Ballblazer

Imagine Rocket League on the Atari...

It is very safe to say I've not heard of Ballblazer. Nowhere have I seen it written down, nor caught sight of it in a retrospective. I am clueless as to what it is. For all of a few minutes, that is, because after you fire it up, Ballblazer is a little like Rocket League - space football with cars, kind of thing...

Star Wars

The Force isn't with me today...

Source // Arcade Museum

Dun, dahn, dunadun dun daun, dunnadu... Hey, kid - do you like Star Wars? You do? Do you want to fly an X-Wing like Luke? You'd rather swing a lightsaber like Luke? Ok, but the X-Wing is pretty cool too though, isn't it? I know, right! We've got a great game just for you...

Star Wars is the slightly late but always welcome game that most of us wouldn't mind playing. We've bought all the toys, we've seen three movies now, can we just play something with some substance? Not that Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was a bad game, we just want something a bit more... immersive.

That's how I imagine a bunch of 9 year olds spoke back in the day, at least. Star Wars the arcade game is one of the many Star Wars games I've not played, and I do call myself a Star Wars fan. Really. But I can't recall a whole lot about it, other than it loops. Useful. Better find out what's really going on.

Dig Dug

Is manual labour even this hazardous?

Source // Wikipedia

Ah, Dig Dug, I know Dig Dug. Have I ever actually dug anything in Dig Dug? I don't think I've ever played it. Perhaps a version of it, or a clone or spiritual successor somewhere, but the original Dig Dug passed me by, to the best of my recollection.

If I kept wanting to not be in space when I played arcade games, Dig Dug appears to be answering my pleas by heading in the opposite direction, underground (deep underground, near the Earth's core, where it's still warm), and how colourful it is too. Simple, but it does the job, doesn't it? Looks like something you'd find in a text book. I wonder what we'll learn from this classic...

Gorf

'Long live', or 'so long'?

Source // Arcade Museum

Reading about Gorf didn't exactly get me hyped. "Another space shooter," I said to myself, "what does it do differently?"

Turns out it has a clearly defined mission structure, which mixes the gameplay up a little, has shots that you can cancel, in effect, so that you aren't waiting for a wild miss to keep on missing before you can fire again, and even outright rips off Galaxian, name and all. So that's bold.

But does the game live up to it all?

Frogger

Hop along, son. You've seen it all before.

Source // Wikipedia

Where oh where was I when I first encountered Frogger? I couldn't tell you, but my memory wants to say that it was a nice family friendly game, so I wouldn't be surprised if I was rather young when I was first squashed by oncoming traffic. Maybe it was available at school. We played Lemmings at school, so we might have played Frogger.

Anyway, bumbling through my memory aside, Frogger is impossible to forget, if only because everything else like it is referred to as 'like Frogger', that game where you hop a frog across a dangerously designed road network before hopping across a congested river. Only then can you feel safe, until another frog spawns (hah, frogspawn, get it?) and the cycle repeats.

It repeats so often that Frogger is everywhere, so once more I've hopped into a few different versions to see what's what (and once more, it still has absolutely nothing to do with my inability to play the original arcade version...).

Stargate

No, not that Stargate.

Source // Games Database

I've seen this before, haven't I? What is it? Stargate? What's that? Sequel to Defender? That'll be why then.

With Defender a runaway hit, it was only natural for a sequel to be developed to keep the interest levels of the arcade-goers high. More eyes on your cabinet, more quarters in your slot. Welcome to Arcade Gaming 101, feel free to ask questions.

It looks the same doesn't it? I read that Stargate is harder than Defender, but much like its predecessor, I can't find that out for myself, certainly not directly.