30 Years, 30 Games: Day 30!

[o2william]

On May 26, 2005 -- 30 days from now counting today -- I turn 30 years old. Me. Thirty. Not old by any stretch, but not young anymore, not really. It's the kind of age that makes you realize that your early youth is a little further away than you think it is, which in turn makes you all the more nostalgic for it. For me, memories of youth are inextricably linked to memories of games, so I thought it might be a fun project -- and a bit of a challenge -- to list 30 games that have had some kind of a special impact on my life and share them with the forum one day at a time, culminating on my 30th birthday. These aren't necessarily my favorite games, but each one of them has affected me in one way or another.

This isn't exactly a countdown, although the "most important" games will appear near the end, rather it's an excuse for me to reminisce about some games that have meant something to me and share some (I hope) interesting stories about them. Keep your eye on this thread for a new game and a new tale every day for the next 30 days. And just so you don't get the impression I'm misusing the board for my own evil nostalgic ends (or just to earn extra Meseta), I wanted to note that this thread was okayed by Joe and the DP powers from on high. I hope you don't think it's too self-indulgent, but hey, you only turn 30 once.

If anything you read here rings true with your own experiences, feel free to chime in with stories of your own. One thing I've learned over my 30 years is that most games are more fun with multiple players. :)

[o2william]

Day 1: Defender

http://64.159.77.51/~helmet/o2william/defender.gif

I wanted to kick off this list with a game everybody would recognize, and what game could be more recognizable than Defender? I'm sure everybody on this board has played it at least once. For me, Defender represents a rite of passage -- a childhood terror that, once faced, proves your successful entrance into adulthood. It is, after all, a game that separates the men from the boys.

I was introduced to Defender in a laundromat down the street from my earliest childhood home. Like many gamers seeing Defender for the first time, I was intimidated. The control panel contained approximately 6,000 buttons and the screen was crowded with too much information for my 6-year-old brain to fully process. Nevertheless, I played the game anyway -- and was crushed. I didn't know what I was doing, I couldn't get the ship to fly right (I didn't understand the use of the Thrust and Reverse buttons), and my score was laughably close to 0. I wasted a few quarters on the machine before finally deciding it was a game for grown-ups and giving up on it. Still, the image of that yellow, red and black cabinet always stuck with me and to this day, whenever I hear the words "video games," the first thing I picture in my head is the Defender marquee.

In subsequent years, I began playing a fairly faithful PC port of the game and finally began to get the hang of the controls. Soon I wasn't scared of the game anymore, although I still hadn't logged much time in on an actual machine. That changed during my year-long stint at a company that had an actual working Defender machine in the lobby. On breaks and after work I'd practice playing it, and finally got to the point where I could break 100,000 every game, 200,000 when I played well. By no means had I become a Defender expert, but I was at least competent at the game -- something beyond the wildest fantasies of my six-year-old self. Yeah, it's corny, but in a way, I felt like I'd finally grown up.

If you've got any Defender or videogame-growth stories, I'd love to hear 'em!

[Hep038]

I am 31 and can say my experience was similar to yours. There was a local arcade that I would go to every other weekend. And they had a Defender game there. I was never any good at the game but it was so loud you could not help but hear it through the whole arcade. Well to a young kid this was irresistible. Every week it would get at least 1$ of my quarters. If I saw that machine today it would probley annoy the hell out of me. LOL

[Nature Boy]

I have a Defender story for ya - but it's a VCS Defender story :)

It was released for the VCS back in 81 so I was 10ish. We had a VCS in the first place because my dad enjoyed video games. What he didn't enjoy, though, was losing to his 10 year old kid all the time.

That Christmas I had asked Santa for Defender. What dad did was this: went out and bought the game in October/November, opened it, and practiced. And practiced. And practiced. When a snot nosed 10 year old opened it up on Xmas and started playing, well, needless to say he was stunned that his dad was just amazing.

I didn't find any of this out 'till years later. And yes, I plan on pulling the same prank on my own son some say :)

One other item: as someone in his mid 30s let me put your mind at ease: 40 is gonna make us feel like we were young in our 30s - at least that's what the 40 year olds keep telling me :D

[Zombiezilla]

I loved Defender, but never became any better at it than I was when I first played it. I think it was the sounds that I mostly fell in love with, and how smooth it all moved.

When I found out about MAME, it was among the first that I searched out. I still can't play it worth a damn, but I still love it just the same.

In my "defense" though, there aren't many games I can play "worth a damn", and pretty much suck at them all. LOL

[Ed Oscuro]

My experience is pretty much the reverse of everybody else here - I got into classic gaming through my family's first Windows 95 PC. I picked up a CD-ROM called "Game Empire." Oh, the BACK advertised it had DOOM, but instead it had lots of shareware games.

I can think of two ports or "revs" of Defender on the disc. The first was the Spectrum-like, three-color game Jumpjet, which was a good bit of fun by itself - Defender with missile/bombs, big enemy planes to take out, and a rapid-fire gun on the front (just hold fire).

Yet that was still pretty far off. Also on the disc is a *real* Defender clone - same black background and neon colors, but so many more of them. I should look this one up again sometime - it works very well compared to the original.

Of course, these are just two Defender clones, and I'm sure there's dozens of carbon copies closer than Jumpjet ever was; the gameplay mechanics and asthetics are immediately recognizable. I'd say Defender was one first really good looking titles around.

[Sothy]

I remember thinking that warping in defender actually took me to the next level ehehe. Thinking i was at like level 90 and stuff. ehh I was dumb as a kid.

[boatofcar]

To me, Defender represents the first "hard" video game. Most of the early arcade games had a pretty gracious learning curve--who couldn't make it past the first maze of Pac-Man or the first wave of Space Invaders? Defender just threw you into the fire as far as difficulty went. Most of my games were (and still are) measured in minutes surviving, not by score.

[NoahsMyBro]

What a game to lead off with! I think this will be a tough one to top over the next month.

I was probably 12 the first time I saw Defender. It looked and sounded so unbelievably cool I had to try it. I then saw the control panel, and decided "there's no way anybody could possibly play that". Hell, I probably said it out loud.

I then saw someone, probably in his latge teens or early 20's, play the game, and do well. I decided if he could do it, I could do it, and tried the game out. I sucked, but was pretty quickly hooked. I eventually got pretty good at the game, and it became one of my all-time favorites.

There was a Defender in the 7-11 near my house, and for a while I would bike there every chance I could and sink whatever quarters I could scrounge up into that machine.

After I'd gotten good at the game, I remember going to a Mexican all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant with my younger brother, Mom, and stepDad one evening. (For the few of you in the New Orleans/Metairie area, it was Pancho's.) At any rate, this restaurant usually had a handful of arcade machines in the front of the restaurant - video games, love testers, etc... Well, this one particular night they had a Defender - I was very excited and had a difficult time sitting still at the table and eating dinner with the family. After eating (probably very quickly), I somehow managed to get my Mom to let my brother & I leave the table and go hang out by the videogames until she and my Stepdad had finished eating.

Now, I'm guessing at this point I was probably 13 or 14. I was pretty good at the game, but not great. And I only had maybe $1 on me.

What added to the cool factor was a quirk I found in the machine. I don't understand how this could happen, and I don't recall how I discovered it, but this particular machine had some freak defect, such that if I socked the coin mechanism door in exactly the right place, during a specific screen of the demo, a bunch of credits would be added to the game. So I got the game up to maybe 20 credits or so, and then began playing a marathon game.

Well, to the little kids all around me as I played the game, I was a true sensation. A small crowd of awe-struck younger kids formed around me.

At some point I had to leave, and left my game-in-progress, with several spare ships, to one of the kids watching me play. It was a great, and obviously memorable, night.

[lurpak]

Defender would have been one of my memories too, there was a old pie shop in the late seventies, early eighties that I remember (though I beleive it was around since the 40s) called the Rainbow cafe, in warrington and it was owned by two old dears, as you walked in there was a defender machine on your immeadiate left. 10p for 2 credits, so us kids who were sometimes kicked out of the "american pool center" arcade across the road would go in there to feed our gaming adiction and our bellies. we always ordered a meat & potato pie, and sat on a tall circular stool to play defender.

Anyways, a couple of years pass and one of the old dears dies, and I got older (old enough not to get kicked out of the arcades), but one day when coming home from town I decide to pop in for a pie, and its only then I realise that the old guy serving has a really wrinky kneck just below a matted mop of brylcreme flattened hair, so wrinkly that flakes of skin dropped before my eyes onto the counter...

I never ate there again. about a year after that the place closed, I suspect he died too.

[o2william]

Day 2: Private Eye

http://www.digitpress.com/dpsightz/atari2600/privateeye.gif

(Readers of Retrogaming Times (http://www.tomheroes.com/Video%20Games%20FS/Retrotimes/retrogam.htm) may recognize this story from Issue 24. I apologize for repeating myself.)

A goofy game involving a private dick and his bouncy car, Private Eye is one of the obscurer Activision releases for the Atari 2600 (R4 in the DP Guide). It has the pleasing look and feel of many Activision games, but it isn’t a particularly fun one -- a momentary diversion at best. But it holds a special place in my game collection because of all the times I got rid of it.

My first Private Eye cart turned up in my second-ever purchase as a classic game collector, a monster acquisition that consisted of 100+ 2600 carts, a GameLine 2600 modem, and a shrinkwrapped Odyssey2 Atlantis -- all for $60 (those were the days!). I kept it until I came across somebody online who wanted to trade his unused O2 Quest for the Rings set, which I needed. I rarely trade games if I don’t have a duplicate, but he really wanted Private Eye and I really wanted QFTR, so away Private Eye went.

Much later, I placed an order for some O2 games from a classic gaming vendor. As per his instructions, I gave him a list of alternate titles he could send if the O2 games became unavailable. After weeks of waiting, a package arrived containing my alternates, which included Private Eye.

As it happened, I was bidding in a Usenet auction that was closing the very day the package arrived. I was after yet another O2 Master Strategy set: The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt. Cash bids had been bypassed by this point; people were bidding with tradebait, and I had nothing left. So I offered Private Eye, won the lot, and once again traded away Private Eye for an O2 Master Strategy set. Destiny? You make the call.

It took years before I obtained Private Eye again in an eBay auction. I don’t think it’s going anywhere this time. After all, I now have all the Master Strategy sets. Besides, I feel Private Eye needs to be in my collection now; I think it has earned its place.

So, game collectors: any special games like Private Eye in your collections?

[Neil Koch]

I played that game briefly. I didn't have any instructions, so honestly, I didn't know what the hell was going on. Seemed like a pretty amibitious title for the 2600 though.

[YoshiM]

So, game collectors: any special games like Private Eye in your collections?

Not games, but game systems. I think I've owned a Genesis system and then sold it about four times. The first time was my first personally-purchased system. I needed cash and felt that I wasn't playing the system all that much (along with the model 1 Sega CD I also had). Sold the works for $200 (I think).

Then I saw a CDX unit and I got the urge to play Sewer Shark again. Paid $200 brand new for the unit. I found out the unit is prone to overheating so like a couple years later I sell it for $50 (I know, it's worth something more now). But I soon bought a regular Genesis from Funcoland as a replacement. After amassing another decent sized collection, I sold it off again as it never got played and I was running out of room in my trailer. Had some good titles too. Swore myself off of the Genesis as I hardly played it.

Then one day I ran into a Model 2 with a 32X. For some sick, twisted reason I bought it. Later I then buy an original Model 1 so I can play Populous. Then I buy another Model 1 (with the security chip) so I can get the games bundled with it. So now I have three Genesis systems.

Moral of the story: if you even *think* you'll want to play the system again, don't ever sell it. Or my wife will laugh at you when you buy the system again.

Runners up: TG-16 (3 times) and the Sega CD (3 times-if you count the CDX).

[s1lence]

Zelda - A link to the past for snes is my private eye. I think I sold and have purchased that game a dozen times. Now I have two copies and though it is a common game, I'm not going to part with them.

[o2william]

Day 3: Arkanoid

http://64.159.77.51/~helmet/o2william/arkanoid.gif


Arkanoid is a game where a ball bounces up and down, over and over again. How fitting that my relationship with it is also marked by pronounced highs and lows.

We met at Giovanni’s Pizza, a long-gone hometown pizza parlor where I had a lot of my first arcade experiences. Bright, colorful graphics, snazzy spinner control -- it wasn’t hard to hook me. That was a high point. I loved the game, and longed for a home port. Trouble was, I had an Odyssey2 and an Atari 2600, and even then I suspected that neither console could handle the game. I figured a home version would never appear, and once the cabinet was gone from Giovanni’s I’d never play Arkanoid again. Low point.

Years later, I had a NES and a Nintendo Fun Club News subscription. And there’s a Taito ad featuring Arkanoid! High point. I buy the game, which turns out to be a great port that comes with its own super cool paddle control. Double high point! For a while there, Arkanoid was great. My parents even got into it, and we’d spend evenings passing the paddle around, seeing who could reach the highest level. Until the paddle broke, which was a very low point indeed. My mother repaired it, but then it broke again, so she’d repair it again, and then it would break again, and on and on. Its state of operability went up and down like the on-screen ball. Eventually it broke for good.

But you don’t need a paddle to play NES Arkanoid, so I still played it sometimes. Then, I discovered the continue code which let you keep playing even after losing the game. Now you might think this is a good thing, but it’s not. See, before the code, Arkanoid was a game I’d play for a few pleasant rounds until I lost. Beating it was not even a remote consideration. But with the continue code, it became an obsession. And with 36 rounds of tough play, it’s not easy. Once, after getting to round 30 or so and then failing to input the continue code correctly and losing all my progress, I took the cart out and threw it against the wall (the only time I’ve ever done that). It didn’t break, although I nearly did. It was months before I could play it again.

I did return to the game and beat it eventually, and now we’re back on an even keel. But it’s been a rocky road. How about you? Any love/hate game relationships in your life?

[Jibbajaba]

Well I don't have an overly interesting or extravagant story to go along wwith Arkanoid, but it does hold a special place in my heart. Back in the day when I had an 8088 XT computer, I saved my money and bought an SVGA monitor and accompanying card. Arkanoid (MS-DOS version, obviously) was the first VGA-compatible game that I had on my computer, and I was dazzled my the color graphics that my new monitor could display (I previously had a monochrome (green) monitor). I played this game quite a bit.

Still have it on my DOS box, too.

Chris

[o2william]

Well I don't have an overly interesting or extravagant story to go along wwith Arkanoid
Well, it doesn't have to be about Arkanoid specifically; any story where you have a love/hate relationship with a game would fit my theme.

That's cool that you kept the old copy of Arkanoid for your DOS box. Was it an official port? I remember playing some weird PC clone of the game called "Bananoid" where the power-ups were bananas IIRC... something tells me it wasn't sanctioned by Taito. :) That was before I got the NES version.

[Sotenga]

I just... I just suck at Arkanoid. There are games that I can always kick ass at, and there are games that I can do alright at. Scarcely are there games that I absolutely balls-out suck at. They do exist. Arkanoid is one such game. Paddle or no paddle, the freaking ball goes too fast for me. Even with all the power-ups, my standard mark of losing is stage 3. Those f@#$ing gold walls... I... :( :( :(

I'll never be good at Arkanoid, not in millions and eons of years. Oh, sure, I like it. I like it a lot. It's just... absolute pain every time I play it.

... but wait, what's this? I was told that the Continue code didn't work past stage 17! Looks like it can be beaten after all. Kudos to William for informing me of a fact that I should have freaking known by now! :embarrassed:

Also, kudos to eventually kicking Doh's ass. Your reaction to failing to input the continue code correctly almost sounds like the time I lost my mind when playing Breakdown. The limits of a gamer are tested each and every day.

[Jibbajaba]

Well I don't have an overly interesting or extravagant story to go along wwith Arkanoid
Well, it doesn't have to be about Arkanoid specifically; any story where you have a love/hate relationship with a game would fit my theme.

That's cool that you kept the old copy of Arkanoid for your DOS box. Was it an official port? I remember playing some weird PC clone of the game called "Bananoid" where the power-ups were bananas IIRC... something tells me it wasn't sanctioned by Taito. :) That was before I got the NES version.

Yeah it was an official release. Taito Arcade Clasics or something like that. Think it was ACTUALLY Revenge of Doh. Same chick, different panties.

Love-Hate? Sonic the Hedgehog. One of my favorite games of all time, and one with the most nostalgic value for me. I love everything about this game, EXCEPT for the damned level where you have to jump up that looooong it at the end while the water level is rising beneath you. I have NEVER been able to beat this part of the game, and thus I have never actually beaten the game. Only used a cheat code to bypass this part entirely and continue on to beat Dr. Robotnik.

Chris

[Ed Oscuro]

Back in the day when I had an 8088 XT computer, I saved my money and bought an SVGA monitor and accompanying card. Arkanoid (MS-DOS version, obviously) was the first VGA-compatible game that I had on my computer, and I was dazzled my the color graphics that my new monitor could display (I previously had a monochrome (green) monitor). I played this game quite a bit.
Aye. Doh it Again was awesome as well - I think it looked quite a bit better. Definitely worth tracking down, that one.

As for me...well, as with my last story, there was a very good remake on that CD. Played the heck outta it for a while. Playing Arkanoid with a mouse is the way to go!

[vintagegamecrazy]

Arkanoid was first enjoyed by me on the SNES and I overplayed it so much that I can't stand it anymore at all. I can on occasion go back to the nes version and play it for a few rounds til' I die and check out something else. I can enjoy it now at least.

[o2william]

Day 4: Yacht

http://64.159.77.51/~helmet/o2william/yacht.jpg

In my gaming life, I've played technically advanced games that boasted the latest in animation and sound, RPGs with deep and immersive plotlines, action games that got my adrenaline surging, and puzzle games that demanded superhuman focus and concentration. So why is it that I was once so obsessed with a stupid little windows 3.11 version of Yahtzee? Yes, Yahtzee, the classic board game that involves throwing five dice and earning scores based on the sequences that come up. Yacht was called Yacht presumably because the author didn't have the rights to the trademarked name "Yahtzee," but it was obviously the same game. However, there was one big difference. In both games, you get big points for throwing a Yahct/Yahtzee (that's when all five dice come up with the same number). In Yahtzee, you get big bonuses if you throw another Yahtzee. This means that your potential score in Yahtzee is unlimited -- if by some miracle you kept throwing Yahtzees, your score would keep going up. In Yacht, you don't get the additional bonuses, which means there's a limit to how much you can score. That means there's such a thing as a "perfect" Yacht game. And that was my undoing.

For whatever reason, I became obsessed with reaching that perfect Yacht score -- I think it was 300. What a ridiculous goal! See, like all dice games, Yacht was primarily a game of random chance. Choosing the best way to score each throw involves a little skill, but getting a perfect score requires the dice to come up exactly how you want them nearly every time. The odds have got to be astronomical, and there's very little you can do to improve them except get very lucky. Yet I played game after game of Yacht, wasting hour after hour, trying to reach that elusive 300. I never did. I think I reached the mid-290s a couple times, but a 300 game never happened. I don't know why I even cared, but I did. It didn't help that Yacht saved my high scores, taunting me with the prospect of at least improving my best game even if I couldn't throw a perfect one. For a while there I was hooked. If Yacht had been a video machine in Las Vegas I'd have gone bankrupt.

It’s probably a good thing that I lost the Yacht program after upgrading to Windows 98. I had to hunt up an online download of the game to get that screenshot (see the sacrifices I’m making for this post?).

That’s my most harrowing encounter with a silly game that had awesome addictive power. I doubt that many of you have even played Yacht, but I’m sure I’m not the only one to get so obsessed over such a pointless little game. How about the rest of you?

[AB Positive]

I remember getting my first PC that could run windows (I had a Tandy XT-1000 first, both computers were VERY secondhand) and I ended up getting this shareware version of monopoly. I can't even remember what it was called, but it was basic, with the ability to swap out midi files for the background music. This was instantly changed to the doctor who theme.

I don't know why but I kept playing and playing to the point where I could actually win every time, and by large amounts. The CPU opponents could all be renamed as well, meaning every day I fought the Master, Rani, and Davros on my way to total assimilation of the board. (ha ha.)

I'm not even that big a fan of monopoly either. For some reason it just clicked.



-AG

[Flack]

I feel that way about a lot of the games in the DP arcade here, like the new snowboarding game. Usually when I find a game like that I learn the "pause/restart" keys really quick. That happened to me when I was trying to get a high score in Tony Hawk 2. If I bumbled the opening trick, it was pause, restart, try again. Try a trick, pause, restart, try again. Over and over and over.

[o2william]

Day 5: Wizard of Wor

http://64.159.77.51/~helmet/o2william/wow.gif

“I… am… the WIZard of WOR!” said the machine, and I begged for mercy. Every time, without fail. I didn’t see Wizard of Wor cabinets very often as a youth, but I’d run into them occasionally when on vacation or out of town visiting relatives. I have this vague memory of playing one in a bar, but I know that can’t be right because I couldn’t have been in a bar as an underage kid. Probably it was a restaurant. No matter where it was, it was traumatic.

Wizard of Wor was cool because it gave you the option of starting with additional lives. All that meant for me was more chances to die ignominious and grisly deaths. I’d barely get out of the starting pen when some rampaging Burwor would trample me, and BAM -- Worrior explodes, game over. For some reason, I couldn’t get the hang of watching for enemies coming from multiple directions. I never even saw the Worluk or the Wizard. I was shamed.

But I wasn’t defeated. I traded my friend Sean for his 2600 Wizard of Wor cart (which is a quality port by the way) and played it religiously. I got damn good at the game too -- good enough, I reasoned, that the next time I saw a Wizard of Wor machine, I’d have the last laugh. The spooky, disembodied voice of the Wizard would torment me no longer.

I remember the next time I came across a WoW cabinet -- in Aladdin’s Castle, I think -- I felt smug, cocky. I would own it this time. Quarter in, Worrior out, and BAM -- death from all sides, AGAIN! I wasn’t ready for the arcade game’s speed; my trusty VCS cart had ill prepared me after all. Oh, I did better than before, actually making it out of the first level this time, but I sure hadn’t conquered it. The Wizard owned me. I was humbled.

Even now, after improving at the game thanks to repeated MAME sessions and playing the even more faithful Astrocade port, Wizard of Wor still makes me feel daunted. There’s some small part of me that’s still frightened by this game and its evil, reaper-like villain.

Am I the only one?

[robotriot]

Ah, WoW ... I've only played the C64 version, but it's tremendous fun, especially multiplayer. In fact, it seems to me pretty much unbeatable if you play on your own. It's so simple in gameplay, but I enjoy that ^^

[ozyr]

Wizard of Wor, now here's a game I can get into.

I literally bumped into this game at a Chucky Cheese when the game was new to the market. Just the word Wizard alone got me interested, being a big D&D fan. I found the strange new game different than what I expected, but it was a blast anyway. I really liked the way it played, and those goofy voices were just too cool. I never played multi-player in the Arcade (not even sure if it had that feature). All I know is that I loved the game, and really miss seeing it in the arcades (the few that are left). It was great to see it at CGE a few years ago, until it broke! :(

[kainemaxwell]

Only seen a WoW cab once and I think that was at herseypark. But got into this via MAME froma friend and starte dplaying it more and more over time. I do enjoy hearing the bad voice from the wizard. Was the voice chip from WoW the same kind from Berserk or Sinister?

[o2william]

Day 6: The Catacomb Abyss 3-D

http://64.159.77.51/~helmet/o2william/catacomb.gif

Catacomb, for those unfamiliar with it, is a very early FPS series by id Software. It’s so early that the first games in the series predate not only Doom, but Wolfenstein 3-D as well. According to John Carmack, Catacomb 3-D is the first texture-mapped FPS of all time. The fourth game in the series, The Catacomb Abyss 3-D (gotta love how they had to stick “3-D” in all their early titles!), was the first Catacomb game I played, and was also my first FPS experience. And what a night it was!

And I really mean that. I don’t remember how I acquired the game (but since it was a PC title, it probably wasn’t through entirely legal means), but I was Blown Away. I wasn’t controlling some guy running around shooting zombies and demons, I was the guy, seeing what he saw, and the zombies and demons were all around me -- even behind me! It was totally immersive in a way I’d never seen before, and I couldn’t tear myself away. I played it literally the entire first night I had it, descending ever deeper into the game, fighting ever more nasty bad guys, finally arriving at the Gates of Hell (how cool was that!) sometime around 5:30 in the morning. By the time I beat Nemesis, the final boss, I was mentally and physically exhausted. But I was still floored by this incredible new kind of game.

When Doom came out, I was Blown Away again, but probably not to the level I would have been if I hadn’t already gone through those 3-D catacombs. Obviously FPSes have evolved a lot since then and Catacomb looks a bit anemic these days, but it’s still worth a shot if you’ve never tried it -- it’s rather like Doom version 0.5.

That was probably my most memorable encounter with a brand new game genre. I’d love to hear about yours.

[squidblatt]

Nice! I've never even heard of this game, which is too bad because it looks like it would've been even more up my alley than Wolfenstein was.

My closest experience was probably the first time I played X-Com. I bought the game because there was nothing else in the store that I wanted all that much, and the description on the box sounded pretty cool. I was expecting it to be another title that would offer a few hours of distraction before being placed on the shelf probably for good. Was I wrong! This game blew me away from the very beginning. I was so amazed that this perfect game could have just sneaked into stores completely unheralded and without fanfare. I played until I physically was unable to go on, even though I still wanted too. It's amazing how all these story driven rpg's come along that offer up all these epic quests with huge casts, yet the character I remember as having the most personality of all that I've played was the randomly generated soldier Wolfgang Xander, who became the leader of my forces.
Even though there was no attempt at character development, or even to distinguish one character from another beyond the most rudimentary methods random generation affords, the atmosphere and turn-based action was so intense that I became attached to those squad members who ended up surviving their initial few missions. Sending a soldier out in the street to retrieve his sergeant who had just been rendered unconscious by marauding Snakemen while a pair of Chrysalids were swiftly bearing down on their position had more inherent tension than any other game I've played, even though X-Com didn't have fast gameplay.

[Flack]

I can't find the original post (which I believe also ended up in the DP Advance guide), but one of my first mind blowing experiences like that was with the Nintendo 64. I couldn't believe that what I was seeing was a game -- it really looked as though I was controlling a cartoon character at the time.

I had similar feelings the first time I saw Gauntlet in the arcade. Dungeons and Dragons, a quarter at a time!

[Graham Mitchell]

I realize I'm a day late and a dollar short, here, but I'd like to comment on Wizard of Wor.

O2william, you are not alone. I first played WoW about 4 months ago when I bought the Midway's Arcade Treasures disc that contains it.

It creeps the hell out of me. Attax does too, probably for similar reasons. The music is in WoW's attract mode is extremely ominous and forebidding, the game is tough as nails, and it never shuts up. I have no clue what it's saying, but it creeps me out, man.

Intant classic in my book! Any game that gets a rise out of me is a good game.

[ubersaurus]

Wizard of Wor was one of my absolute favorite games when I was younger.I only ever played the VCS version, but I clocked some good amount of time into that on those lazy summer days at my grandparents.

[o2william]

Day 7: Solar Fox

http://64.159.77.51/~helmet/o2william/solarfox.gif

As I’ve put this list together, I’ve noticed that a lot of the stories, particularly the arcade tales, revolve around how I basically sucked at a game. So Solar Fox is a nice change of pace, because I’ve had nothing but good luck with it. The very first time I played the game -- and I don’t know exactly how this happened -- I attained a high score and ended up with a bunch of free credits. I seem to remember that you could sometimes win Free Games in those days, although I’m not sure how it worked. Anyway, despite the fact that I barely knew how to play the game, I spent a good part of the afternoon playing it for the cost of one quarter.

Some time later, my mother had to go out of town on business and offered to buy me a new Atari 2600 game while she was gone. (She had to buy games on her out-of-town trips because there were no local merchants that carried games in my Podunk town.) I wasn’t really “up” on new releases then and didn’t know what was out. So I just told her that if she saw a game called Solar Fox, she should get it. It was a total shot in the dark -- I had no clue if it had been ported to the 2600 or not. So imagine my shock when she returned with a brand new copy of Solar Fox by CBS Electronics! And it turned out to be a fantastic port too, one that kept me and my friends busy for a long time.

Much, much later, I wrote an online review of Solar Fox (praising it of course), and who should contact me but the original game designer? Ironically, he was thanking me for giving the game a favorable review. Of course, the honor was all mine. Outside of Classic Gaming Expo, it’s a rare opportunity to meet someone directly responsible for the favorite gaming moments of your youth. Sadly, I later lost his address due to an email snafu. Other than that incident though, I’ve had great luck with Solar Fox.

Do you have a “lucky” game? Any games you’re unnaturally good at, or supposedly rare titles you find in the wild all the time? Post ‘em here!

[syd]

I remember The Catacomb Abyss when it first came out. I thought it was a sequel to another catacomb game (can't remember who made it exactly) but it turned out to be totally different. Not that it was a bad game, quite the contrary. Catacomb abyss was an awesome game when it first came out, even though I really didn't play it all that much. I never really played any FPS's until Wolf3d came around, and of course Doom.

[Sanriostar]

My lucky games are Q*Bert, Mario Bros. and Super Pac-Man (funny, that one, huh Will? :)) Anytime I seem to get to one of these machines I can take the high score. Q*Bert has a 'heartbeat' that is the key to getting far in the game. know when to move with or apart from the heartbeat, and you'll beat it.

[Julio III]

I never played the Catacomb Abyss but at the time I was interested in it because i was really into Apogee, despite me never buying any of their games and only playing through the shareware release. A lot of their games i first heard of (amd them copied the shareware from) my cousin. I was blown away by Wolfenstien 3D, not just the style of the game but the whole killing Nazis and all the secret levels and little graphical touches and the wolves and the knifes. Also played Blake Stone 3D which is simliar but set in space.

[ozyr]

Oh man, Solar Fox!!!!!! I just love that game. I kept trying to get that code in the 2600 version were you could mail in to get a prize (the code showed up in letters on the screen, after doing something - I can't remember). Never did quite get that far, but I still enjoyed playing it anyway. Thanks for bringing this game up... Think I'll go pull it out of storage and play it for awhile... :D

[o2william]

Thanks for bringing this game up... Think I'll go pull it out of storage and play it for awhile... :D
Cool, that's what I'm here for. :)

The secret word in the 2600 version, IIRC, is "HELIOS." You get a letter every time you complete a Challenge Rack. I think I made it as far as "HELIO," but never got that last letter. (I guess it might not be HELIOS, but uhe manual says it's a six-letter word, so what else could it be?)

[o2william]

Day 8: Magmax

http://64.159.77.51/~helmet/o2william/magmax.gif
Screenshot shamelessly appropriated from KLOV (http://www.klov.com)

Magmax is a lumbering, piecemeal robot fighting machine in the grand Japanese tradition of lumbering, piecemeal robot fighting machines. It's also a case of buyer's remorse just waiting to happen, as I discovered in the late 1980s. See, back in the early part of that decade, a Magmax cabinet showed up in my favorite local pizza parlor, and I was impressed. Looking back on it now, I realize that Magmax was my first encounter with that mightiest of video game institutions: the shoot'em-up power-up. I'd played shoot'em-ups (shmups) like Defender before, but I'd never played a shmup where you picked up new abilities as you played, essentially changing the character of the game right in the middle of the action. This was big stuff for a kid used to Asteroids and Phoenix!

I wasn't particularly good at Magmax, so I didn't get to see much of it, but what I saw left me wanting more. But soon the cabinet disappeared from that pizza place, replaced by some other game I can't remember. Years passed, and Magmax became nothing but a gangly, metallic (but pleasant) memory in my head. So when I saw an NES port of Magmax advertised in the Try-Soft mail-order catalog, I was excited! I saved up my allowance to pay for the cart and the shipping costs, which probably totaled over $60 in those days -- a huge sum to a kid of my meager means. But the day arrived, and I popped in my shiny new Magmax cart to find an accurate, faithful port of the game that was exactly as I remembered it.

So why wasn't I more excited?

Well, lots of reasons. Magmax has the fundamentals of a decent shmup, but that's pretty much all it has. The environments are all similar and generally not very exciting. The power-ups are few in number and not particularly powerful. Overall, the game lacks depth and constantly reminds you of that fact by being incredibly repetitive. I don't mean to say Magmax is a bad game exactly -- it's just not a $60 game. Besides, by the late '80s I'd played games like Gradius and Contra and I just wasn't impressed by Magmax anymore, even if he was a giant robot. I did derive some enjoyment from the game, but often I wondered if my $60 couldn't have gone to a more noble cause. I think incidents like this contributed to my overall cheapness when it comes to games and may be a partial cause of my becoming a bargain-hunting game collector.

Again, I doubt a lot of you have spent much time with Magmax, but I’m sure all of you have had the experience of being enamored of a game, only to find out it really wasn’t that great after all. Share your tales of disillusionment here!

[The-Bavis]

My similar remorseful purchase was for Tiger Heli. I loved that game in the arcade for some reason, so why not buy it to play at home on the NES? Well, several years had passed between my last arcade session and buying it for the NES and my interest in the game vanished during that time. I even made it a point to use the Advantage joystick to make it more arcade-like to no avail. It's not a bad game, but definitely not worth my allowance money at the time.

This was just another instance of how frustrating it was to buy games back then. If nobody you knew had a copy, you were basically buying it by judging the four screen shots on the back of the box. Risky to say the least. In fact, I got Tiger Heli after returning Section Z. That game really disappointed me for some reason and at the time, some stores, or maybe just dimwitted employees at certain stores, would let you return a game because you just didn't like it. I think I decided to try and learn and love Tiger Heli and not feel guilty about wasting my hard-earned cash.

[s1lence]

Oh did I hate magmax, that was as poorly designed shooter as possible. Granted it was on the NES, but man that was a stinker.

[Graham Mitchell]

One of the things you forgot to mention about MagMax is that the arcade version has that really cool parralax scrolling like Seicross, and there was no way they were going to get that kind of performance out of the NES. Even if the gameplay was faithful to the arcade, the lack of that subtle, but really cool, graphics trick made all the difference in the world to me. Even to this day I really dislike the NES port, but I dig the arcade version because it's so neat to look at.

As for disappointment, I don't know many people that were totally thrilled with their purchase of 1942 for the NES. I really disliked that game, even though I enjoyed the arcade version. I wated forever for the port of Willy Beamish to the Sega CD (we didn't have a PC), and boy was that game ever buggy! I could never beat it because not only did it have insane load time, it would inevitably lock up at some point.

[Flack]

That story reminds me of the early days of computer games. I can’t tell you how many computer games I bought based off of screenshots featured on the back of the box only to find out once I got home the games didn’t look anything like the screenshots! As an early IBM and Apple user, I remember many games used the Commodore 64 version for their screenshots. Then later when I finally got a C64, I found many games had begun including screenshots from the actual arcade games! I also remember in the late 80’s several software companies using Amiga screenshots on their boxes. I remember buying Dragon’s Lair II because of an ad I had seen. The ad featured a huge picture from the video game, and in the bottom right hand corner there was a very tiny thumbnail picture of the actual game, which of course looked pretty good after being shrunk down.

Link to Dragon’s Lair II Ad: http://62.168.142.47/~lemon/adverts/full/dragons_lair_ii_01.jpg

[kainemaxwell]

Magmax...yucko. It's on my multicart. i play it on occasion, its a cool concept but the wa yit was done seems way too generic to me.

[Dr. Morbis]

I ordered a free Magmax poster out of a vg mag back in the day, and I still have both the poster and the mag it came out of! I liked the box-art/poster so much that I hung it on my wall and was planning on buying the game. But just before I did, the (only) videostore in my town got the game in and I rented it just to be sure, which led to...

My BIGGEST. LETDOWN. EVER. @_@ @_@
I've never played the arcade version, but if it is even remotely like the NES version, I never want to. The day I took the rental back, I also took the poster down from my wall, and I'm surprised I didn't destroy it at that time.

I hate you Magmax.

[Graham Mitchell]

I've never played the arcade version, but if it is even remotely like the NES version, I never want to. The day I took the rental back, I also took the poster down from my wall, and I'm surprised I didn't destroy it at that time.

I hate you Magmax.

You might be surprised, actually. The arcade version's kind of cool. Believe me, I was a skeptic until I saw it on KLOV. They've got an animated picture in the MagMax listing, and I was oddly impressed. Now I kind of like it. It's a little dry, but it looks pretty cool.

[o2william]

Day 9: Naughty Boy

http://64.159.77.51/~helmet/o2william/naughtyboy.gif

Wow, more of you were familiar with Magmax than I expected. I bet that won’t be the case with this game though…

I was born in 1975, which makes me a little young to have fully experienced the Golden Age of arcades. And I've always regretted that -- I never got to skip school to go hang out in a smoky arcade all day, never got to squeeze through a huddled crowd to watch some coin-op wizard dominating a machine. Well, actually I did kinda get to do that last one. Only it didn't happen in an arcade, it happened at a grocery store.

The game was Naughty Boy, a really oddball title where you're a boy (presumably a naughty one), who walks around throwing bombs at bizarre monsters and R2D2-type robots. I played it every time we went to Foodland, but I was still a little kid and was really terrible at it. But one week I arrived at Foodland to find the Naughty Boy machine occupied. This guy was playing it intently and had reached levels of the game that I didn't even know existed. My memories of the shopping trip are fuzzy, but I know that somehow I was able to watch him play for a long time. I think my mother ran into an old friend at the store and I got to watch the game while they chatted. Anyway, the guy was GOOD. Naughty Boy, as I now know, is not a particularly difficult arcade game, but at the time his skills absolutely floored me.

I wasn't the only one. Again the memories are hazy but there were other kids at the Foodland that night, watching this amazing Naughty Boy player. Every time he completed a level, ripples of excitement washed over us. How did he DO it? How far would he go? Unfortunately I never found out because I had to leave the store before his game was over. I was disappointed that I didn't find out how his game ended, but I was always pleased that even though it was an obscure coin-op and it happened in a grocery store, I was once able to see an arcade wizard work his magic.

How about you? Did you have any brushes with arcade greatness? Did you ever get to BE an arcade wizard? Tell us!

[syd]

The only time I've had a brush with arcade greatness was one summer when I spent a day at a hotel. There was absolutely nothing to do there, I pretty much had to babysit a girl that was 4 or 5 years younger than me. So I spent my time playing a Donkey Kong 3 arcade machine (the one with the spraycan). I didn't do too bad, I was playing it for a good half hour on one quarter I'd say, and she just stood there watching me. Thats probably the closest I've come! LOL

[maxmouse2008]

I want to say GREAT Topic I love this....Nice work

[blissfulnoise]

How about you? Did you have any brushes with arcade greatness? Did you ever get to BE an arcade wizard? Tell us!

The concept of the "arcade wizard" isn't dead; just changed.

Now and days, it's the DDR kids that can go for hours on Heavy and even Oni that keep people mesmerized at Dave and Busters.

I was known to throw a mean tomato in Food Fight back in the day (age 7). I'd have small groups of kids around me at Chuck E Cheezes when I'd hit level 25-30.

Also, I was pretty damn good at Roc'n Rope and would get people interested in my play after 20 minutes or so.

People would always crowd around Black Tiger and Cadash once they got deep into the games, but that had nothing to do with wizardry, but perseverance.

One of my best arcade memories though was TMNT. We lived in Colorado Springs at the time, and my mother worked with the amusements folks on the army base there. My brother and I were two of the first people to play TMNT in the area (there were two other kids playing Leonardo and Michelangelo). We had a HUGE crowd around us as we fought our way to Shredder. After we beat him, everyone started cheering. It was pretty awesome, but it was just a matter of popping in more quarters.

[Graham Mitchell]

When Street Fighter II was huge, everybody got extremely good at it. People were finding all those glitches, and one person even showed me how to throw Vega off the fence (which I don't remember how to do).

One of my friends must have dumped $300 into the SFII machine at the local arcade, and was extremely good at it. We were about 12 at the time, and he could play at the level of, or better than, the best high school dropouts. One day he reamed one of them big time. He got a double perfect on the guy, and he started yelling and chased us out of the mall. We were scared, but I thought it was pretty funny after the fact.

[Nature Boy]

You know those moments, happening almost exclusively on these boards, when somebody mentions a game you had totally forgotten about, but somewhere in the back of your mind you kept looking for it whenever you'd launch Mame? Naughy Boy is one of those games for me.

(The other one was "The Pit" - but I found that one on my own :) ).

When I was a kid I'd go to the pool hall with my dad. He'd shoot some stick, and I'd wander around the arcade machines they'd have. Didn't play much (since I didn't have any money), but *man* did I watch. And watching people play, no matter how bad the game actually is, gives you a *tremendous* itch. Looks like Mame will be scratching yet another 20 year old itch for me tonight. Thanks a million!

(As you might surmrise from this quick tale, I was never the king of the 'cade - but I sure did watch my fair share of kings in action...)

[Flack]

As a kid I used to always go to the grocery store with my mom. When I was younger I would just hang out at the magazine racks, reading Mad and Cracked. When arcade games making their way out of arcades and into places like convenient stores and grocery stores, I started taking my quarters with me and instead of reading magazines, I'd play games while mom shopped.

I remember one particular day going to Homeland (I think it was Snyders back then) and heading over to the game -- yes, they just had one: Zoo Keeper. A kid was already playing, so as was the custom of the day, I put my quarter on the marquee and waited my turn.

I don't remember how long my mom shopped but I remember taking my quarter back and eventually leaving. That kid played Zoo Keeper the entire time I was there.

[o2william]

I want to say GREAT Topic I love this....Nice work
Thanks! :)


Looks like Mame will be scratching yet another 20 year old itch for me tonight. Thanks a million!
You're welcome. How ironic that your handle is "Nature Boy" and you couldn't remember "Naughty Boy." ;)

NB is one game that's really stuck with me over the years. It was one of the first games I scoped out when I tried MAME the first time, and I even bought a sales flyer for the game off eBay a while ago. It's still fun, if a little repetitive. Definitely weird though.

[kainemaxwell]

Neve rplayed NB before. But on arcades I used to go to bowling tournaments alot with my father so I would be constantly playing the different arcade games alone, or with other kids around there.

[o2william]

Note: Since the forums were down yesterday, and I'm trying to make these posts on a timetable, I’ll be posting the Day 11 game sometime this afternoon. Enjoy!

Day 10: Yars' Revenge

http://www.digitpress.com/dpsightz/atari2600/yarsrevenge.gif

Yars' Revenge is one of the best games in the Atari 2600 library in my opinion, although I hardly ever play it anymore. I've learned that, sadly, it is possible to have too much of a good thing. WAY back, when the Atari 2600 was a current machine, Yars' Revenge was the first game I "rolled" -- played until the score reached 1,000,000 and reset back to 0. Back then, that was a big deal. I remember seeing TV news reports about people who played arcade games 72 hours at a time, building up monster scores. There was no way I was going to be able to do that in the arcade, but I had a chance at home -- particularly with Yars' Revenge, because the game action paused between rounds to display your score. Remember, games didn't have pause buttons in those days -- Yars' score screen granted me the crucial ability to leave the game to grab something to eat or make a pit stop.

So over the course of a few hours or so, I chipped away at energy shields and blasted Qotiles with Zorlon Cannons. My good friends Ryan and Bryan were on hand to watch me travel deeper into the game than we’d ever seen before. We witnessed the Qotile shield turning blue, then gray, then pink. It was an almost surreal experience to go that far into a game. I felt totally on my own and vulnerable, like I would screw up and all the progress I'd made so far would be wiped out at any moment.

But as I approached the million-point mark, that feeling disappeared. I knew I had the hang of it and reaching 1 Million was just a matter of time. Sure enough, it happened. I didn't pay much attention to difficulty levels or game variations in those days, so it's likely that I was playing the easiest game available. But I didn't care; a million points was a major accomplishment as far as I was concerned. Once the score rolled, I shut off the game, feeling that I’d done enough.

The unfortunate thing about all this is that when I turned that game off, it was like I was "retiring" from Yars' Revenge. I still think highly of the game, and can still enjoy it, but the drive is gone. Now, playing it is like a happy memory -- pleasant, familiar, but just not the same. I guess you can't go back.

Any "retired" games in your videogaming career? If so, what caused their retirement?

[kainemaxwell]

I loved Yar's Revenge! I used to log many, many hour splaying it on my Atari back in the day!

[ozyr]

Any "retired" games in your videogaming career? If so, what caused their retirement?

Plenty, including Yar's Revenge. Why, mainly due to time constraints. I just have a lot of things going on in my life, and don't find the time for Video Games as much as I used to. Ah, to be a teenager again! ;)

[yuppicide]

I'm 32 this year as of Jan 13. I don't have any experience as you, but I'd like to share some games that I think deserve to be on a list if I ever made one:

Sinistar (Arcade) - This game scares me. That evil voice. I remember it from when I was a kid.

Satan's Hollow (Arcade) - Another evil looking game. I haven't played it in many years, but I used to love it.

Shoot Em Up Construction Kit (Commodore 64) - Easy way to make your own games.. too bad you could only make games that scroll up. My friend was working on a game where you're a cop and shot targets sort of like the ones that pop out in Hogan's Alley for NES.

Arcade Game Construction Kit (Commodore 64) - I was going to make a Kangaroo II, but I bought the disk and it was defective from the get-go. :( I never did get another copy of it sadly. You couldn't make scrolling games with this if I remember correctly.

This one isn't technically a game, but they hold a special place in my heart. Trackers & Demo Makers for the Commodore 64. A Tracker was a program you could make .MOD/.S3M music in. People used to make full albums and release them. I remember someone doing a version of U96's Club Bizarre song and it was better than the original! Demo makers were programs you could make "intros" and "demos" with. Let's say you had a group that cracked games. You'd load up your demo maker, add text for a scroller, choose some color or cool style, add some music, and it would attach itself to the beginning of the game for you, so when everyone downloaded and ran it.. they'd see your demo first. A lot of times we'd just use them to advertise BBS's (Bulletin Board Systems) pre-internet.

I'm sure I've could come up with more, but I've got more posts to make here and a bunch of garlic hotdogs sitting in front of me.

[o2william]

Day 11: Space Journey

http://64.159.77.51/~helmet/o2william/spacejourney.gif
Image taken from TI-99 Forever! (http://perso.wanadoo.fr/fabrice.montupet/zoneti.htm)

There's one game that's very special to me that you most likely have never heard of: Space Journey for the TI/99. It's an edutainment game set in outer space. You must solve various math problems and when you're correct, you get to blast asteroids and land on planets to fight with aliens (IIRC, by besting them at more math problems). Pretty cheesy stuff, right? The kind of thing you would never play nowadays? As it turns out, I wouldn't either.

Space Journey was the one and only TI/99 game owned by my school. In fact, I don't know why we had a TI in the first place... as far as I know, it was only used to play Space Journey. Despite its insidious plans to teach us math skills, the game fascinated me and my fellow third graders. Most of us didn't have computers of our own (this was the early '80s after all) and using a sophisticated computer to play a game was an amazing experience, even if the game was about arithmetic. Surprising as it is, it really did help me learn math skills.

But the real reason Space Journey remains a special game in my memory is that it's the last remaining "mysterious game from my past." I never played it again after third grade, and over time my memories of it became fuzzier and fuzzier. Eventually I forgot its title and even which machine played it, remembering only an indistinct silver and black box. Before the Internet was commonplace, nearly all the old games were like that for me -- 10+ year-old shadows that only existed as partial pictures in the back of my head. Then I jumped online, visited classic gaming sites, downloaded MAME and other emulators, looked at screenshots, and suddenly these vague shadows snapped into sharp focus. It was cool to have the games from my past back, but the mystery had been kind of cool too... and now it was gone.

But for some reason, I never looked up Space Journey. Sure, I figured out what that silver and black system was, and determined what the title of that long-lost math game had to be, but I've never emulated the game or even looked at a screenshot online. That is until yesterday, when I found the above photo and made an amazing discovery. You see, until I laid my eyes on that screenshot, I had thought my mysterious game was Meteor Multiplication, not Space Journey. I’d been looking for Meteor Multiplication for years, but it was the wrong game! Space Journey is actually rarer, an R5 -- but it turns out that I have it in my collection! A while back, I bought a small stack of carts even though I didn’t have a TI/99, and Space Journey, the most obscure game from my past, was one of them. Who knew?

I have a TI/99 now, but no power supply. I do plan to get one eventually. Only now I’m faced with a decision: play Space Journey again, satiating my 22-year-old curiosity, or keep the mystery -- and the half-forgotten memories -- alive? Hmmm...

[o2william]

Day 12: Round 42

http://64.159.77.51/~helmet/o2william/round42.gif
Screenshot from Moby Games (http://www.mobygames.com)

I have no idea how I obtained all my PC games in the days before the Internet,. But somehow, I ended up with lots of freeware, shareware -- and, I’ll admit, pirate-ware. Round 42, I’m happy to report, was freeware, a Space Invaders-style shooter programmed in 1986 by somebody named Mike Pooler. Pooler crammed a lot into the game, including 42 more-or-less different attack waves and one of the best PC-speaker theme songs you’ve ever heard. Unfortunately, it also had Warp Rounds.

In Warp Rounds, you maneuvered your fast-moving ship through a craggy path between deadly walls. They were a sort of diversion from the main action, and a pretty cool idea for a gameplay element. I hated them. For me, they were Death Incarnate -- an instant and final end to my Round 42 experience. It got to the point where I’d breeze through the non-Warp Rounds, blasting dozens of aliens with nary a scratch, only to exhaust my supply of ships trying to squeeze through a narrow gap with a one-pixel clearance. Curse you and your innovative level design, Pooler!

But ironically, it was the Warp Rounds that finally allowed me to beat the game. They forced me to hone my skills to a fine point, to memorize the attack patterns of each wave, to learn the game inside out. By the end I knew exactly what each round’s attack pattern would be, exactly when to use the special “phasor” weapon for maximum effect, and eventually even the exact series of keystrokes to use to get through the Warp Rounds. It took a good long time, but I persevered, and I beat it.

Games were like that back then, forcing you to play with almost laser-like precision, punishing any deviation with instant destruction. As games have evolved, the designers have largely moved away from that, and most games offer you a lot more freedom nowadays. All in all, I think that’s a good thing. But sometimes it’s good to play a game that has the equivalent of a Warp Round, just for the satisfaction of beating it.

Do you have any personal Warp Rounds -- specific levels that always beat you, no matter how good you are at the rest of the game? Did they improve or hurt your opinion of the game overall? Share the pain!

[kainemaxwell]

Sinistar (Arcade) - This game scares me. That evil voice. I remember it from when I was a kid.

I was scared of the Sinistar's voice as a kid too, so don't feel so bad.

[o2william]

Day 13: Pac-Man

http://64.159.77.51/~helmet/o2william/pacman.gif

Now here is a game I'm sure everyone knows... ;)

I love Pac-Man, but I've never forgiven him for what he did. The lousy bigmouth kept making all my favorite games go away! First came what was, at the time, my favorite arcade game (I won't tell you the name since it will come up on this list later). The game was at a local diner, and I used to play it every morning while my father grabbed a cup of coffee. It wasn't a popular machine, and you couldn't find it anywhere else, so I was none too happy when I found out the diner was dumping my game in favor of a Pac-Man machine. I can't really blame them -- Pac-Man was undoubtedly more profitable -- but c'mon, you could play Pac-Man everywhere! As opposed to my game, which you couldn't find anywhere. It wasn't a happy day for me.

Pac-Man's second crime against me was really Atari's fault. No, I don’t mean the awful 2600 port, although that was bad enough. I'm actually talking about K.C. Munchkin, the Pac-like Odyssey2 game that was eventually banned for copyright infringement. Somehow I didn't know about K.C. when it first came out, and by the time I discovered a Pac-Man-style game existed on the O2, I couldn't buy it thanks to Atari's lawsuit. I did get to play it once by borrowing a friend's copy, but that just made me want it more! Thanks a lot, Pac-Man.

But it's hard to stay mad at the little guy. Like most of America I was obsessed with him in the early '80s. My earliest video game memory is playing a Pac-Man machine while my parents crowded around the screen telling me to "Get that blue one!" (I thought they meant Inky, so I was a bit surprised when I finally did get him and died). I remember when I suffered a concussion at age 8 after a traffic accident, my father made sure I didn’t have brain damage by asking me how many dots were on a Pac-Man board (I got the answer right: 240), and I made it through my subsequent hospital stay playing with a Pac-Man puppet and wind-up toy. So I guess he’s not all bad.

In the end, I feel about Pac-Man like I do about Wal-Mart: he's handy to have around and is awfully good at what he does -- I just wish he'd quit gobbling up all the little guys!

[Graham Mitchell]

I actually played K.C. Munchkin at a friend's house before I played Pac-Man. When I played Pac-Man finally, I thought it was a big K.C. Munchkin ripoff.

[Sotenga]

Day 13: Pac-Man

http://64.159.77.51/~helmet/o2william/pacman.gif

Now here is a game I'm sure everyone knows... ;)

... Pac-Man? What is Pac-Man? *goes back to playing Mouse Trap* :P

There's not really anything else I can say that has already been said... maybe except that I'm a slight tad more partial to Ms. Pac-Man and Super Pac-Man, but the legacy of the original is undeniable.

[coreys22]

i thought it was gay

[ozyr]

Pac-Man. Damn cool game, which I still play when I can today (on the compilation mixes that have come out for modern systems). Only issue is that it works better with a 'real' joystick. I still like the 5200 best, for some reason... x_x

As for the old 2600 version, K.C. Munchkin is so much better. My friend with a 2600 back then thought the same thing. Darn Atari and their lawsuits.

This game also has the most memorable sound effect in a game, as far as I'm concerned - the sound that Pac-Man makes when he 'dies'. Classic! I can hear that sound from over a mile away! :D At work, we used to put it as the shutdown sound on the PCs in our area. (Of course, management didn't like that, so we had to take it out).

[o2william]

Day 14: Gradius

http://www.digitpress.com/dpsightz/nintendo/gradius_7.png

Whenever I talk about Gradius, I mean the NES port, because it's the version that turned me into a cheating scumbag. It was also the key to my redemption.

Gradius is a challenging game. I mean really challenging. I mean "ARRGH I HATE THIS F@#$!% GAME!" challenging. Especially to a young teenager who hadn't played a lot of shoot'em-ups before. It was a long and arduous journey for me just to get past the first level, let alone all the way to the end. I didn't have many games back then, so you can bet that I wanted to get the most play time out of every game I had. I therefore didn't hesitate to use the Konami code as often as the game's designers permitted. Yes, it was cheating, but I didn't care -- I'd do anything to let me beat that damn game. I was an Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right-B-A junkie.

Even with the Code, Gradius dominated me. But there was one time, and one time only, that I miraculously made it all the way to the end of the game and beat it. Stunned, I watched the ending sequence and put the cart away, never to play it again. I traded it for some other game soon after.

But this nagging guilt remained. I hadn't beaten the game legitimately, and it bugged me. Now don't get me wrong -- sometimes I don't mind cheating. For example, I know there is no way in a million eternities that I'll ever beat Arkanoid without using the "cheat" continue code, but I still want to play the later levels so I don't feel bad about using it. However, I think somewhere deep down, I knew I could beat Gradius without cheating if I tried hard enough. I felt like I'd taken the easy way out, which made my victory over the game a hollow one.

After something like 15 years, I finally picked up Gradius again and waged an epic battle. This time, I was finally able to beat the game without any precious codes. I was proud, I was free from guilt, it was my finest hour. I even wrote an article (http://www.classicgaming.com/features/articles/gradius/) about it. Now I can enjoy Gradius on my own terms -- with Code or without, I can hold my own.

I'm sure plenty of you have your own cheating stories. I'd love to read them!

[maxmouse2008]

I love that Stagety Guide Cartoon, aboput the konami code.
But I could not beat Contra with out the code.....

[Graham Mitchell]

I can beat Contra, Super C, and Life Force all without the code, but Gradius gets me by stage 3. You get stuck in a loop where if you're not powered up, you'll never get through the Moai statues.

I was never able to beat the NES port of Rush 'N' Attack. On one player mode, the game is doubly irritating because you go back to a midway point, or the beginning of the level every time you die. When Game Genie came out, I finally had a chance, but I needed to screw the game over beyond just using the Game Genie in order to get past certain points that I felt were simply impossible.

So I discovered that if I gave player 1 a huge amount of lives and gave player 2 nothing extra, I could start a 2-player game (which allowed you to just keep moving forward after you died such that if there was an obstacle, you could just run though it, die, become invincible for a few seconds and keep going) and kill off player 2 immediately. I was home free after that.

That's the only way I was able to beat it, and I don't personally know anyone else who's seen the ending to that game.

[s1lence]

Gradius was my 4th NES game ever. What a great shooter! Its still difficult even by todays shooter standards, good call. :D

[o2william]

That's the only way I was able to beat it, and I don't personally know anyone else who's seen the ending to that game.
Not to brag, but I can beat NES Rush'n Attack fairly easily. It was the second NES game I ever saw in action, and it was one of the first games I bought for myself, so I have a lot of experience with it. The best trick I've found is that you don't actually have to jump to kill the jumping soldiers. Just knife quickly and repeatedly and they'll go down.

I played that game so much that I learned every little trick, like if you lie down, knife, and press up right away, you'll rise up in the air in a "lying down" position. Or if you knife and press right repeatedly, you can move to the side without scrolling the screen. Ahh, for the days when I had enough time to figure out all these little quirks!

I still can't beat the arcade version though.

[o2william]

Day 15: Dig Dug

http://64.159.77.51/~helmet/o2william/digdug.gif

We’re halfway through the 30 days! I hope that some of you are still interested. :)

The Atari 2600 port of Dig Dug is really faithful; by 2600 standards it's nothing short of spectacular. Of course, that didn't matter to me when my friends Ryan and Bryan first got the cart because I hadn't actually played the coin-op version back then. We spent a lot of time underground that summer, excavating deep tunnels and pumping copious amounts of air into Pookas and Fygars. For whatever reason, we really fixated on the vegetable prizes. Games of Dig Dug weren't about the final score, they were about making it to the next vegetable. Onion, pumpkin... what would come next? I remember being disappointed when we reached the carrot and realized it was the last veggie; it ended the thrill of discovery. My suspicion is that no time in history have 8-year-old boys been more interested in vegetables.

Dig Dug's influence on our afternoons extended beyond the television. We actually dug a real tunnel in my backyard and crawled through it, pretending to hunt Fygars and gather exotic vegetables (I lived in a rural area on the edge of the woods, so we could do this without getting in trouble). We collected appropriately shaped rocks to serve as the veggies. I remember that we found a pentagonal flat stone that was similar to the Atari 2600 onion, but I'm pretty sure the other rocks we gathered looked nothing like their on-screen counterparts. It didn't matter, we were just kids having fun. That's one of those wonderful memories that can make classic games so great.

Do any of you have stories like that? Did you ever turn a video game into a real-life game?

[syd]

I'm a bit late to the gradius party, so I'll have to say that Gradius is an awesome game! Actually I mostly played Life Force with my bro when it first came out, but both the games are pretty similar. All we ever used was the Contra code cause the game was pretty hard, especially in the vertical flying stages (stage 2, etc.). Seems like we kept flying into the rocks!

I definitely have to play that game again and beat it without the code. I never use codes anymore for games, so to me I still haven't beat that game, but I will! :evil: