be so bad if it were a standard shooter and you didn't have to worry about fuel, but the problem is that your fuel depletes at such a rapid rate that there's no way to complete the level without hitting at least a few fuel canisters, and the only way to hit most of them is to bomb them from above, but the aiming with the bombs is so wonky that my accuracy was maybe 1/10. And that's if I was lucky. Why was this mechanic necessary? Did they think the game was too easy? I understand that arcade games need to have the right balance of challenge vs. reward, but the game was hard enough with the random rockets launching up at you, you didn't need a depleting fuel supply as well. If I were actually paying for this with my own quarters, I honestly would have given up on it after the second or thrived try to go play Donkey Kong, and that's never a good sign. Speaking of Rockets, Those things are more annoying than the Qix was, and that's hard to do. There was never any pattern with them. Sometimes they launched in front of you so you could blow them up, or hit them if you failed, but then other times they didn't launch until after you pass over them, and sometimes they didn't even launch at all! There were times that I would be forced to fly extremely close to the rockets only to have one launch up at me before I could even move out of the way! And if that weren't enough, the sounds are below par, the graphics are sloppy and uninventive, and the colors are just nauseating, especially when you die. I actually got a headache from the flashing neon colors. I'm surprised nobody got a seizure off this, it's that bad. Here, here's some gameplay footage of me failing at this game. You'll see what I mean.

Overall, I didn't like it, but I can say that this game does have a legacy, I mean, it IS something different. While it's still a space shooter, they weren't content with just making another space invaders clone, they made something unique and distinct. And while the game itself falls flat, I have high respect for Konami for attempting something new, and without this game, side-scrolling shooters may have never gotten off the ground, which means games like Gradius or R-Type would not exist today. So while I can't recommend it, and I'll even go as far as to say that you should skip this game, I still have to respect it for attempting something different, that took guts, and I admire that.

Up next: Stargate

#0025 Qix

Okay, today we're looking at Qix (is it pronounceed Quix? Or maybe Kix?) a fun little puzzle, or maybe action game, I don't know, it's genre is classified as “Qix”, so take that as you will. The game was developed by by Space Invaders fame Taito.

Okay, so before I describe this game to you, everyone should go play this, just so you can know what I'm actually talking about. Don't worry, I'm still going to describe the game, but this game is so different from anything that has come before or after it, it's best just to play it for yourself so that you can actually see what I'm talking about. You can play a fairly accurate flash version here.

Okay, did everyone play this game? No, Just me? Alright, I'll try and explain it, but be prepared to get confused.

In this game you play as a small diamond who transverses outer edge of the screen. Your goal is to “claim” at least 75% of the playing field. At the start of the game, the entire playing field is a large empty rectangle containing the Qix, a Windows 98 screens saver that makes beautiful, graceful, delicate, smooth rage inducing sweeps across the screen within the confines of the active playing field. You must claim as much area of the screen as possible by drawing lines that divide said playing field. Whenever you complete a closed shape, the captured area (whichever side does not contain the Qix) becomes solid. You must capture at least 75% of the playing field to move on to the next level. If the Qix touches an incomplete line, you lose a life. If you get touched by a “spark” which are small enemies that transverse the outer edge of the active playing field you lose a life. If you stop in the middle of making a line a “fuse” starts to chase you up your incomplete line. If the fuse touches you, earn 1,000,000 points and are rewarded a crown for being the greatest gamer of all time. No I'm kidding, you lose a life.

This game... Is probably one of the most frustrating games I have played since Lunar Lander. The sounds are kind of creepy, the graphics and colors are functional, and easy on the eyes, but still very rudimentary, the Qix would be cool looking if it wasn't out for my blood. The game is all about strategy and waiting for just the right moment to try and make your weird looking box thing but you can't take your time and plan your strategy because you're constantly being hunted by the hotheads from Super Mario World. Every time I try to divide the screen by any significant amount, just as I'm a millimeter away from the edge to complete the shape the Qix will immediately leave it's tiny little corner it stayed for most of the game and shoot over to my beautiful incomplete line as if I were doing some sort of geometric mating dance. The Qix then laughed at me saying, “What, you didn't think it would be that easy did you”. Effectively killing my dreams. This game is frustrating, and unfair, and sadistic, and made me want to throw my keyboard off a 30 story building and I can't stop playing it.

Yes, for all the flack I've given it, I can't deny that it is actually really addicting and honestly a different experience from anything I've ever played before. And in an age (80's) where 60% of the market is flooded with Space Invaders clones. Anything different, no matter how frustrating is refreshing. I'll even go as far as to call it fun as long as you're a masochist, because while yes, the game is hard, and irritating, finally imprisoning that stupid vector that humiliated you so many times is very rewarding. The game is nearly impossible to describe to anyone who has not played it, and I'm actually curious as to how this was pitched to the producers back then,

“This game is about drawing lines, you have to draw lines across the screen while not getting hit by other lines before your line can be drawn.”

“Does it have explosions?”

“When you die you turn into little ripples across the screen”

“Does it take place in Space?”

“It doesn't have any setting”

“Does it have cute chiptunes?”

“It has creepy ultra low bass vibrations.”

“Is it about killing aliens?”

“it's about math”

“Sounds like a hit, put it into production immediately, I want this in arcades before summer break starts.”

While it doesn't sound like a classic on paper, and I can't recommend it for purchase, I at feel that you should go play it if only because it's unlike anything you've ever played before. And that's not something that happens very often in the video game industry.

Oh, and this marks the 25^th game I've played from the list! Only 976 to go!

Up Next: Scramble

#0024 Donkey Kong

In 1981, a small toy company out of Japan was having a hard time breaking into the gaming industry. They had some small success by releasing home Pong clones, small LCD portable gaming devices, and even a few arcade games such as 1979's Space Fever or Radar Scope. All of which had limited, or no success. The president at the time realized that video games were the future, and that if he wanted his little company to go anywhere, he would have to get in on a piece of this action. So he asked one of his industrial designers if he could create a new game to replace those unsold Radar Scope cabinets. He said he could, and what followed was the beginning of a new era for that small toy company, and almost overnight, new characters were created, a genre was born and this small toy company would one day go down as one of the greatest video game companies of all time. That company, was Nintendo. That industrial designer was Shigeru Miyamoto. And the game, was Donkey Kong.

So yeah, Radar Scope, the game that came before this, was a total failure. So much so that Hiroshi Yamauchi, the ever ruthless business man saw that if Nintendo was to succeed, it need something that stood out. They were actually trying to secure the rights to Popeye, but it never really went through, and they took this opportunity to create new a new Intellectual Property. While Miyamoto had several ideas for games, he settled on a game about a Gorilla/Carpenter/Girlfriend love triangle to make it easier to convert from the Popeye game. Bluto became Donkey Kong, Popeye became Jumpman, and Olive Oyl became Pauline. Yamauchi insisted on an American name since most business at the time was still in America. Miyamoto wanted a cool American name for his game, he decided to name it after the gorilla character, since he felt that this character was the strongest. He basically looked in his Japanese to English dictionary for something that would mean “stubborn gorilla” so he named it “Donkey Kong”. The tiny office of Nintendo of America at the time thought that this game would be a disaster and would ultimately spell out their unemployment, but despite their pessimism, the game was an instant success. It invented a genre, marked the introduction of two of the most famous video game characters, and put Nintendo on the map as a video game company.

After the game was released, Universal Pictures decided they wanted a piece of this Donkey Kong pie that was sweeping the nation. They claimed that Donkey Kong was a trademark infringement of King Kong, the plot and characters of which Universal claimed for their own. But that... Wasn't entirely true. See, back in 1975 when they were going to do a remake of the movie, Universal argued that RKO no longer held the rights to King Kong because it was made in 1933 and was in the Public Domain (but if that was the case, wouldn't it be okay to play on YouTube without issue?). They won that case on those grounds and then had the BALLS to come to Nintendo and tell them to fork up some money over rights they never owned in the first place. This wasn't the Nintendo we know today. Back in 1981 it was little more than a couple of offices and a tiny American headquarters. Most businesses that small would have cowered in fear of being sued by such a huge corporation such as Universal, but Yamauchi, refused to back down and took the case like a samurai took to battle. A man by the name of John Kirby (coincidence?) represented Nintendo at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Kirby argued the differences between Donkey Kong and King Kong. He also argued that Universal had no rights to the film as they had successfully sued RKO Pictures in 1975 where they proved that the name and plot to King Kong was in public domain. The court ruled that Universal had no rights to the name and even if they did, that Donkey Kong was a parody of King Kong at worst. And to this day Nintendo holds exclusive rights to Donkey Kong.

Whew! That was quite a history there. But, being Nintendo, I thought the game deserved the justice. So, after two pages of history, just what is this legendary game about anyway? In Donkey Kong you play as a carpenter named Jumpman (later Mario), who owned a pet gorilla named Donkey Kong. But Jumpman was a real asshole and mistreated poor Donkey. The ape escaped and stole Jumpman's girlfriend Pauline. Your goal is to rescue the girl from Donkey Kong while avoiding barrels, fireballs, pies, weird springs, basically, nearly everything in this game besides umbrellas and purses are trying to kill you. You must clime each structure to reach Pauline at the top.

Nintendo, even back in 1981 was being innovative to the gaming industry. This was the first arcade game to have a real story that unfolded onscreen. Yeah, you know that thing that nearly EVERY game has now? Yeah, that started with Donkey Kong (as far as arcade games go at least). Donkey Kong was also one of the first games to feature the joystick on the LEFT side and the jump button being on the right. I remember looking through an old arcade magazine from the early 80's and they actually sited this as the games only flaw when reviewing it. It was also the first platformer, and one of the first to have real music that played throughout the game and not just at the title screen, it was the first game to have different levels that were visually and distinctly unique. Basically, this game was YEARS ahead of it's time, and one of the most influential games of all time.

So how does such a legendary game hold up after 33 years? Maybe this is the nostalgia talking. From spending hours in Frantic Factory trying to get the Golden Banana from the Donkey Kong arcade game, but I love this game. I mean, I love playing new games that I'd never even heard of, but it's nice once in a while to play a familiar game. It was like a breath of fresh air to play something so nostalgic. And the game was just as good as I had remembered it. The controls are simple, yet effective, the levels are creative and colorful, the characters are fun and lively. Overall, it's really fun and playing all the way to the end, no matter how hard it is, is a very rewarding experience.

I've been rambling on for four pages now and I still haven't covered everything this game has done. I honestly recommend playing it for yourself if you can find it, you will not be disappointed. And welcome to the video game industry Nintendo. I'll look forward to seeing you in the future.

Next up: Qix