Games - Back To The Eighties

In the late 80s, video arcades were the coolest place to hang out.
The 'Golden Era' of video gaming was long gone.

Once the geeks had been driven out and the Pong and Space Invader cabinets had been smashed to pieces, the big boys moved in.

I'm talking Double Dragon, Shinobi, Altered Beast, Shadow Dancer, Contra, Stryder, R-Type, Bubble Bobble (and its counterpart Snow Brothers), TMNT, Raeden, Operation Wolf, WWF Superstars, Rampage, Golden Axe, Rolling Thunder, Ninja Gaiden, Captain Cammando...etc, etc.

I'm not talking 'cocktail tables' either, I mean the uprights! Or even the 'cockpit cabinets' like Afterburner, Out Run, Powerdrift, Space Harrier or Hang On.

Highscores didn't matter so much now, you just wanted to get to the end!

In addition to specific arcades, arcade games were found in restaurants, bowling alleys, college campuses, dormitories, laundromats, movie theaters, supermarkets, shopping malls, airports, truck stops, bars/pubs, hotels, and even bakeries.

I remember the arcade joint where I lived.
It was called the Austral. It was half a cafe and half an arcade joint.
You could be cool and sit in the sunken window and smoke cigarettes and see your buddies walk by. Or you could just lay a few dollars into Double Dragon, and later on Street Fighter II. Everyone used to meet up there, night or day.

By the late-1980s, the arcade video game craze was beginning to fade due to the reputation of arcades as being seedy, unsafe places as well as the advances in home video game console technology.

It was saved in the short-term during the 90's by Street Fighter II, Mortal Combat and NBA Jam. But that started to fade as all the home consoles picked up on these games.

Daytona USA gave arcade a new lease of life, but its hard to say if it will ever rise again. Unfortunately, I doubt it very much...

Next time we’ll look at P.C.and the Video Games Crash of ’83...

"All your base are belong to us"

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Posted By: Jarrah - Category: Games

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80's Video Games

April 10th 2008 23:43

The 80’s was the boom time for video gaming.

They’d slowly made their way from Tic-Tac-Toe and Pong super computers into the living rooms of our own homes.

The Atari 2600 especially took the world by storm.
They offered an affordable machine that you could plug into your existing television set and play ‘ports’ of all your favourite arcade games right at home.

Atari dominated the market with hit games like Pitfall, Breakout, Adventure, River Raid, Battlezone, and eventually the infamous E.T. cartridge – which led to the legendary Video Games Crash in ’83.

But out of the rubble, Nintendo managed to steal the video games crown title for itself.

Suddenly the world went Mario crazy; that little red and grey NES could be seen everywhere.

Man, it was so big they even had a whole movie about playing Nintendo – The Wizard (1989) staring The Wonder Years’ Kevin Savage. Although it was criticized as an advertising ploy by Nintendo, Universal actually paid big bucks for the licensing. And only the 80’s could use the real world unveiling of Mario 3 as a major plot point in a movie.

The movie grossed about 15 million....and Mario 3 grossed more than 500 Million!
Other notable NES (or Famicon in Japan) games were Zelda, Duckhunt, Castlevania, Rad Racer, TMNT, Bubble Bobble, Metroid, Ninja Gaiden & Aussie Rules Football (only in Aus of course).

Nintendo kept things interesting by releasing new equipment and accessories (most of which failed). The NES Zapper light gun was ahead of its time, and who could forget the Power Glove.

However, Nintendo came up trumps when they unveiled the 2nd bestselling (1st PS2) piece of video games hardware in history - the Gameboy.
Before Gameboy, handheld gaming was restricted to those little LCD games like Donkey Kong and Pac Man. Now people had an NES in the palm of their hands – well a black & white version anyway.

But Gameboy was nothing without games. So Nintendo secured their next weapon from a small Russian developer for a tiny amount and unleashed Tetris onto the world. One of the most popular, and to some, most hated games of all time.
Sega Master System came in a distant second to the NES. Although arguably superior - California Games, Sonic the Hedgehog, Alex Kidd, Wonderboy and the Game Gear just couldn’t stand up to the marketing genius of Mario and his thugs – a problem that plagues Sega to this day.

Next time we’ll look at P.C., Arcade and more on the Video Games Crash of ’83...

'I love the Power Glove. It's so bad!'

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Posted By: Jarrah - Category: Movies, Games, Culture

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