For those of us who are old enough to have been a part of the video game revolution of the early to mid 80’s, which games were always the hardest for you? Which ones did you never get good at?
For me, I could never play Asteroids to save my life. I was always overdoing it on the thrust and ramming into the asteroids.
I could also never get the hang of Missile Command. I hardly ever got past the third level. I think this game progressed too fast in its increasing difficulty. By the third level the bombs were dropping so fast and in such high numbers that it was impossible to keep them at bay. I think I actually got to level 5 once. I know from playing the Atari 2600 version there are lots more levels.
As for the games I was good at, I had Pac-Man down pretty well. I had memorized several patterns. I got to the 9th key a few times (the ghosts would no longer turn blue at this point) and I think my score was around 238,000 IIRC. I could also play Galaga for hours and score over a million points (the display reset to zero and rolled over). At this point I had so many ships that I just killed them off so that I could go home. I also got pretty good at Centipede and could beat most of my friends at it.
I wish I could remember which game it was but a friend of mine played a game for 4 hours without losing a life and the game just kept looping… He got frustrated and walked away .
I was never really GOOD at arcade games. The Arcade Star Wars game was my favorite and played through that one several times.
I remember being pretty decent at the Mr. No games and Defender.
I loved Zaxxon but it kicked my ass for years… I think it was sometime in the mid 90s before I made it to the 3rd level.
Easiest
There was a game called Road Blasters or something similar. I was freakishly good at that game. It involved driving a car at high speeds while a plane dropped weapons onto your roof. (Note: I am not confusing this game with Spy Hunter.)
Hardest
I was at a loss when it came to playing Defender. I didn’t suck at Centipede, but it certainly gave me fits. Tron was pretty cool, but it was rare for me to make it past the second level (damn lightcycles). And for some reason, Frogger was difficult for me.
The hardest game I ever played, by far, was Tempest. It moved too fast for me, I guess, because they always killed me, and quickly.
The easiest? Hmmm…I loved Ikari Warriors, and it was easy to play. I never beat it, but it certainly wasn’t hard. Joust was easy, too. Very enjoyable, though.
I think the easiest for me was either Galaga, Pac Man(because all you had to do was memorize the patterns), or Tron. I could never do well at Defender though…something about those damn caves always killed me. Another, that I can’t recall the name of right now, was a Baseball game that I was awesome at! You had to put in (a)quarter for every 3rd(i think) inning. I was untouchable. I was pretty near invincible at the pinball game Black Knight also…I still think this was the ‘best’ pinball game ever made.
I just thought of another real quick, Moon Patrol I loved playing that game every Saturday morning before bowling league. Jump…Shoot…Jump…Shoot. lol
Hardest:
Defender (and Super Defender) by Williams?
Controlling Altitude w/a joystick speed and direction with buttons, lazers, nuke and warp buttons with the other other hand while flying left to right / right to left not knowing what aliens and other obstacles were ahead or behind you {unless you looked at the little sensor screen} was the most difficult video game to master.
Easiest:
Donkey Kong
Once you had the pattern and timing down on the 4 different scenes, it was a cakewalk.
Most missed:
Astro Blaster
I loved that game, yet to find one on e-bay or in the dark corner of an arcade covered in dust
Dragons Lair always managed to eat a lot of my quarters without me progressing the story. I suppose now it would be a breeze to walk through the game but I was only 7 or so when I first played it.
Moon Patrol was a walk in the park for me. If I needed to kill some time and only had 1 quarter I would plop it in that game and end up winning it. I was also pretty darn good at Donkey Kong Jr.
I second the Dragon’s Lair being hardest. The problem was that each scene had a predetermined way you had to go or action you had to perform to make it through. Anything other than that preset method you died, and the only way to figure out what was the right method was trial and error. Great graphics though!
As for easy, I was always pretty good at Centipede and ** Pole Position **.
I was terrible at Defender; too many damned buttons. I also sucked at Centipede and Asteroids.
There was a swordfighting game called Great Swordsman I was absolutely terrific at, and there was that old Karate MAster game I was great at, too. I could kick ass at Star Wars.
I kicked arse in Gyruss, the only video game to feature Bach`s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. Diddle-dee-diddle-iddle-dee-dee! 3 Warps To Uranus! {fnar fnar}
I got really good at Frogger, occasionally getting to such a high level that the game just stopped. I really liked Galaga, too. Loved it when you got one of your ships out of a tractor beam, and paired it up with another for double firepower!
And like many others, never could get the hang of Defender.
I always thought PacMan was pretty easy, and like others have said, Defender was tough. Interesting side note. . . my younger brother, who is the best video gamer I’ve ever met, actually played through Defender until the game ran out of levels and reset itself. He was five years old at the time.
Anybody remember Tutankham? It ws one of my favorites as a kid (when I could find it), but it was hard as hell. Maze-based game, where you’re exploring “Tutankhams” tomb, collecting treasure and fighting off meanies. Two joysticks; one to manuveur through the maze, the other to fire your weapon. BUT, your weapon only fires left and right. That, plus really fast moving bad guys, made this game really tough. I still play it occasionally on Mame, but I still have trouble getting past the first level.
Another very tough but sorta obscure game was Sinistar. You flew your spaceship around, mining crystals from meteors. The enemy spaceships (which were MUCH faster than you), would fly around and either shoot at you, or steal the crystals from you after you’ve shot them out of the meteors but before you could pick them up. Meanwhile, the bad guys were also collecting pieces to build “Sinistar”, this big, metallic, space-demon looking thing. You had to collect enough crystals before they finished building him, otherwise, you had no hope of killing him, and he’d chase you down until you were dead.
Easier Games
Frogger has already been mentioned. I always thought Tapper was pretty easy, as was Elevator Action.
There were three games that I was good enough at to draw a crowd:
Tempest, where I almost always made it to the levels where the structure is invisible. There are 31 different structures, I guess I made it about half-way through the the invisible group.
Star Trek. Once you know how to zoom around on warp drive and use the photon torpedos effectively, you can pretty much keep that game going all night on a single quarter.
A game I can’t remember the name of where you have to manuver a spaceship around a planet against the planet’s gravitational draw and pick up fuel to keep your ship from crashing. Enemy gun turrets were placed near the fuel stacks. It was entirely line graphics like Asteroids but it was way cool.
I was fairly decent at Defender, up until the planet blew up and those little gnat-like ships started swarming all over. At that point the game just became impossible.
I almost always completed Marble Madness, but it was a little bit of an anticlimax because the game just ends after so many levels and you are declared a winner. I always thought I should at least get my quarter back.
The game you are trying to think of is called Gravitar, which I mentioned in my post above as being one of my worst games.
As a side note, my relatives have that game among about 30 others in the original arcade stand up, coin operated versions in their basement. Good times.
I really sucked at Sinistar–to the “You mean there’s more than one level?” level of suckitude.
On the other hand, I was extraordinarily good at Joust and Gauntlet II.
Joust had magic sweet spots where you could just hover and take out whole levels of baddies (unless the pterodactyl showed up, in which case you had to maneuver a bit). I often just turned my game over to someone else and walked away because I was tired of it–playing for hours on one quarter will do that to you.
I didn’t have any special tricks for Gauntlet II, I was just good at it. The arcade manager had mixed feelings about me. I would only spend one quarter for 4 hours of gameplay, but I was great advertising–people constantly joined and dropped out of my games. My favorite memory of the game is of some snotty punk chiding me for fighting a dragon, “You’re wasting your time, you can’t kill those things.” Seconds later, the game announced, “I’ve not seen such bravery!” as the dragon died and left me a sweet pile of loot. It was the third dragon I had killed that day.
Oh, yeah–and I made it all the way through the invisible structures on Tempest…but not all in one game. I had an unfair advantage–I repaired the game for the local arcade and kept it in the shop for a week “testing” it with the credit mechanism exposed.
Easiest: Centipede and (does anyone remember this) Indiana Jones. For years, Indy’s “We walk from here.” at the end of the mine cart level was a catch-phrase in my group of friends (we are all pretty nerdy). I was also pretty good at Track & Field as long as I had a buddy around to help me pound the keys to get my speed up.
Hardest: Have to agree with the Defender crowd. Too many buttons.
