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...).

One more go... Journey

There's a revised and updated edition to the 1001 Video Game book, but seeing as I don't have it I don't know if it includes the painstakingly obvious PS3 title that deserves a place in the 2010s section, Journey.

I'm writing this in 2015 where the closest thing to Journey is the yet to be released No Man's Sky. By 'closest thing', I mean the kind of thing that looks fantastic and you still don't know what the heck it really is, nor will you until you play it. Luckily Journey is already out, and now re-released for the PS4, and it is a must play - if you haven't already.

You see, Journey is, as its name implies, a tale that takes you somewhere. More than that though, it is a personal journey of discovery and wonder and all that jazz. But you can only really go on that journey once...

Ms. Pac-Man

The only hall of fame she'll be inducted in is the alcohol of fame on the wall of shame...

Source // Wikipedia

Back in the day, I thought Ms. Pac-Man was little more than a reskin of Pac-Man. The cynical side of me would be shouting 'Cash grab! Cash grab!' but nowadays, the more learned figure that I hope I am knows how wrong such statements are.

Ms. Pac-Man has a murky past. Perhaps not murky, but not as simple as you might imagine, starting life as another game before being shown to Midway, who were impatiently waiting for an official sequel to Pac-Man from Namco... in the rush to get something out into the public, anything of merit would do. This game would indeed do.

Venture

Dare you roam the domain of the Hallmonsters?

A couple of games come to mind when I was picturing what Venture could be, based on the little I'd read. Of course the name shares all of its letters with Adventure, so there's dungeoning and, well, adventuring to be had. Rogue is perhaps the closer game in terms of gameplay, however. Either way, I've not played it, so I ought not to second guess what it is at all, and should dive right into it.

One more go... Rocket League

Every now and then a game just appears out of nowhere and takes the Internet by storm. Or some of the Internet at least. Some of the bits you personally read. What I'm trying to say is that a fair few people like, and are talking about, Rocket League. Because it is pretty damn good.

The PlayStation Plus monthly game collection can be hit and miss. A selection of 'free' content for a variety of systems. Sometimes it's games you have heard about but didn't grab, sometimes it's games you have heard about and remember paying full price for them at launch, but other times they are completely new to your gaming library.

For me, Rocket League was a complete unknown. Such an unknown in fact, that when I first saw the trailer for that month's game lineup, my reaction to it was "Oh, car football. Looks good. Probably won't bother with it though".

Probably won't bother. What the hell kind of gamer am I, huh?

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.

Scramble

One part stumble, one part crawl.

Lacking an encyclopedic brain for video game titles of yesteryear, I didn't have any idea what Scramble could have been about. If I did, I wouldn't have pictured a space shooter, which is strange considering that every other title of the time seems to be just that.

In Scramble, you pilot a ship not only capable of shooting airborne targets, just like every other spacecraft of gaming, but one that can drop bombs on targets too.

Drifting over the multi-coloured landscapes below, your aim is to prog-

Nope, I've just crashed into the very first obstacle.

Anyway the aim is to reach a base, destroy that too, return to the start and do it all over again at a higher difficulty.

Qix

I just got the šit qiked out of me...

Thankfully, this demonstration makes for a more impressive screenshot than my attempts at playing

I haven't got the foggiest of ideas what it is, but reading up on Qix (pronounced 'Kicks'), it's plain to see that this game is unlike any other I've played from this list so far. It doesn't involve shooting anything, it doesn't have any real world analog, but it requires quick thinking and reflexes, as well as a bit of strategy and luck. It's a fast paced puzzler of sorts.

The aim of the game is to fence off sections of the playing field, enough to block out more than 75%. You can draw fast or slow, with slower sections - marked in red - scoring you more points.

That would be a dull game were it not for the Qix, Sparks, and your own stupidity getting in the way of things. The Qix is a kind of spiralling, dancing, mess of a threat. Sometimes it hangs out well away from you before expanding and reaching right where you don't want it to. If it touches you, that's one life down.

The Sparks travel along the available playing field, and if they catch up to you, it's another life down. It's best to get moving before they arrive, even if it's just to avoid them with a small section of the playing field.

Finally, appropriately for a three life format, is your own foolishness. If you dawdle while drawing, your line becomes a fuse and you don't want the fuse to run out or that's one more life down. If you get yourself into a bit of a pickle, or a 'spiral death trap' as the introduction calls it, you're done for. Go home, you've lost all your lives.

Donkey Kong

Characters in video games? You're having a laugh.

I'm faaairly certain that the first time I encountered Donkey Kong was on my Game Boy, way back when. It was simple, it moved smoothly, it didn't make too much sense and you were often caught out by physics-defying barrels thrown by an angry gorilla, but it was fun. It held my attention for a while, not that I ever completed it.