The Tower of Retro-Babble: Data East

image from the Data East Fandom page

Data East. We’re not number one, and we don’t try harder.

Founded in 1976 by Tetsuo Fukuda, Data East started making video games three years later, and became famous for early hits like Burgertime and Bump ‘n Jump. Later games by Data East took the concepts first explored by other publishers and took them in (slightly) new directions. Super Mario Bros. became Karnov, Double Dragon became Bad Dudes, and Street Fighter II became Fighter’s History. By the 1990s, Data East developed a reputation as a B-lister, riding the coattails of more successful game developers. By the 2000s, Data East was driven into bankruptcy, rocked by a lawsuit from Capcom and socked by the rise of 3D gaming. Capcom, Konami, and Namco had all prepared themselves for the polygonal paradigm shift of the late 1990s. Data East? Not so much.

Some things worth mentioning before I move on to the game reviews. First, Data East’s president was the inspiration for Karnov, a flabby Russian fire breather who the design team would squeeze into many of the company’s arcade games. Second, Data East was the fertile ground that brought other publishers like TAD Corporation and Technos Japan to life. TAD didn’t stick around for long, sputtering out after its initial success with Cabal, but Technos had more luck, giving the world the Double Dragon series which would survive long after its 1996 bankruptcy.

Bad Dudes

“I’m bad!”

That’s very healthy! The first step is admitting you have a problem.

Like Altered Beast, Bad Dudes makes a strong first impression, but can’t hold that momentum for more than ten minutes. As one of the titular dudes- who are bad, in case you’ve forgotten- you’ll battle Dragon Ninjas across seven disconcertingly flat stages. Stages are typically split into two floors, with players leaping from the top to the bottom and back, but it feels superficial next to Double Dragon’s elevated side view.

Speaking of flat and superficial, the combat in Bad Dudes boils down to swatting away dozens of ninjas with punches and kicks. The ninjas fold in one hit, so there’s no combo potential, no throws, no pursuit moves, no nothin’ resembling a real fight. Even if one of these ninja nerds manages to hit you, they quickly sneak away, denying you a chance for revenge. The ninjas’ rice paper constitutions and their reluctance to commit to combat seriously makes you wonder how they managed to kidnap an American president. Yes, even one as famously frail as Ronald Reagan. He had bodyguards, you know!

Bad Dudes does have its moments. The graphics have the same gritty urban vibe as the artwork in Robocop, but with more variety… one stage sets you on the top of a moving semi-trailer, with ninjas crawling up the sides to engage you in unsatisfying combat. The first boss is Karnov, one of the earliest examples of a video game crossover. You can play with a friend, which is always a plus in a late 1980s arcade game. Past that, the Bad Dudes experience is pretty hollow next to the competition. No amount of wimpy Dragon Ninjas could ever beat a Double Dragon.

Bump 'n Jump

Now that’s driving excitement! Bump ‘n Jump is a top-down racing game where the goal isn’t to beat the other cars to the finish line, but beat them into scrap metal. You’ll do this by either forcing them off the road, or crushing them with a well-timed jump.

It’s not all fun and vehicular homicide, though! There are frequent gaps in the track, which you’ll have to vault over with the jump button. You can’t jump at lower speeds, and you can’t reach the higher ones with all those rival cars bumping into you. Pay close attention to the warning signs that blink at the top of the screen… that’s your cue to pull away from the pack and hit the jump button, sometimes hitting it again to launch yourself off islands set between the end of one road and the start of another.

It’s a little tricky to play, but oh so fun! Muscling cars off the road gave players the same visceral, violent thrill as the much later Burnout series, and each new stage brings with it a new season and even more hazardous roads. Bump ‘n Jump was a hit in arcades, nearly as popular as its Data East stable mate Burgertime, and quickly found its way to all the major consoles released before the crash. It even got an NES port, but like Gyruss, it’s really more of a next generation sequel, with all the usual Nintendo era tropes. It was a fun rental in the late 1980s… you could do a whole lot worse.

Burgertime

Hope you’re hungry! The burgers at this restaurant come extra-large… and covered with footprints. Uh, hope you’re more hungry than picky.

Burgertime is an incredibly creative platformer coming from Data East, a company that spent much of its later life “borrowing” ideas from other game companies. As chef Peter Pepper, you’ll make burgers by stepping on the ingredients. Completely flattening a bun, meat patty, or lettuce leaf forces it downward, until it all settles onto a plate at the bottom of the screen. Order up! Uh, ignore the scuff marks.

Sounds easy enough, right? Sure, until the Food Foes get involved. Animated hot dogs, pickles, and a fried egg chase after you, weaving up and down the ladders scattered throughout each level. Crushing a Food Foe with a burger ingredient earns you points… but luring them onto a bun as you’re flattening it is worth more points, with the added weight forcing it down two floors rather than one. As a last resort, Peter Pepper can throw pepper, stunning nearby Food Foes and seasoning his way out of a jam. However, pepper doesn’t grow on trees! Once you run out, you can only restock your supply with a bonus prize in the center of the screen.

(By the way, pepper grows on vines, in case you were curious. Because I was.)  

Data East hit the bullseye with Burgertime… it’s fun, challenging, and surprisingly original, making it the most popular game in the company’s early library. Mattel quickly swept in to buy the home rights, and released an excellent port of Burgertime for its Intellivision. That port would soon be followed up with conversions to the Atari 2600, ColecoVision, and even the NES. There were also sequels, but the only one that’s worth a second glance is Diner, originally designed for the Intellivision as a He-Man game. By the power of Greyskull, I have the pepper?

Darwin 4078

Data East was an early pioneer in the overhead shoot ‘em up genre, releasing Mission X and B-Wings before the tidal wave of Xevious clones hit Japan in the mid-1980s. Unfortunately, they were never all that good at making these games, and Darwin 4078 is just further proof.

As the name suggests, the headlining feature of Darwin 4078 is that your ship evolves as you play. Grabbing icons that look like Ultraman changes it from the default design, Beas, to a range of more advanced fighters, all with strange but effective weapons. Shesuem lets out twin blasts of fire, Twipet unleashes swarms of white worms, and the grand prize Gyasharru chokes the playfield with laser rings.

However, getting hit with a bullet regresses Darwin into the fittingly named Pister, a pathetic little runt of a ship that’s hopelessly outmatched by the armies of… whatever those things are supposed to be. Better grab another Ultraman quick! Otherwise, Darwin will be stuck in its larval form, and there’s nowhere to go from there but dead!

The game is a comedy of errors. It hurts to look at it directly, with gruesome backgrounds and enemy designs that are somehow less exciting than the bulbous chrome monstrosities of a UPL game. It’s also kind of cheap… Darwin is long enough that dodging bullets and the spastic enemies is harder than it needs to be, especially when they’re camouflaged against those eyesore backgrounds. Yet Data East persisted, making sequels to Darwin 4078 in the desperate hope that someone somewhere would want to play them.

That person only exists in theory. The reality is that with so many superior options available, gamers have long evolved beyond the need for this crap. Ain’t that a Pister?

Fighter’s History

Fighter’s History was just one of many versus fighting games in early 1990s arcades, but it’s the only one that got a lawsuit from Capcom. Why Capcom chose to single this game out for legal action is unclear. Fighter’s History is a pretty shameless knock-off, but it’s not any less shameless than World Heroes for the Neo-Geo. Beyond that, there’s nothing about Data East’s game that presented a serious challenge to Street Fighter II and its updates.

Fighter’s History is the most “there” fighting game in fighting game history. It’s got the same three punch and three kick button layout as Street Fighter II, along with analogs of the Street Fighter cast. Chun Li gets replaced by opera singer Fei Lin, Zangief gets swapped out for Greek wrestler Marstorius, and Mizoguchi is a hot-blooded punk with the DNA of Ken and Ryu. None of the characters fight as well as their inspirations, with awkward joystick motions and odd attack trajectories, but they get the job done.

The game’s headlining gimmick is a weak point for every character. For instance, Mizoguchi wears a headband… repeatedly strike him in the head and it’ll be knocked off, leaving him dazed and wide open to attack. (Apparently it was a load-bearing headband.) Weak points do add strategic nuance, but it’s not enough of a factor in fights to make much of a difference.

Fighter’s History got a Neo-Geo sequel, Fighter’s History Dynamite, with two new characters, larger sprites, and enough improvements to the core gameplay to make it one of the better fighting games on a system overloaded with them. Data East also leaned into the silliness of the first game, giving the CD version a bombastic arranged soundtrack that assaults the player with boisterous horns. Fighter’s History Dynamite knows exactly what it is and doesn’t apologize for it, and you’ve got to give it credit for being so joyously, defiantly tacky.

Heavy Barrel

The most Data East thing you can do is take a smash hit arcade game, file off the serial number, inject your own creative juices, and throw in a twist to the gameplay to keep the lawyers at bay. (Or not… see also Fighter’s History.)

Heavy Barrel is Data East’s take on Ikari Warriors, a military-themed shooter which hit arcades like a hand grenade two years earlier. While the game is certainly inspired by Ikari Warriors, it’s also superior, with smoother gameplay, heavier firepower, and soldiers with slimmer shoulders. The stars of Ikari Warriors were wider than Buicks, but the heroes of Heavy Barrel are smaller and more nimble, making it easier to dodge bullets while aiming with the stubborn loop lever on the top of the joystick.

The arsenal of weapons also does more to dazzle the player; more creative and “video gamey” than the merely functional firepower in Ikari Warriors. You want grenades? Okay, but have you considered this giant screen-clearing yo-yo instead? Or maybe these gas clouds which hover in place, killing soldiers faster than you can say “Raid” and burning through the metal plating of helicopters and tanks? It’s a guaranteed war crime in a can!

All these weapons of mass destruction are obtained from chests, unlocked with keys found on red soldiers. However, the grand prize is “Heavy Barrel,” which has to be assembled piece by piece. It takes a while to find all six pieces, but when you do, the odds violently tilt in your favor. The player who grabs the last piece of Heavy Barrel gets a weapon best described as shoulder mounted death. This all-consuming beam cannon only lasts for about thirty seconds, so savor the moment.

Heavy Barrel is pretty terrific, with a clean near-future aesthetic that brings to mind old episodes of GI Joe. It’s fun whether you’re alone or in a crowded arcade, rubbing shoulders with a friend and hoping you’re the one who finds the last piece of the coveted super weapon. If you’re not, just try to be happy for your buddy as he sprays hot death in all directions. It must be nice, killing soldiers that easily. I have to settle for a giant yo-yo.

Karate Champ

Karate Champ is one of the earliest fighting games, released at a time when technology could finally handle the large characters and deep gameplay demanded by the genre. It was also designed by a team within Data East that would go on to form Technos Japan. Technos would quickly develop a talent for bringing martial arts mayhem to the world of video games, but not quickly enough to make Karate Champ as enjoyable as its later hits.

Instead of a back-alley brawl, Karate Champ is a controlled and disciplined karate tournament. Two angular fighters, who look like Data from Star Trek or Marcy’s first husband from Married… with Children, trade blows in a best of three point contest. Quick jabs earn a half-point, while the more theatrical and difficult to land strikes get a whole point. Attacks are performed with a second joystick, giving the player fine control over where their fists and feet will land.

Reach three points before your opponent and the judge, who looks like the love child of Cheech and Chong, lets you proceed to the next stage. If you’re good enough, you might even get a chance to go toe to hoof with a raging bull, a cheeky reference to martial arts master Mas Oyama. If you’re not good enough- and you won’t be- you’ll be sent home in shame.

Karate Champ is a tough game, and an awkward one to play. Combinations of the two joysticks trigger your character’s attacks. There’s a lot of them to remember, and nothing comes as easily as it does in Konami’s more spritely Yie-Ar Kung Fu. It does let you challenge a friend, a feature Yie-Ar Kung Fu doesn’t offer, but you and your buddy will just be stumbling blindly through each match, kicking at thin air and cheering when somebody finally lands a blow. It might actually be easier to learn karate than Karate Champ.

Technos had to start somewhere. You’ll just be glad fighting games didn’t end here.

Karnov

Russian circus attraction Karnov must atone for his past sins by finding a hidden treasure, but it’s the player who gets punished in this brutal side-scrolling platformer. Karnov is a bit like Super Mario Bros., if Super Mario Bros. felt kind of janky and looked kind of disturbing and offered too many power ups. Instead of mushrooms and fire flowers, comrade Karnov gets a ladder for those hard-to-reach K marks, wings for when the ladders aren’t high enough, speed shoes, bombs for blasting holes through barriers, a mask for spotting hidden pathways, scuba gear for fast travelling through lakes, and fire orbs to boost Karnov’s natural talent for spitting fire. (Whew.)

You could argue that more power ups mean more variety, and more access to the hidden nooks and crannies that were so fun to find in Super Mario Bros. At the same time, there’s something to be said for the streamlined design of Super Mario Bros., which does nearly as much with its small handful of power ups as Karnov does with its mountain of them. Beyond that, a fully powered up Mario is sturdier than Karnov, who falls to one hit no matter how much stuff he had tucked into his pocket at the time. (The NES version threw players a bone by letting Karnov get hit twice, and it’s a hugely necessary addition to a game this tough.)

At least Karnov is weird. Not the friendly Alice in Wonderland kind of weird, like Super Mario Bros., but unnervingly strange, with creatures from Mesopotamian mythology all hoping to sink their jaws into our husky hero. Is that an army of skeletons astride skeleton ostriches? Why is that vaguely humanoid trout trying to kill me with a water jug? Does anyone feed those winged gremlins? Maybe that mud man should throw one of his molasses cookies at them instead of me. Karnov’s set for food… he’s using the last notch in his Borscht belt.

When several programmers at Data East left to form TAD Corporation, they took the core play mechanics of Karnov and refined them, creating Toki. Power-ups are restricted to a reasonable number and the level design is tighter, making for a more approachable experience. It’s still plenty weird, but it’s more of a “ten year old boy’s gross sense of humor and fascination with the monkey house at the zoo” weird, rather than an “Iranian history professor’s worst nightmare” weird.

Lock ‘n Chase

Maze games were all the rage in the early 1980s, and some brought new ideas to the table that floated them to the top of the ocean of Pac-Man knock-offs. Witness Pepper II, which had your angelic/demonic hero dodging eyeballs and claiming territory on four connected stages. There’s also Eyes, which is like Pac-Man if everybody had guns. Yep, I’m sold already! And we can’t forget about Dig Dug and Mr. Do!, which let you dig the mazes yourself.

And then there’s Lock ‘n Chase.

Lock ‘n Chase finds ways to distinguish itself from Pac-Man, but they’re frustrating ways that leave the player feeling helpless. You’re a gentleman thief, and it’s up to you to void a vault of valuables while dodging four colorful cops. Wait, those eyes and foreheads look familiar… aren’t those really just the monsters from Pac-Man with police caps?

Oh, they’re “legally distinct” from the monsters in Pac-Man? I wouldn’t count on that excuse holding up for more than a decade tops.

Your gentleman thief would never do something as uncouth as swallowing his enemies, so instead he sets doors at intersections, hoping to confound the totally-not-ghost-monster cops. Sometimes it works! Sometimes he’ll even catch a cop between two doors for bonus points! However, setting doors requires advance planning, and because of unclear trigger points, you’re just as likely to catch yourself inside a door as the Keystone Copyright Violators close in on you. There’s no way to stop the cops cold like in Pac-Man… a bonus prize in the center of the screen will freeze them, but just long enough for them to wince in frustration and hit Roscoe P. Coltrane with their hats. If they’ve already surrounded you, you’re going to Sing Sing the minute they continue their pursuit. Sorry, but crime doesn’t pay! Or entertain!

Despite Pac-Man being right there, Lock ‘n Chase was popular enough to get some home ports, with the Intellivision version and a Game Boy sequel being standouts. There was also an Atari 2600 version, but don’t do that to yourself.

Midnight Resistance

The sequel to Heavy Barrel ditches its top-down gameplay for side-scrolling action more in line with Konami’s Contra series. You and your kid brother must free your family from the clutches of a villainous drug dealer named King Crimson. Yes, like the band. He even looks like the goofy face on the cover of their debut album, and you’ll be seeing a lot of it if you can make it to the final battle.

Anyway! Midnight Resistance uses a loop lever for aiming, which worked well enough for the previous game but isn’t a great fit for this game’s new perspective and faster pace. While Contra let you blast aliens from all angles as quickly as you can tilt the joystick, Midnight Resistance forces you to wrench a dial in place as drug-crazed super soldiers charge toward you. Blast it all, you made me drop my keys! I hope there’s Fentanyl in your next dose of Ketracel White…

Like Heavy Barrel, weapons are earned with keys held by red soldiers, but unlike Heavy Barrel, you won’t be able to use them right away. There’s a storage locker after each stage with items held behind glass. Some items, like the ammo refill, only cost a couple of keys, but the really good stuff, like the always handy spread shot, may cost three or even four. This delayed gratification is a weird design choice that gets even weirder when the final storage locker is filled with members of your kidnapped family. “You’re safe now, Tommy. Thanks for this nifty flamethrower, by the way!”

It’s no patch on Contra, feeling a bit stiffer and a fair bit more contrived. However, Midnight Resistance scratched an itch for Sega Genesis owners in the system’s unsteady early years. You lose the second player in the Genesis port, but the gameplay improves without the accursed loop lever, and the music carries a lot more impact thanks to an arranged soundtrack by Hitoshi Sakimoto. The game’s high points, especially the lengthy battle with a phalanx of stunt planes, taste so much sweeter with a scoop of Basiscape on top.

Night Slashers
(from previous blog entry The East We Could Do)

Data East hit its creative peak with Night Slashers, a side-scrolling beat 'em up that replaces the usual sleazy thugs with decayed zombies and movie monsters. As either a Chinese martial artist, a brawny cyborg, or the hip descendant of the Van Helsing bloodline, it's up to you to send these wayward souls back to their graves. Punches and kicks are usually enough to get the job done, but you can also hammer the undead into the ground with an overhead smash, or resort to a stylish, screen clearing super move. It drains your energy, sure, but it's almost always worth the sacrifice.

There's so much attention to detail in Night Slashers that it almost borders on swagger. Zombies swing their shoulders wildly as they lurch toward you, hoping to sink their teeth into your flesh. Vampire hunter Christopher ends his combos with the flash of an enchanted jewel that liquifies any nearby undead creatures. Land a fatal blow on a boss and the flesh cascades from their bones, leaving a hollow skeleton behind. The monsters are brilliantly designed, with a puppeteer and his shambling blue sidekick being a highlight. Throw in responsive control and you've got a top-shelf product, easily on the level of Capcom's own beat 'em ups. Games like this will make you wish Data East had stuck around long enough for an encore.

Nitro Ball
(from previous blog entry The East We Could Do)

"Hey boss, you know Smash TV? The game that's pretty hot over in America? We should make something like that."
"That's a pretty good idea. We can't JUST make a clone, though... not after that whole Fighter's History mess. What are you going to do to make it distinct?"
"Well, I... uh... people like pinball too, right? So we'll put in some bumpers, maybe a few of those little spinning card things..."
"You just pulled that out of your ass, didn't you."
"Please don't fire me."

Yes, Nitro Ball is the union of two play styles that no sane person would ever consider bringing together. It's got the rapid-fire shooting action and the game show atmosphere of Smash TV, complete with an overly enthusiastic host and big prizes that pop out the thugs you've gunned down. However, instead of being reduced to a fine red mist, the goons you've blasted curl up into a ball and bounce around the playfield. For the most points, you'll want to lead their corpses into bumpers, drop targets, and holes that award a jackpot bonus. At best it's a fun added challenge and at worst it's a distraction, but it nevertheless serves the purpose of making Nitro Ball more than just a copy of Smash TV.

What's surprising is that Nitro Ball captures the sensory overload of a game show better than Midway's game. You're bombarded with loud colors, flashing lights, and urgent music, and the gift boxes from Smash TV have been replaced with sports cars, mansions, and glittering gold watches. The stages feel a little too confined in spots and the lack of twin sticks for firing is an inconvenience, but where presentation is concerned, Nitro Ball makes the game that inspired it look like an old episode of Jeopardy.

Robocop

When viewed strictly as a video game, Robocop is nothing special, and not up to the standards of Namco’s Rolling Thunder or Sega’s Shinobi. You walk slooooowly through the grimy streets of Detroit, punching thugs up close and picking them off from a distance with your gun… when your hero decides to start using it. You had a motorcycle rolling straight at you a minute before… now you pull your firearm out of your thigh?

Here’s the thing, though. Robocop isn’t just a video game… it’s a Robocop game. The film does a lot of heavy lifting for the game, but at the same time, the game does a magnificent job of capturing the atmosphere of the movie that inspired it. Messages sweep across the screen in a jagged green font, Peter Weller growls his catchphrases at key moments, and each level has the same clash of shiny high-tech weaponry and low-to-the-floor living conditions as the film. Data East understood the assignment, aced the final, and went for extra credit just to be sure.

Robocop is one of those rare games based on a film that absolutely needs the film to work, but is so in sync with it that it feels like a logical and necessary extension. A movie as action-packed and violent as Robocop needed a video game, and it deserved one as good as this.

Sly Spy

Sly Spy is everything you could possibly want from a James Bond 007 game but the actual license. The hero looks like lesser Bond Timothy Dalton in press materials, and you’re given the option to pick a three-digit code name before the game starts. By the time you’re finished, you start to imagine Data East’s president strapped to a table with a laser pointed at his crotch. Hey, I wouldn’t put it past MGM’s current owner and real-life James Bond villain Jeff Bezos. “I don’t expect you to talk, Mr. Fukuda. I expect you to obey copyright law!”

Anyway! Sly Spy is a side-scrolling action game, feeling like a hybrid of Bad Dudes and Namco’s Rolling Thunder. Unlike Rolling Thunder’s spindly star Albatross, your spy can soak up a fair amount of damage from enemy agents, and can even assemble a “Golden Gun” from pieces strewn through each stage. It’s really just the Heavy Barrel from Heavy Barrel, but it’s still a death-dealing super weapon, and it’s as welcome in Sly Spy as it is in any of Data East’s other games. (It sure would have been helpful in Burgertime. Would you like a free hot dog shake with your order?)

What’s also welcome is the amount of variety in Sly Spy. Your spy jumps out of airplanes, dives through shark-infested waters, drives a custom motorcycle down a city highway, and infiltrates cruise ships, all to the tune of an exciting soundtrack you swear you’ve heard somewhere before… probably in some spy movie starring Sean Connery. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, there’s no game company more sincere than Data East.

Did I say sincere? I meant shameless.

Tumblepop

Tumblepop takes Taito’s Bubble Bobble and gives it a twist straight out of Ghostbusters. As one of two spectral exterminators, you’ll travel around the world, sucking up the native pests with a vacuum cleaner. Unlike Ghostbusters, your captive prey doesn’t stay captured forever. Release the vacuum button and you’ll fire the monster outward like a cannonball, bowling over his buddies, earning you big points, and revealing hidden bonuses. Don’t release the button, and the monster will eventually burst out of your vacuum bag, costing you a life.

In that fine Data East tradition, Tumblepop isn’t even vaguely original, and it’s not as good as the best games in its well-worn genre. You’ll have more fun with Snow Bros, but Tumblepop is at least as good as Nightmare in the Dark on the Neo-Geo, or Bubble Bobble’s awkward middle children Rainbow Islands and Parasol Stars. It’s explosively colorful, makes even better use of its globetrotting theme than Street Fighter II, and is worryingly addictive, even when you’re pretty sure you shouldn’t have died from the monster you were starting to vacuum. Screw it… I’m dropping in another quarter anyway. I’m having too much fun to stop!

The bottom line is that Tumblepop is a strong entry in the Bubble Bobble genre, and well worth your time. Data East should have quit while they were ahead, though… Diet Go! Go!, Funky Jet, and Joe and Mac Returns are so similar to Tumblepop that it feels like Data East was making and re-making the same game, with increasingly diminishing returns. Joe and Mac Returns is literally prehistoric Tumblepop. Who asked for this?

Back from Extinction

Here's my latest project! It's Digital Dinosaurs, a book on the history and inner workings of 20th century game consoles and handhelds. Not every system is featured in this meaty tome (sorry, Gamate. Also, deeply sorry about your name. Must have been tough for you in handheld high school), but with forty favorites spanning nearly thirty years, there's a whole lot of fun reading in store for video game fanatics.

(Warning: may contain bias. Definitely contains bias.) 

It's free on Itch.IO 'till the end of the month, so pick up your favorite archaeology shovel and dig in! 

By the way, here's a fun little bonus from the book. Each system gets its own image that best describes the overall experience. For instance, the Genesis gets a picture of HAG president Denita Stokes getting insulted by Sonic the Hedgehog, while the Sega Master System gets Alex Kidd... standing in the far distance with a vacant expression as Sonic the superstar gets his butt kissed by his agent. Here's what I gave the Atari Jaguar...

If they sent him to Abu Dhabi, they'd
send him right back, postage due.

 

One image that didn't make the cut was this cute drawing of a SpongeBob-ified Ed Smith celebrating the arrival of his new home computer...

The short-lived era of the burnished 1980s were a gas, weren't they? That was the period between 1980 and 1983 when the 1980s still felt a lot like the 1970s, with slightly more conservative fashion and hair styles. The white people in their leisure suits looked like lit cigarettes, and black people traded their afros for the ooey-gooey not-so-goodness of jheri curls. Bars were dark, arcades were dimly lit, and everything just looked dingy and dirty, as if coated with a thin layer of cigarette ash. 

I'm weirdly nostalgic for this, and I can't even describe why. I barely remember it! It seems like it would have been a fun time for adults, at least.

This wistful look back at the filthy underside of the 1980s and a handful of hand-drawn drawings were brought to you by human engineering! Human engineering: when you care enough to do the damned work yourself. 

People forget that letting AI do all the work for you will slowly drain you of the ability to do it yourself. This becomes rather inconvenient when the price of AI services suddenly explodes after everyone's forgotten how to create. Ask an African mother how well it worked out for her after Nestle's free baby formula dried them out, leaving them at the company's (negligible) mercy. Funny... that formula was free last month, but now it's half my husband's paycheck.

I mention this because Epic Games, the Shasta to Steam's Coca-Cola, is starting a contest to determine who can "make" the best video game with AI. "Making" a game by having a computer do it for you is rather like dropping a quarter into a gumball machine and declaring yourself Willy Wonka, but okay? 

Perhaps the entries will be judged by computers, too. You know, like in that episode of Star Trek, where computers decide who wins battles in outer space, and who becomes the casualties. Get in the airlock, crewmen... the computer demands your sacrifice! It's for the sake of the algorithm!

Since human participation is strictly optional in the Epic Megaslop contest, I'll be opting out. Hell, I haven't even been cashing in on Epic's free bribe-games of the week lately. However, I will cheerfully give Epic and its disreputable CEO this rude drawing as a consolation prize. Enjoy! I made it myself!

Really, you can make things yourself! More people should try that. 

The Tower of Retro-Babble: Stern

"Know whadda mean, Stern?"
(image from the Gameex forums)

To know Stern is to… know more about Stern than I did yesterday! It’s a relatively obscure developer, making pinball machines before a short-lived segue into the video game market as Stern Electronics.

Brothers Gary and Sam Stern (raised by stern parents, no doubt) originally had ties to fellow pinball manufacturer Williams, with Sam owning half of that company. Eventually that stake was sold to Seeburg, a manufacturer of jukeboxes and other coin-operated entertainment, and the brothers started their own business.

Stern Electronics’ biggest hit by far was Berzerk, with an armed human trapped inside a maze teeming with hostile robots. It was so exciting for the time that it caused at least two fatal heart attacks, but that didn’t stop the coins from rolling in! Stern also distributed a handful of Konami games in the United States, most notably Super Cobra. I’ll save those for the gigantic Konami feature that will come later, except for Astro Invader and The End, which we’ll examine right here.

Stern’s output is minimal next to other pre-crash game makers, in both quality and overall industry impact. The company pretty much began and ended with Berzerk. Sam Stern died shortly after the video game crash in 1984, and Gary closed up shop a year after that. These days, Berzerk is in the hands of Atari, a fitting home considering that it was one of the most popular titles on the 2600 and 5200.

Thanks to Wikipedia for the historical information, by the way.

BERZERK
Played: In a bowling alley in Portland, but mostly on the Atari 2600

Another fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into, humanoid. You’re trapped in a structure with infinite rooms, all patrolled by hostile robots. These bulky androids aren’t too bright and aren’t too fast (at least at first...), but they’re nevertheless dangerous, firing lasers when you fall into their sights. Be sure to blast them first, using the surrounding walls as cover. Don’t get too close to the walls, they’re electrified!

Each room contains a random number of robots.
Usually it's a substantial number, but sometimes
you'll get just two or three. Don't relax, though!
The fewer robots there are onscreen, the more
quickly Evil Otto appears, and the faster he
moves when he arrives. 

Also, don’t loiter, because Evil Otto will eventually be alerted to your presence. This bouncing ball of brutality can’t be destroyed or even halted with your shots… the moment you see him, head to the nearest exit. Alternately, you can use the smiling sphere as a wrecking ball, smashing any robots on his way to you. Clear all the robots in a room and you’ll get a bonus! Leave some standing in your mad dash for the door, and you’ll get an insult.

One headlining feature of Berzerk is its synthesized speech. Voice was a luxury in 1980 that few video games could afford, but there are a lot of samples here, with words chained together to form simple phrases. These phrases are played at different lengths and pitches, making it seem like you’re surrounded by a shouting mob of angry robots. “Chase it! Kill it!” Hey, watch the pronouns! We organics have genitals, you know! Er, maybe I should stick to survival, rather than sensitivity training…

There was a Berzerk board game, because
every popular arcade game had to have one.
For some reason, Evil Otto is portrayed as an
iron-headed cowboy with huge muscles
and an oversized belt buckle. Can someone
explain this? I don't follow the logic.
(image from SydLexia)

Players are probably more familiar with the home versions of Berzerk, but they’re thin gruel next to the arcade game. It’s got a sharper resolution, more onscreen enemies, and diagonal firing that actually feels like diagonal firing, not to mention those iconic voice samples. They’re not just a fun gimmick… the constant monotone cries for your head make the action feel more urgent and threatening. Berzerk has literally claimed lives with the added stress the voice brings to an already nerve-fraying experience. While it’s fun enough for the format, you’re just not getting that experience on the Atari 2600.

And forget the flickery, buggy Vectrex version! Like those ports of Doom to the Neo-Geo, it’s just the wrong hardware for the job. It’s like trying to cut a birthday cake with a jackhammer.

FRENZY
Played: At Chuck E. Cheese in Grand Rapids, when the words “Chuck E. Cheese” meant something

Sequels were new territory for video games in 1981. Either you got more of the same (Exciting New Pac-Man Plus, Asteroids Deluxe), or a refined expansion of the original (Galaga, Ms. Pac-Man), or the same game with a lot of extra content haphazardly dumped into it (Stargate, Millipede).

Frenzy took a different approach, with the same core gameplay but new features that profoundly alter the experience. First, the mazes are larger this time, meaning that you have more ground to cover- and more risk of running into robots- when finding an exit. Second, the electrified walls are gone, replaced with two new partitions. Purple bubble walls can be carved through with your shots, while solid white walls reflect them… possibly back at you!

White walls can be used to ricochet your shots,
but beware! Sometimes those bullets will
bounce right back to you!

You have to be a lot more cautious about firing in Frenzy. You’ll also need to pay attention to where the robots are firing. Even if the skeletons and tank droids aren’t shooting directly at you, their bullets could reach you anyway with a few lucky bounces. There are also special stages with a large object as a centerpiece… a factory that churns out robots, a giant reel to reel that programs them, and a super-sized Evil Otto which strikes you down if you kill one of his offspring. These don’t make much of a difference to the gameplay, certainly not compared to the new wall types, but they at least add variety, along with an incentive to get as far as you can before the robots turn you into ash.
 

The ColecoVision version of Frenzy. In contrast
with the arcade game, which makes your hero
look like an electrified Oscar statue, getting
blasted here looks like it... hurts slightly.

It’s a brave sequel, but Frenzy wasn’t as popular as the first game. The drastic drop in voice samples couldn’t have helped… the robots just don’t seem as eager to kill you anymore. This is one of those rare cases where you’re better off with the home console version. Frenzy on the ColecoVision adds music in the key of a science-fiction dystopia, injecting some much-needed intensity into the action, and the poses for the humanoid look more natural. Stern’s version of the character looks like a stick figure, while Coleco’s leans into each shot with dynamic poses. And when he gets blasted, it looks like it hurts.

THE END
Played: In MAME

Video game historian Jeremy Parish sagely observed that there was a pecking order for Konami arcade ports. The good game consoles got classics like Time Pilot, Gyruss, and Frogger. For lesser game systems, it was The End for them! Or Astro Invader, or Turtles. They’re some really low-grade cuts of meat, and they’re all you had to gnaw on if you grew up with the miserable Emerson Arcadia.

Anyway. The End is a shoot ‘em up, similar to Galaxian, but built on the crumbling foundation of one of the dumbest play mechanics you’re likely to find in a single screen shooter. Insectoid foes that look like water striders swoop down from a UFO at the top of the screen, zig-zagging around your shots and stealing your barriers brick by brick. Eventually, the bugs will spell out END with the bricks, and that’s your cue to drop in another coin or walk away. I suggest the latter course of action.

The end is near. (Thankfully.)

There’s a handful of annoyances in The End that sticks it in the bargain bin of fixed screen shooters. The first is that the barriers, which you could shoot in Space Invaders, are impenetrable in The End, limiting your firing real estate to about half the screen. The second is that these insects are unpredictable, and delight in dancing around your shots, often hiding behind the barriers so you can’t shoot them at all until they’ve already got a chunk of the wall in their claws.

Finally, The End is a very dull, listless, creatively parched game. You get the impression that Konami’s programmers were chained to their desks during the development process, because it’s agonizingly clear that they didn’t want to make this, and wanted to get the project behind them as quickly as possible. You could give The End credit for having a boss, but it’s a very lame boss, with the UFO at the top of the screen sweeping back and forth like a carnival target, waiting for you to hit its weak point. It’s like the flagship boss from GORF, with the chaos of falling ship debris and the menace stripped away. Unflavored for me, thanks!

The End. It’s a game you can play. If you want. You probably won’t.

ASTRO INVADER
Played: In a castle-shaped roller rink in Greenville MI

“Behold, my latest scheme to take over the Earth! A GIANT VENDING MACHINE! I’m calling it Plan 7-11 From Outer Space.”
“Neebnorp, you’re an idiot.”

Astro Invader is pretty much Space Invaders (and it looks and sounds the part, likely running on the same hardware), if the invaders were loaded into a Coke machine. Tiny creatures which look distressingly like the face huggers from Alien are dropped into roughly a dozen slots. When one slot is overloaded, the alien at the bottom of the stack is dispensed. Instead of a burst of caffeine or fruity-licious flavor, the bug delivers an electrified blast, stretching across the ground and scorching your tank if it’s nearby.

I'm watching my figure. Does
this thing have Diet Creepy Space
Alien? Or Creepy Space Alien
Zero; that would taste better.

Killing the bugs is optional as long as you’re not too close to them when they hit the ground. However, UFOs occasionally come out of the evil vending machine, from the left, center, and right of the screen, and these must be destroyed. If they touch the ground, you’re toast no matter how far you are from the point of impact.

There were tons of Space Invaders clones in arcades when Astro Invader was released, but this is original enough that it doesn’t feel like reheated leftovers. The direction Konami went with it is strange and subject to taste, but you can’t deny that you were sweating while fending off an endless storm of tiny aliens, cans of Tab, and Gardetto’s snack mix.

By the way, Konami was calling itself “Leijac” in 1980, which sounds more like a French-Canadian lumberjack than a video game company. Maybe they should have distributed Bally-Midway's Timber in Japan...

TAZZ-MANIA
Played: A little arcade in Hastings. Who knows what’s in that building now?

Come to Tazz-Mania! I guess.

This has nothing to do with a certain furry tornado from a Warner Brothers cartoon. It’s actually a shooter, with a green gremlin spraying bullets from a machine gun. The firing rate on the gun is impressive, but the range is anything but, so Tazz will have to get up close and personal to nail the many targets scattered across the playfield. While he’s slaughtering dozens of random objects which look like they’ve been sprayed with radium, larger enemies bounce around the screen, threatening to collide with him. Also, the walls slowly push inward, forcing you to work quickly to keep from getting crushed. Blast all the thingamabobs in the stage and an exit opens to the next one. Clear two stages and you get a brief bonus stage, with numbers that add to your score and smart bombs that add to your supply.

Blah, blah, blah! Yakety-schmackety.

Tazz-Mania is functional as a game, but without the twin stick firing of Robotron: 2084, you’ll have to lock yourself in place with the fire button and aim your blaster with the joystick. This leads to a lot of stop/start gameplay, with Tazz frequently holding his position to shoot a couple of glowing doodads… then moving on to the next couple of targets… then the next… then the next. Whee, fun. Tazz’s gun never seems like adequate protection against the enemies in each stage, either. They have an irksome habit of threading the needle between the directions he can fire, and with the bullets having such short reach, he can’t attack them from a distance, either.

The game works, but considering the high bar of excellence set by Robotron: 2084, maybe Tazz-Mania should have worked a little harder. 

 

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Now presenting... No Quarter!

 

So hey, here's extended footage of my latest Atari 2600 game... and the first since 2005's Solar Plexus! It's called No Quarter, and it's exactly what it will give you as you scramble for coins, ducking and dodging the drips of a diabolical acid rain storm. Grab a coin and return it to the left hand side of the screen for big points... collect $1.50 and you're off to a new stage, with a new brick arrangement and gaps in the floor. Be sure to jump them! You don't want to know what may lurk inside...

I'm really proud of this. It's way better than Solar Plexus, and it was built to fit in an 8K cartridge, without ARM chips, without "vibe coding" (didn't think teledildonics was appropriate for this game anyway), and with a whooooole lot of help from the AtariAge community. 

The planned title screen for No Quarter,
with a moth flying out of Byron's hand.
The portrait of Byron was flickery and
chomped up a lot of memory, so it
had to be scrapped. 

Mike Saarna (the namesake of the "Saarnac pit" in the fourth stage) gave the game a voice with his sound library, and Karl G ("we're going to see G, over THERE!") provided the routine that plays those sound effects. JWeirer resurrected his title screen maker at my request, and while I couldn't make the screen as elaborate as I wanted in 8K, it's still pretty sharp. Albert Yarusso and the hosts of ZeroPage Homebrew offered some helpful suggestions to make the game more fun and fair, and Duane Alan Hahn, aka Random Terrain, gave me a chance to hit the ground running after a twenty year absence with his exhaustive online guide.

On the lower rungs of special thanks are Fred Quimby, the creator of Batari BASIC who seems to have ceded its development to Saarna and Hahn, Jeff Minter and the late Satoru Iwata, for their games Headbanger's Heaven and Money Wars, and Howard Scott Warshaw, for no other reason than giving me the golden opportunity to take a swing at his most infamous game. (You'll know it when you see it.)

It was fun making this game. My ColecoVision and Master System games take about a month and a half to make... No Quarter was functional in a week, and moved up to "pretty damn decent for fifty year old hardware" in another week and a half. The beauty of the Atari 2600 lies in its simplicity... it can't do much, but what it can do it does very well, and simple changes that take maybe a line of code can have a profound impact on the gameplay. A lot of the modes in Combat were achieved just by hitting switches in the TIA. Boom, now you've got three planes instead of one!

Also, while No Quarter is a Batari BASIC game, I've gone to great lengths to keep it from looking like one, resulting in a professional quality Atari 2600 title that looks like you could have found it on a store shelf in 1982. I don't use ASM and will never be able to harness the full power of this system, but I've done the best I could with the tools available to me, and I'd say that was more than good enough.

One more thing! To the guy/girl/bot/general annoyance who keeps posting random games on my blog entries that have little to nothing to do with those entries, stop. Of course, you won't actually stop even if I ask nicely, so I've turned off anonymous comments to ensure you will stop. Sorry to everyone else! You're going to have to post with a Google account, or whatever's available, because schmucks will be schmucks.

Rules of Retrobility: Tips for Making 8-bit Video Games

THE RULES OF RETROBILITY
Tips for designing games on 8-bit consoles

Want to make your own classic video games? Here are some handy hints from someone who's made a few.

Black is beautiful for backgrounds
You can capture that old-school arcade feel, save resources, and squeeze a free color out of sprites by using black backgrounds. Sparse background details like twinkling stars cost you fewer tiles, while catching the player’s attention.

Show, don’t tell!
Endings and key plot points are better expressed with illustrations and animation rather than text. Few things were more disappointing in the late 1980s than to reach the end of a tough NES game, only to be met with “CONGRATURATION” on a blank screen, instead of a satisfying conclusion.

Maintain control
Tight control is critical when designing a video game. If you’re falling off platforms even with one foot on the edge, or struggling to climb a nearby ladder, you’re not enjoying yourself, and isn’t that the whole point? Make sure movement in your game is both responsive and consistent.

Better physics make better games
Jumps with smooth arcs and convincing gravity make for better looking, better playing games. Don’t skimp on this… when a character stiffly jerks up and down during a jump, players will notice, and they won’t like what they see. Play a Color Dreams game on the NES, then do the opposite of that.

Pretty sneaky, sis!
Tons of shooters, both top down and single screen, make the mistake of having tons of enemies that drop straight down. It’s boring; don’t do this. Making your enemies smarter makes your game more challenging, and rewarding. Try having them move in pre-determined patterns.

Jammin’ with VRAM
When you swap graphics in VRAM rather than directly on the screen, all onscreen objects using these graphics will change. It’s a great way to animate large portions of the screen easily, and make key items stand out from the rest of the playfield.

Less BASIC than advertised
BASIC interpreters in the 1980s were slow and lacking in features. BASIC compilers now are fast, feature-filled, and more than suitable for designing professional quality games for classic consoles. CVBasic is a personal favorite, supporting over a dozen systems and with all the punch an intermediate game designer could need. 

“Just good enough” just isn’t good enough
Presentation is everything in a video game. Well, the gameplay is most important, but presentation is a close second. A merely functional game without any artistic flourish won’t hold a player’s attention for long. Go for the gold with little details! The players will notice.

Broaden your horizons
Extra play mechanics are always welcome in a video game, as long as all the ideas work well together. Giving the player two distinct abilities, rather than one, expands the technique and keeps boredom from creeping in after a few minutes.

Two heads are better than one
Games tend to be more fun and less predictable when two players can play them together. Not all game types lend themselves well to two player action, but arcade games from the 1980s are almost always better when a second player can jump into the action with you.

The palette is your pal
Just because you’ve picked a color palette for your game doesn’t mean you have to stick with all the colors in the palette. Palette swapping is an easy, resource-friendly way to animate onscreen objects. Make power ups glisten by switching between gold and white! Pulse the maze with electric blues!

Every sprite has its place
Early game systems can only hold so many sprites on one horizontal line. Eventually, something will give, and one or more of these sprites will flicker. Keep sprites on separate scanlines to prevent this. Also keep the sprite limits of the target system in mind whenever you set characters onscreen.

Make time for timers
Make an animation variable that counts upward every frame, then returns to zero after six or twelve frames. Every third frame, swap the graphics in VRAM or change palette colors for an onscreen object for a smooth, eye-pleasing animation that doesn’t interrupt the action.

Pick the right tool for the job
Early game systems were restricted by the technology of the time, leading to lopsided designs where a system will excel in one area, but flounder in another. Play to your target system’s strengths, and avoid making games for systems that are ill-suited to them. (Don’t make Doom for Neo-Geo. Just… don’t.)

Code once, test twice
The larger a game gets, the more likely there will be bugs and other issues in that growing pile of code. When coding, save your progress frequently, and playtest JUST as frequently. Also, experiment as you play… go where you shouldn’t go, do what you shouldn’t do. Leave no stone (or glitch) unturned.

Take things piece by piece
Components of a game should be built as separate programs, before being combined. This has two advantages: you can thoroughly playtest each individual program before folding it into the finished game, and you can hold onto specific programs (say, production logos) for later projects.

Everybody loves a show
Intermissions, Coffee Time, cut scenes… you can call them whatever you want, but don’t skip them! Intermissions add personality to your work and expand on the in-game lore. Donkey Kong was hurt when its intermissions were dropped from the home versions. Don’t make the same mistake!

Epilepsy: The choice of no generations
Old-school arcade games tend to be loud and flashy. It’s just the nature of the beast, be it a carnival duck or a flying ostrich or… whatever Q*Bert is. However, do be aware that sensory overload can be overdone, prompting annoyance from some players and seizures from a few.

Can’t beat the real thing
Testing your game on an emulator doesn’t tell you the full story… emulators rarely reproduce the behavior of a game system perfectly, and code that works perfectly well in, say, a ColecoVision emulator may crash an actual ColecoVision. (Trust me, I speak from experience.)

Look beyond yourself
One lesson you learn with age and experience is that you’re not always right. Let others test your work, and pay attention to the advice that they give. Maybe their suggestions aren’t what you want for your game, but then again, maybe they could improve it.

Make a sound investment
Sound is a must for a professional quality game. Sound effects keep the player engaged and add pop to key actions… the creaking of a door, the spring of a jump, the growl of an approaching monster. Also, include music if you’ve got the talent to make it, and room for it on the cartridge!

Best served with a twist
Games like Snake, Pac-Man, and Space Invaders have been done a million times over. Instead of a rote reproduction, take those core concepts and expand on them. Introduce refreshing new ideas to the formula. Example: Eyes is like Pac-Man, but with shooting, and it profoundly changes the gameplay!

Take baby steps
If you’re kicking the tires of an unfamiliar game console, don’t jump straight into designing a game! Get comfortable with the hardware and the development environment first. Make some simple demos, then a more involved program, then the game you wanted to make.

Never underestimate the power of tiles
Sprites (objects that move independently from the background) move more smoothly than background tiles, but tiles are still plenty useful! You can use them to build large characters without flicker. It’s how many of the gigantic bosses in Mega Man were designed.

Ace your sprites
There are a variety of tools you can use for designing sprites and tiles. Some are free and some cost money, but Aseprite is worth every penny. It keeps your art exactly as it will look on the target system, and grids can be dropped to ensure that each tile obeys the rules of the system’s GPU.

I before AI
Resist the temptation to use AI to make games. There’s a world of issues with generative AI, but beyond all that, in what sense is it your game if you make a computer do it for you? Modern BASIC compilers have made game design easier than ever. You don’t need AI, and you shouldn’t use it.

Don’t forget to wipe
...the screen. I meant the screen. Instead of a boring CLS statement, mark stage transitions with a stylish screen wipe. A brief pause after every erased column or row results in a subtle but eye-pleasing animation. You can also draw the screen row by row for added panache.

Make the most of what you’ve got
Old game systems often have unique hardware features which help define the experience… for instance, Mode 7 for the Super NES, and sprite resizing on the Atari 2600 and Intellivision. Use these features! Think of new ways to use these features! It makes the experience more authentic.

Get paid
Nobody’s getting rich from making indie games, let alone indie games for long dead game systems. But if you want your games to make money, make payment mandatory, not suggested, on sites like itch.io. Internet users absolutely will not pay for software online unless you force the issue.

Keep a pen and paper handy
It’s a smart idea to plan out games with a spiral notebook, jotting down new ideas and writing out code by hand so you can put it in the game later. You can also rough out character designs if you’re an artist, and arrange notes if you compose music.

Use what works best for you
There’s a wide variety of development tools for the most popular retro consoles. BASIC compilers are a strong foothold for beginning and intermediate programmers, but C will provide more power to the user… and ASM even more so, at the cost of added effort and lost hair. Use what YOU like best.

Show some love to your favorites
When it comes to game systems, everybody has a favorite. You’re encouraged to develop software for the machine or machines you like best. Your enthusiasm for those systems will provide ample motivation for finishing projects… and soon, the system you like best will have one more game. YOUR game!

Know your limits
Early game systems have set hardware limits to keep them affordable, at a time when technology was expensive. Be aware of these limits, so you can work within the boundaries comfortably. Streamline your designs to fit that system’s media, and don’t do anything the system can’t reasonably do.

Easy operation!
Early arcade games are known for their pick up and play nature. They’re extremely intuitive, and it’s a goal you should shoot for with your own games. Make sure the player can understand the objective, which items are safe to touch, and how to deal with approaching enemies.

Kaizo? Heck no!
Challenge in a video game is good! Too much challenge will frustrate players and turn 99% of them away. Respect the player’s time and blood pressure by making stages tantalizingly tricky, without being outright abusive.

The player’s time is a terrible thing to waste
Intermissions and cut scenes are great! An intermission you’ve seen twelve million times already and can’t skip is not so great. Give the player the option to fast-forward through cut scenes and long sections of dialog so they can get to the meat of the game and stay engaged.

The Tower of Retro-Babble: Sega Part I

The Sega logo briefly looked like this, with a bit
of a Solid Gold/Battlestar Galactica curvature to
the G. This wouldn't last for long, and the logo
would soon be rebuilt into the classic blue logo
we all know today.

After years in the vending machine business, David Rosen’s Service Games would eventually slide into the neighboring coin-op amusement industry as Sega, making electro-mechanical games like Duck Hunt. Not that Duck Hunt. Look, it’s a generic name.

No, you can't shoot the dog.
You can't pet the dog, either.
Look, there's no frickin' dog!

 

Sega would be swallowed whole by Gulf and Western in the late 1960s, and made a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures. (They had a tendency to do this sort of thing. Gulf and Western was parodied as “Engulf and Devour” in the Mel Brooks film Silent Movie, and nearly a half dozen name changes later, Paramount is still at it, currently hoping to merge with Warner Brothers.) 

Yeah, it looks like the old meme with
the guy grabbing his own butt.
Fits pretty well with the buttholes
running Via-Para-Warna-Sky now.

 

Over a decade later, the company had settled into electronic games, with Fonz (of shark-jumping Happy Days fame) being one of the first video games with a television tie-in. Head On, a racing and dot gobbling action game that preceded Pac-Man, would be one of the company’s early hits, and the company would employ the talents of Gremlin and former Nintendo ally Ikegami Tsushinki.

Eyyy! Corporate synergy!
(image from Pin Repair)

The Sega of 1982 looked quite different from the company we recognize today. However, there were seeds planted in the early half of 1980s that would blossom into greatness later, after Paramount sold the company to Bally-Midway during the video game crash, and Japanese company CSK bought Sega from Midway shortly afterward. Congo Bongo one-upped Donkey Kong with similar gameplay but the same stunning isometric graphics as Ikegami’s previous hit Zaxxon, starting a decades-long cold war between Sega and Nintendo. Early hits like Turbo and Monaco GP would lead to OutRun and Super Monaco GP, with Yu Suzuki behind the wheel of Sega’s cutting edge Superscaler hardware. Finally, Flicky has canon ties with the Sonic the Hedgehog series… even if the Flickies in Sonic seem thrown in there out of a misplaced sense of nostalgia. 

Astro Blaster
Played: On the PSP

I’ll just put it to you straight... this game kicks phenomenal amounts of ass. It’s a top-down shooter with some of the most diabolical enemy patterns you’ll find in the genre… the abstractly drawn ships invading your sector always know just when to dance around your shots as they draw ever closer to the bottom of the screen. Contact with a ship or their shots (and there are plenty of both) destroys your spacecraft, but a time warp button slows the chaos to a crawl, increasing the chances that you’ll make it to the mothership for a much-needed refueling. You only get one time warp per ship or level, so make it count!
 

I've got no idea what they are,
but they sure are fun to shoot!

This game often gets overlooked (or worse, mistaken for Data East’s limp Astro Fighter), which is unfortunate, as it’s a shoot ‘em up that’s nearly as awesome as Galaga while looking and feeling absolutely nothing like Galaga. In sharp contrast with Namco’s beautifully deadly cosmic ballet, Astro Blaster is a raw, hectic, and unmercifully stressful experience. Enemies let out a menacing hum as they cut through the void of space, letting loose a hail of bombs as they inch closer and closer to your ship. When you trigger the time warp, the ship’s computer counts down the seconds in an authoritative voice, constantly reminding you of the hell that will break loose the moment it runs out. The enemies aren’t as smart as the ones in Galaga, but their dipping and diving is just smart enough- and certainly threatening enough!- to keep the player clutching the joystick in a death grip. 

This game doesn’t look like much on its face, without the velvety animation of Galaga. However, like GORF, it’s the ruthless atmosphere that makes Astro Blaster a classic, along with hidden secret bonuses for macho player feats like beating a fleet of enemies with an equal number of shots, or scraping against the docking clamps of the mothership as you approach. It’s a constantly engaging and thoroughly satisfying experience... one of the unsung heroes of the genre.

Astro Blaster was popular enough that companies like Activision and Sierra On-Line made unauthorized knock-offs for home consoles. Taking after its illegitimate father, Activision’s Megamania is one of the best shooters on the Atari 2600. Threshold is also a game you can play on the Atari 2600… if you really wanted to do that. It’s a little better on the ColecoVision, but either way, Threshold is no Astro Blaster. (No matter what it thinks.)

Carnival
Played: A miniature golf course in Grand Ledge-sing

I’m digging deep into my memory banks for this one! Carnival was an early Sega hit, and when I say “early,” I mean early. This was released in 1980, which meant that I was just old enough to reach the controls while standing on my tip-toes.

It’s a good starter game for a starter human, though. There’s nothing particularly challenging or difficult to understand about this digital simulation of a carnival shooting gallery. Ducks, rabbits, and owls (owls? Who shoots owls?) emerge from the sides of the screen, and you’ll sweep a pistol across the bottom of the screen, picking off each target as it appears. Like Space Invaders, anything you don’t hit in the top row drops to the middle, and then the bottom. Shoot any ducks you see on the bottom row immediately, because they have a nasty habit of swooping down and gobbling up your supply of bullets. Don’t question the logic of a metal shooting target coming to life and eating ammunition… it’s a video game. These things just happen.
 

By the time you're done playing,
you'll be more afraid of ducks
than Balki Bartokomos!
(spoiler: his "ducks" were actually
pterodactyls, presumed unbeatable.)

Run out of bullets and it’s curtains for you. Luckily, you can gain more by hitting numbered tags in the gallery. If you’re feeling zesty, you can even try to spell “B-O-N-U-S” from the letters hidden in the gallery, or blast random signs that appear on the top left of the screen. Clear all the targets (and the spinning pipes sticking out of the wheel at the top of the screen… they’re targets, too!) and you’re taken to a bonus stage with a large bear target. It’s not hard to hit the bear at first, but every bullet makes him a little faster and a little more eager to leave the screen. After he does, you’re given a new screen full of targets, with hungrier, more aggressive ducks.
 

I happen to like bears, but whatever.
Anything for a few thousand extra points.
(Don't tell Byron.)

It’s a simple game, and the 1980-era graphics keep details to a minimum, but Carnival is fun in short bursts, and a great introduction to video games for little kids. (I certainly don’t regret cutting my teeth on it all those years ago.) Plus its simple technology meant that it came to the ColecoVision in near-perfect form, a rarity for this system.
 

Hm. Guess he already knows.

Congo Bongo
Played: On a family friend’s Commodore 64 

When someone’s done you wrong, don’t get mad! Get derivative. That’s what Ikegami did with Congo Bongo, an obvious riff on Nintendo’s mega-hit Donkey Kong, with the enhanced arcade hardware they used in Zaxxon, Sega’s own mega-hit.

The box art used for many of the home
conversions of Congo Bongo. "I say, old
chimp, mind putting that nut down? And
kindly do something about that
poison lobster."
(image from Launchbox) 

Like Zaxxon, Congo Bongo uses an isometric view to make everything seem more lifelike. Flat girders and ladders are replaced with boxy but colorful jungle terrain. Details like trees in the distance, a roaring waterfall, and the skeleton of a previous explorer decorate the playfield, giving Congo Bongo even more of an edge over Donkey Kong in the visual department. The added dimension also lets Sega have some fun with the stage layouts, making them feel less like video game stages and more like an adventure. Dodge the coconuts Congo rolls down at you! Cross the rickety bridge over troubled waters! Slide down the hill, then leap off the crumbling ledge before it takes you down with it! Shake off the inquisitive monkeys that cling to you and jump over the stream that serves as the last obstacle between you and that nasty gorilla! (Not to be confused with that other gorilla. You know the one.)
 

The explorer in the game has a big
red nose. Huh, I wonder if he's
related to that guy from Spelunker.
Or Spelunky!

It’s all fun and games until you reach the later stages. Like Donkey Kong, Congo Bongo suffers significant quality decay after you’ve left the opening stage. Levels are flatter and less interesting, while the enemies become more ruthless… the rhinos in the third stage charge at you on sight, and love to step all over you as you try to crawl into a hole for shelter. (Guess I won’t be leaving this hole now that I’ve been firmly packed into it by rhinoceros hooves.) Even in its best moments, Congo Bongo is never quite as fun or as fair or as precise as Donkey Kong. Accept no imitations, even if they’re by the guys who helped make the original.

You'd probably have more luck with
real rhinos. They're not so bad, if
Casual Geographic is to be believed.
Now the hippopotamus, on the
other hand...

Congo Bongo is still a consistently better looking game than Donkey Kong, and the intermissions starring the explorer and Congo have the welcome taste of a classic cartoon rivalry. Tom and Jerry! Dudley Do-Right and Snidely Whiplash! Pith helmet wearing Mario and an uglier Donkey Kong who thinks he’s Ashton Kutcher on the set of Pranked! Okay, they’re not the comedy duo of the century, but this is a 1983 video game. You take what comic hijinx you can get.  

Flicky
Played: On the Sega Genesis

Sega loves Flicky, and desperately wants you to love it, too. There was a Sega Genesis port of the arcade game in the system’s early years, and Naota Oshima squeezed the little blue birds into Sonic the Hedgehog, as one of the animals you can free from Robotnik’s robot henchmen.

Flicky demands your tribute!

Flicky is a part of Sega history, whether you like it or not. And you won’t, because Flicky is kind of crummy, feeling like Mappy on buttered ice skates. As a little blue bird with an oversized head, you must save your chicks, scattered throughout a tackily furnished house that scrolls infinitely in both directions. Grab a chick and it follows behind you… grab a bunch and you’ve got a tail made of your own offspring, with the chicks mimicking your every move. Lead them to the exit to finish the stage… grab them all in one trip before hitting the exit and you’ll get a massive bonus.  

All this would be easy enough if it weren’t for the cats. Ginger tabbies prowl the stage… touching one is instant death, but even letting one get close breaks your chain of chicks and forces you to circle back to grab the stragglers. Flicky’s sole defense is to grab one of the knick-knacks (vases, telephones, and the like) in the house and flick it across the room at her pursuers. Knick-knacks can only be held until Flicky flaps her wings, so plan your jumps carefully, and try to take out as many cats as you can with one toss!
 

Who's the interior decorator for this
house, and what's he got against eyes?

Flicky draws from the same well of cartoon inspiration as Mappy, but while Mappy has Namco’s expected tight control, Flicky feels like it takes place on the surface of the moon, with exaggerated momentum and floaty, imprecise jumps. Even Jaleco’s slightly wobbly City Connection feels more sure-footed than Flicky, and that’s really not a bar of quality you want to shimmy under. You're Sega, for Pete's sake! Don't let yourself get clowned on by Jaleco of all game companies.  

Pengo
Played: In a Hastings arcade

It’s important to note that there are two versions of Pengo. The first builds each maze before your eyes, but uses a chiptune version of the 1960s synth pioneer Popcorn as its soundtrack. The second unceremoniously plops the maze on the screen (here’s your damn game. TAKE IT) but also treats you ears to a new composition that’s a much better fit for arctic frolicking. I’d rather watch the maze get drawn out before each stage, but I’d much, much rather listen to what I consider the true Pengo theme song than an overly familiar, slightly irritating oldie that was as overplayed in 1980s video games as Rob Zombie’s Dragula was during the multimedia and PSOne era.
 

Pengo. It's the bees' lack of knees!

But I’m picky like that. Either way, Pengo is a shove ‘em up, like Sokoban with teeth and a point. The playfield is littered with ice blocks, some of which contain the eggs of Sno-Bees. Uh, sure! Everybody knows that the arctic bee is the natural enemy of the penguin. Totally unrelated, but have you been taking your meds lately, Sega? Sno-Bees chase Pengo, but he can crush them with properly timed ice block shoves, or perform egg-bortions by breaking the ice blocks holding unhatched Sno-Bees. Our plucky penguin protagonist can also shake the rubberized edges of the playfield to stun nearby foes, or put three indestructible diamond blocks together to stun all onscreen Sno-Bees and earn a huge point bonus besides.

The Sno-Bees are fast and aggressive, smashing ice blocks just as you’re about to toss them. You’re going to have to think one step ahead if you want to survive in Pengo, squishing bees from a safe distance and timing your shots so they’re not intercepted. Once a Sno-Bee is next to you, even shaking the wobbly walls won’t save you from their sting.
 

Ooh, pretty! For 1982, anyway.

Pengo is frustrating until you “get” it, but lots of fun when it finally clicks… and cute touches like the color strobing Aurora Borealis in the attract mode and Pengo’s clumsiness between stages help elevate it to a low-key arcade classic. It’s no wonder other game companies were falling all over themselves to make clones. Capcom’s Higemaru asked, “What if Pengo, but also Popeye?,” while Sega itself made both a straight port and a spiritual successor to Pengo on the Game Gear a decade later. Sure, Ninku Hiroyuki is technically based on some anime that was popular in the 1990s, but with its clever tweaks to the formula, it still has more claim to being Pengo 2 than any other game in existence. 

That includes the slightly icky Pengo for Sega Genesis, with CGI graphics and the mistaken belief that what Pengo really needed to be was Bomberman with ice crystals. No! BAD Sega! Pengo can also be Popeye, but he can’t also also be Bomberman. One’s into fire and the other’s into ice. They’re polar opposites.

Pitfall II: The Lost Caverns
Played: In an arcade tent at the Ionia Free Fair

Conventional wisdom states that the arcade version of a game from the 1980s is typically better than its console counterpart. Conventional wisdom is often wrong, as evidenced by a half-dozen NES games that trounce the arcade versions in playability if not visuals, and it certainly does not apply in the case of Pitfall II: The Lost Caverns.
 

It's like I took a wrong turn at the crocodile pit
and wound up in McDonaldland. Hey, stupid-looking
tree, tell Ronald I want the lemony McDonaldland
cookies back!

Like Super Pitfall, Sega’s Pitfall II is a Japanese adaptation that misses the point of the Atari 2600 original. It’s not as wretched as Super Pitfall, because really, what could be? However, the graphics have been cute-ified in the usual Japanese way, with Pitfall Harry now controlling like Donkey Kong-era Mario and looking like a certain adventurer with a striking resemblance to Han Solo. (Way to pick the low-lying fruit there, Sega. The DOG’S name was Indiana; this guy’s name is Harry!) More galling is that the game was designed to suck down quarters, so hazards like logs that shaved a few dozen points off your score in the 2600 games are instantly fatal here. It’s directly at odds with David Crane’s original design for Pitfall II, which encouraged players to explore every nook and cranny of a sprawling jungle labyrinth at their own pace, with light slaps on the wrist and a return to a checkpoint if Harry stumbles into a condor or a scorpion. Take your time… you’re going to be here for a while.
 

Two vines on the same screen? Daring! Too bad
Pitfall Harrison gained about thirty pounds
since his two Atari games.

 

That wasn’t going to work in an arcade setting, which prompts the question… why bother bringing Pitfall II to arcades in the first place if it’s not going to be anything like Pitfall II? Irem’s two arcade Spelunker games were closer in spirit to David Crane’s original vision. They’re Spelunker games so you’re still going to lose a whole lot of lives, but the levels are more open and there’s much more to do. It’s challenging, but also rewarding, while Pitfall II in arcades somehow feels more rigid and bolted down than the 2600 game that spawned it. Sorry Sega, but if you don’t “get” what makes Pitfall work, you probably shouldn’t be making a Pitfall game. 

Regulus
Played: In a little diner in Lakeview

And the award for the most Master System-like game that wasn’t actually released for the Master System goes to… Regulus! Sorry, Rafflesia, but you missed it by that much.

Regulus isn’t literally a Master System game, but it does run on Sega’s System 1 software, which is a pumped up arcade predecessor to that system. According to Maxim, the creator of the early Master System emulator MEKA and the founder of SMS Power:

“[The] System 1 arcade [hardware]... was released in 1983 and a bit more powerful than a Master System. The 16-colour sprites are very like a Master System but it can handle a lot more of them with useful hardware collision detection. It also has support for multiple background layers, although only one can scroll; it can support more colours than Master System, and finally it has a higher resolution.“

They’re not that different, really. They’ve got the same Z80 processor, the same sound chip, and the minor differences in color and resolution can easily be addressed in a port-
 

These patches of grass aren't
much fun to look at, and they're
even less fun to drive over.
The Regulans didn't need an army to
defeat your tank... just a
good landscaper.
(image from Park21 at WakWak)

Oh. The game. Yeah, that. I’d rather talk about the hardware Regulus is running on than the game that the Regulus hardware is running, because that game (Regulus, in case you’ve forgotten) is pretty unremarkable. It’s a vertically scrolling shooter, because that’s what was popular in Japan after Namco’s Xevious. However, unlike Xevious, which moved at a brisk clip and gave the player a stiff but surmountable challenge, Regulus puts you behind the wheel of a futuristic, wedge-shaped tank that crawls through each stage. (One imagines tiny, wedge-shaped children in the backseat shouting “Are we there yet?”) Laughably small enemies quickly crowd your tank, and while you can aim in all directions, the tank quickly snaps back to the upward position the moment you release the joystick. Okay, inconvenient? 

Your tank can also fire bombs like the Solvalou, but it takes deliberate planning and a lengthy set up to hit ground targets. Everything in Regulus is delayed gratification with an unsatisfying payoff… pick-ups like flags provide little incentive to actually pick them up, thick patches of grass shift the already plodding gameplay into neutral, and the marching theme in the background that drones on as you play sounds like the elevator music they’d play in the Master System wing of video game Hell.

It’s easy to imagine a Master System port of Regulus, but just as easy to imagine why one never happened. Who would even want to play it? It may be less powerful than the System 1, but you’d be hard pressed to think of a shooter on the Master System that’s less impressive than Regulus.

Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator
Played: Ooh, this is a tough one. Lansing Mall?

Fans of Star Trek and Star Wars have been at each other’s neckbeards for decades, since the latter made its 1977 debut. Which science-fiction franchise you prefer is entirely a matter of taste, but when it comes to video game adaptations, Star Wars has it all over Star Trek. Nonstop action and narrow escapes over a variety of exciting set pieces, versus Picard negotiating a peace treaty with the Cardassians? Sorry, but it’s no contest.

The promotional artwork for Strategic Operations
Simulation is from the Klingons' perspective. Weird.
What's also weird is that they're very old Klingons,
and they look more like the Klingons from Next
Generation than the Klingons in the original series.
I wonder if they're Kang and Kodos?
(image from Old Games Download)
(guess which sci-fi franchise I prefer?)

The Star Trek video game by Sega is an acceptable consolation prize for Trekkie nerds, though. It’s heavily inspired by the Star Trek games written for mainframes and early home computers in the 1970s, but also heavily dumbed down for the early 1980s arcade space. You’ll control the Enterprise with a dial and four buttons. Along with the expected thrust and fire, you’re given buttons for a warp drive (thrusting, but faster!) and photon torpedos (firing, but spicier, wiping out a cluster of enemies in a circular explosion). 

However, your mission will not be to explore strange new worlds, or barter with the Ferengis for dilithium crystals, or discover who thought any part of Insurrection was a good idea. (Come on, Paramount! Plastic surgery aliens? Nemesis was a TREAT compared to this!) This is a Star Trek video game, so you’ll be blowing away Klingons while docking with space stations to recover your shields, warp drive, and torpedos. Occasionally, you’ll have to match wits with NOMAD, who sets mines everywhere in the hopes of catching you in a chain reaction explosion.

It's a chair with a dial and some
buttons on it. Of COURSE it's cheaper
than most cockpit games... this isn't
exactly R-360 technology.
(image from Arcade Flyers)

It’s not as good as Atari’s Star Wars arcade game… not even close. Nevertheless, Strategic Operations Simulator offers its own, more subdued flavor of entertainment. Separate windows offer both an overhead map view and a first person bridge view of the action, the vector graphics feature passable re-creations of the Enterprise and Klingon Birds of Prey, and you even get synthesized speech that’s recognizable as imitations of Spock and Scotty. 

When you play Strategic Operations Simulator, you feel like you’re on the deck of the Enterprise, and yet not, as if you were in a primitive vector-based Holodeck. In contrast to Star Wars, which sent you down the trench of the Death Star with Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, there’s a weird sense of distance this game puts between you and the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry says look, but don’t touch!

Tac/Scan
Played: In the Lansing Mall, and also on the Atari 2600

“The glare of laser cannons pierces the darkness of space as your squadron shrieks overhead in tight formation, at 24 times the speed of sound. Biff is flying on your left. Happy is on your right. With Bomber, Rocco, and you in the middle. But can Bravo Squadron survive? Only lightning reflexes and a sharpshooter’s eye can save you as the Ahmins fly faster and faster.”
 

Willie from Arcade USA pointed out that copies of
2600 Tac-Scan came with this performance tracking
card. Will you earn the title of "Sega-Mundo?"
Wait wait, Sega-Mundo? That's a catchphrase so
lame they wouldn't even say it on the weekday
Sonic cartoon. And that show was so very lame.
(image from Atari-Mania, which is a
slightly better name than Sega-Mundo.)

 
I love a good bit of promotional copy! This was from the back of the Atari 2600 version’s box, and it really gets you pumped to play Tac-Scan. And the game in question was well worth the money... at least if you found a copy at Radio Shack for a couple of dollars, a couple years after the video game crash. You twist the paddle to steer your fleet of ships, and squeeze the fire button to fire lasers at waves of pointy-ended ships. It’s a dirty fix, but it gets you by in the summer of 1986, when you don’t have an NES yet and you’ve played all 112 variations of Space Invaders.

Tac-Scan is a downport of the arcade game, but like Solar Fox, streamlining the gameplay didn’t just make it work on the Atari 2600… it made it work better than it ever had in arcades. As an arcade game, Tac/Scan offers a fair amount of sizzle without much steak. Your squadron now has seven ships (we’ll call the last two pilots Grunty and The Squeeze) which lay out an impressive spread of firepower, but also make a massive target for the Ahmin armada. If you lose a ship, press a button to call up a replacement (if you have spares), or just cross your fingers and hope that you can catch some freebies as they float past.

The camera switches from a top down
view to a slightly elevated behind the
ship view, which does the game no
favors. It's very similar to what
Nichibutsu's Sega Saturn dud Terra
Cresta 3D did with its polygons.

After turning the first wave of Ahmins into a thick cloud of vector dust, the perspective changes and you do it all over again… except now, you can’t angle your shots, and the already aggravating snipers that pick off your ships one by one are even tougher to target. Survive this and you’ll travel through a wormhole to the next sector. Steer carefully through its tight turns, because every collision with the surrounding walls will cost you one of your squadmates. 

Tac/Scan is a pretty hollow experience, adorned with some nifty vector-based explosions but weighed down by what could be the worst excuse for a jet engine ever heard in a video game. It sounds like the wheeze of a vacuum cleaner expected to work ten years past its expiration date, and it doesn’t entice the player to keep going after the game has lost its flavor. You could excuse the 2600 game’s simplicity, but arcade games were held to a higher standard in 1982… and Tac/Scan just doesn’t meet them. 

Turbo
Played: In a Portland arcade

You know what they say… you’ve got to walk before you can run. For Sega, they needed to shift into Turbo before they could outrun the competition. While OutRun looked gorgeous in 1986 and remains that way thirty years later (EDIT: FORTY years?! Ugh...), Turbo’s 3D is a clumsy zoetrope of tilted trees and the sides of buildings, set against a triangular track. Hills are displayed as perfectly flat bends in the road that the oncoming cars vanish into, before re-appearing at double their original size. Snowy conditions are illustrated by turning the background white; tunnels just turn everything off but the sprites. 

Look, it's 1981. They're trying.

 
Today, the graphics are a complete mess, barely recognizable as a behind the wheel perspective. In 1981, before polygons or Mode 7 or Superscaler technology, they left players awestruck. Video game technology was still early, and the bar for graphics in that year was incredibly low. They hadn’t even built a bar for 3D graphics yet! What you’re seeing here was progress. Compare it to Sega’s earlier game, Monaco GP. It’s remarkably similar to Turbo on a basic level, but the overhead perspective makes it feel less dynamic and immersive.

As a game, Turbo is a little unwieldy and a lot frustrating… expect an obnoxious loop of gaining just enough speed to shift into high gear, only to be brought to a standstill by crashing into another racer. You’re supposed to pass dozens for a time extension, but by the time the clock counts down to zero, you’ll probably have four or five behind you. It’s not as fun as OutRun and it’s sure not as pleasant to the eyes and ears, but again, for 1981, it was progress. 

A ColecoVision port of Turbo was likewise good for its time, but the grueling races have taken a merciful downshift from a Mad Max movie to Driving Miss Daisy. You’ll have no trouble passing traffic and holding your lead here, leading to long, satisfying sessions of watching the scenery roll by as a droplet of drool escapes the edge of your lip. Mmm, video lobotomeee...
 

Up 'n Down
Played: A pizza place in Six Lakes, before it was torn down and replaced with some bank. >:/

An isometric view did Zaxxon a galaxy of good, and it worked well enough in Sega’s Donkey Kong clone Congo Bongo. However, Sega took one diagonal step too far with Up ‘n Down. Imagine a 3D version of Data East’s Bump ‘n Jump, with hilly topography and a confusing perspective that makes crushing rival cars a fool’s errand, and that’s your game. Sure, you can try jumping, but you’re just as likely to uncouple yourself from the narrow roads and crash into a nearby hill than make a clean landing on top of an oncoming truck.

 

Down goes your token.
Up goes your blood pressure!

So you make collecting flags your priority. They’re scattered throughout each stage, and grabbing them all lets you advance to a new, more challenging track. You’re jumping less, but you’re also finding yourself stymied by hills (this car must have a horsepower of negative three) and trapped by rival cars. If you try to squish them with a jump, you’ll fall of the road and crash! If you try to escape, they’ll catch up to you on a hill, and you’ll still crash! Is there any situation where I don’t plow my car into the side of a house, like a drunk Ann Heche? 

Few games are as wrongheaded in their design as Up ‘n Down. With its boundless opportunities for crashes, it makes for a lousy Bump ‘n Jump, and without consistent movement speed and a radar to keep tabs on rival cars, it doesn’t do the Rally-X thing particularly well, either. Even the isometric view, which looked gorgeous in Zaxxon and Congo Bongo, fails to generate much excitement. Mostly, it serves as a nagging reminder of how much better Up ‘n Down could have been with a perspective that doesn’t actively fight the player, and roads better suited for cars than slot car racers. The title may suggest otherwise, but this experience only goes downhill the moment you hit start. 

(The invigorating music ain’t half-bad, and it fits the racing theme. I’ll give it that much.)

Zaxxon
Played: Somewhere in Portland. Maybe a 7-11? Maybe an arcade?

Zaxxon was Sega’s star attraction in the early 1980s, a striking space shooter seen from an isometric view. As the pilot of a sleek jet, you’ll infiltrate a castle, blasting its defenses, squeezing under force fields, and zapping fuel canisters to replenish your dwindling supply. Eventually, you’ll leave the castle to take on fleets of rival jets in space. These climb and dive to dodge your shots, so you’ll have to adjust your altitude to target and take them down. (This was real cutting edge stuff in 1982... most video games didn’t have a third axis at the time.)

Survive this gauntlet and you’ll find another castle, guarded by a half dozen force fields. Make it past them all and you’ll confront Zaxxon. He looks like a cigarette vending machine, but the missile launcher mounted on his side will kill you a whole lot faster than the packs of menthols he’s probably packing. Blast the nosecone of the missile before Zaxxon can launch it and the boxy robot perishes in a screen-filling explosion. Yeah, baby! The surgeon general should have warned you about ME!
 

"I love smokin'. And when I'm done
here, I'm comin' to your favorite
restaurant."

Zaxxon goes all in on razzle-dazzle… the colorful isometric artwork makes the action more tangible than in a typical 1982 shoot ‘em up, scrolling is buttery smooth (not always a guarantee in the early days of gaming!), and castle targets are huge and sharply rendered, leaving behind explosions, then enormous score labels after you’ve blasted them. Crash into a wall and your jet fills the screen with fireworks in a spiraling explosion. The overall presentation is fantastic, making Zaxxon the best looking arcade game released that year and an instant lock for home ports. None of the home consoles in 1982 had a hope of copying this game pixel for pixel, but the ColecoVision comes the closest… its port is choppy, but entirely recognizable as Zaxxon. (The 2600 and Intellivision versions weren’t so lucky.) 

Sega was proud enough of the game's graphics
to put out a two page spread in magazines of
the time, showing most of the castle and of
course, Zaxxon himself. They had every reason
to be proud! This game was a hop, skip, and a
light year ahead of other 1982 shooters visually.
(image from Arcade Flyers)

 

It’s important to note that Zaxxon wouldn’t have happened at all if Nintendo hadn’t crossed Ikegami Tsushinki, the designer of the Donkey Kong hardware. When Nintendo used Ikegami’s hardware for a Donkey Kong sequel without asking them for permission first, the company quickly defected to Sega, sparking a war between Sega and Nintendo that would rage on for decades. Hell hath no fury like a hardware engineer scorned… and the day it made Zaxxon for Sega, Ikegami was a real bitch.