Yeah, the times they are a-changin’, and new games will come out. But why does every arcade have 150 of the same kind of game? Row after row after row of Kick-boxer XVII, or something similar. I wish they could at least have a back room for us old school kid. I was lucky to be able to buy a full sized arcade version of Gauntlet for $200 from an arcade that was going out of business and had to sell all of its games. I still have it & play it occasionally. A few more on my fond memory list:
Star Castle
Star Trek
Defender
Missle Command
Joust
Tempest (I know it’s available for PCs, but it’s just not the same without that heavy flywheel-loaded knob you can spin. The same goes for Marble Madness & Battle Zone)
And one more that I can’t remember the name of, where you piloted a little ship around a line-graphics (like Asteroids) side-view drawing of a jagged rocky planet surface, against the force of the planet’s gravity. There were gun turrets on the ground & fuel deposits you had to scavange to keep powered. At one point the gravity goes negative and you have to swing your ship around & thrust toward the planet so you don’t drift off into space. Somebody help me out here…
I could milk a quarter on that game for hours! Another fond memory is “Phoenix”. How much do these antiques cost? If I buy one, is there anybody who still does maintanece on them?
I just read this thread, and now I’m nostalgic for my old Atari 2600 (and my Apple IIc). I used to play all these - Joust, Defender, Space Invaders, Q*bert, Pitfall, Berzerk… sigh Now I wish I had swiped the darn thing out of my parent’s attic when they sold the house. It still worked…
I think the original poster’s point was that modern video games are very short, and have no replay value. This ia true for a lot, but not all. For insance, the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the N64 takes at least 42 hours just to get to the end; (according to the creators, anyway) That doesn’t include tracking down secrets and completing secondary missions. The again, the LOZ games have always been a standard of quality for complexity and replay. Maybe OOT’s quality is indicative of strength of the game line’s as opposed to the gaming industry.
That said, I played my Atari nearly everday until the power cord got lost when we moved, and my original Nintendo is still set up in my room. I own an AppleIIe and make my own ultra simplistic repetitive games. I’m 15, but sometimes I think I was born in the wrong generation.
Missile Command and Centipede. The Trac-ball is what made these games fun. Also, even if you had learned the tricks of the game (i.e. lay a line of missiles really quick to intercept the first wave of missiles or blas a lane for the centipede to drop straight down on you) you still had to execute these moves. There’s a mint condition Centipede machine in the Norfolk Airport. I kinda hope for flight delays now.
The answer as to why there aren’t any games like that anymore is simple. If you were an arcade proprietor, would you want to buy a game which costs a quarter and lasts possibly several hours in capable hands, or one which lasts 5 minutes or less? As far as the “these kids don’t have the attention spen” argument, that’s just silly. I too look back at those games with fond memories, Zaxxon being my favorite(over 1 million one wasted summer day), but the fact of the matter istat if the technology was present at the timw,we too would have had fighting and shooting games by the truckload. Why? BECAUSE TWO PEOPLE CAN PLAY THEM AT THE SAME TIME! Not only do the games not last as long, you’ve got two kids duking or shooting it out over a quarter that goes straght to the arcade owers pocket. I Seem to remember a good arcade game, like donkey kong in It’s heyday, taking in about $275 a week,(read it in arcade mags, man, did I waste alot of youth!) Mortal Kombat was taking in over $500 a day in some locations when it first hit. You do the math.
Few people, on their deathbed, look back at their life and say,“I wish I’d slept more and taken less chances”.
I recently saw a commercial for a video game museum. I don’t remember where it is, but the commercial showed several machines and ended with two guys playing Hurricane. Evidently, the museum’s games are playable!
“Age is mind over matter; if you don’t mind, it don’t matter.” -Leroy “Satchel” Paige
Pinball games! I love those! Darned if I can find any where I live, though.
That said, clocwork’s got it straight. Less time on the machine=higher turnover=more money for the arcade. As the local Tekken 3 wizard (well, when Nathan isn’t around. . . looks over shoulder) I can whip through the ten computer fighters in 4 minutes. Then I have to drop in another 50 cents if I want to play again.
Anyone remember Roadblaster?
– Sylence
“A friend of mine once sent me a post card with a picture of the entire planet Earth taken from space. On the back it said, ‘Wish you were here’.” - Steven Wright
I agree that video games are not as fun as they used to be. These days, it seems like everything in the arcade is either some kind of flight/race car/motorcycle simulator, or else a fighting game descended from Street Fighter (which itself was descended from those two old-time greats, “Karate Champ” and “Yie Ar Kung Fu”). Why isn’t there more variety? In the old days, the games were simple and sometimes repetitive, but if you got bored with one, you could move to the next stool and play a game that was COMPLETELY different from the one next to it. Oh, and my personal favorite: BurgerTime. I have it on my PC and play it compulsively when I get writer’s block.
Unlike video games, pinball has gotten steadily better and better. sure, they’re more expensive than they used to be, but pinball games have really taken a quantum leap in the last five years or so.
Ok, this is slightly off subject, but these are obviously the people to ask.
I’ve been looking for a copy of Maelstrom, an Asteroids spin-off, which I used to play on a circa '93 Mac. Does anyone know where I might find a copy that plays on pc’s? I can’t find it, period. Thanks.