Miner 2049er

2049 - the year in which I might proceed to 'git gud'

First Dig Dug and now Miner 2049er? Can we really have two such games come along at once? No, because Miner 2049er doesn't appear to have a whole lot to do with mining. I can't say for sure if it's got the 2049 side of things down though, so we'll give it that.

In stark contrast to Dig Dug, what we're presented with here is a platformer - with a meaty ten levels of platforming - centered around the clean up duties of what I'm told is a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman called Bounty Bob.

It sounds different. Definitely different.

Cleaning up involves merely running over the floor and avoiding or otherwise dealing with any and all stage hazards. How hard can it be?

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...

Robotron 2084

The ultimate conflict between man and machine and a keyboard control scheme?

Source // Wikipedia

It's not space but it is the distant future; 102 years further into time than the arcade home of Robotron 2084. Man versus Machine makes for a bit of variety across the arcade cabinets, but it still appears to be a simple game of shoot these, avoid that. Can't go wrong with that, so where does it improve over its competition?

Dum dee dum, cybernetic revolt, blah blah blah, waves of robots, dooby doo, twin stick shooter.

What. Twin stick shooter? Available on the Internet Archive? Oh hell yes, count me in.

Choplifter

When piloted by yours truly, you don't want to get to this chopper...

Source // Wikipedia

With a title like Choplifter, there can't be too many things that I'll be tasked with, in what I assume will be my helicopter. For a simple concept though, I'm a little bit surprised to see it ported to so many home consoles after its initial release on the Apple II. I don't know why I am surprised though, because simple concepts do well seemingly anywhere.

It is a good job Choplifter was a success too, because I've got to dive into those ports to play it. The Apple II version looks like helicopters in space, which kind of defeats the point of using helicopters, rather than spaceships. The gameplay however is like Lunar Lander meets Defender, which is something I can get behind - providing the ports hold up against the original.

The Hobbit

They're taking the Hobbits to the Commodore-dor-dordor-dore...

Oh boy, a licensed property, so early on?! At least it's not a video game based on a movie at this point, but it is based on the book, or rather sits alongside the events of the book - so much so that it was sold alongside a copy of the Hobbit, which makes The Hobbit some kind of collectors edition waaay before such a concept would dominate the gaming market. And there wasn't a standard edition, it was straight up cross-media promotion, and it was everywhere. Name the home console of the 80s and The Hobbit seems to have been on it, so it must have been good...

Luckily for me, it's available on the Internet Archive. Doesn't come with the book though, but I'll let that slide.

Joust

Thy game is never over!

The word 'joust' conjures just one mental image to me, and it doesn't look anything like Joust. I was ready to done some plate armour and hop onto my trusty steed, before charging towards my opponent with lance in one hand, shield in the other. You know, like a joust... 

But no. That was not the case, and I'm glad it isn't.

Gravitar

Landing with a thump. And an explosion.

Source // Wikipedia

By the sounds of it, Gravitar is yet another space shooter, right? I can't think of any other genre of early 80s video gaming that would settle on Gravitar as a name than a space shooter of some kind, so I do hope it's an interesting one.

It wasn't a surprise to find out that, yes, it was set in space, but I was a little surprised to find out that it plays like a mix of Asteroids and Lunar Lander, which immediately put it into the 'must play' category, for me at least. Whether it actually is a must play depends on whether I've any luck in playing it in its original form...

Ultima I

From darkest dungeon to deepest space!

Source // Wikipedia

I've come across only one game from the Ultima series in my time so far, and that was watching a play-through of Ultima VII on YouTube. I know its an RPG series, set in ye olden times, so I assume that Ultima I is just a stripped down, graphically lacking version of Ultima VII. I mean that sounds fair, right?

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...).