The Best Video Games: Stage 2: $.25 Explosion/Stand By For Tech Adjustment

[Khephra]

Poll question: The Best Video Games: Stage 2: $.25 Explosion/Stand By For Tech Adjustment

[Burma Jones]

1. Omega Race (n/t)

[Waistdeep]

3. I concur

[Khephra]

2. Space Invaders came to the gas station in my backwoods

Indiana town...and things were never the same.

[Rabrrrrrr]

4. I went other, but can't remember the game - it was a space battle

game, that could be played by two people, and had screen warp-around functionality (that is, if your ship went off the right side of the screen, it appeared on the left hand side).

One also received a menu iof options before the game, in which one could adjust gravity, thrust, rate of fire, deceleration rate of stopping thrusting, and a bunch of other stuff.

A friend and I played that for hours and hours and hours the summer it came out.

Khephra - you're a genius - you remember the name? Space Arcade? Space Battle? something like that.

This would have been ca. 1980.

The grpahics were vector graphics, like Asteroids.

[starroute]

6. Sounds like the very first game that was around at MIT in the 60's

Space War, I think?

It took a room full of PDP computer to power a tiny little screen, but you could turn the sun off and other neat things. By the time it came out commercially, it was no longer leading edge -- but in its time, it had been the first.

[Rabrrrrrr]

7. Could be Space War

though I definitely played it in an arcade, in some ways, yeah, it wasn't as adavanced grpahically as some other games (since I'm pretty sure it was 1980 or 1981), but one advantage it had was the customizable features. Very rare in any video game.

Space War sounds right, though.

[CaptainClark23]

18. Space War is what I recall

Precursor in look/feel/control to Asteroids. Brilliant game!

[MrSlayer]

5. Space Panic was great.

Give me a pick axe and I'm happy.

[jpgray]

8. DEFENDER, baby. And especially the sequel to that, Stargate

Two awesome arcade games I played when I was little. And immortalized in a News Radio episode. Save the humanoids!

[Rabrrrrrr]

9. I hated Defender

I know it was insanely popular, but for some reason, it always offended my sense of what a video game should be.

I could never support the legitimacy of it in the ouevre.

Sorry. Stargate was a bit better.

I wish I coudl explain why, but I can't. It simply offended me the first time I played it, and even after revisiting it occasionally over the course of a year.

I feel the same way about it that I do about Shrub.

Weird, I know, but there you have it.

There was some famous rocker who was a huge fan of Defender - who was it? Rob Halford, maybe? Damn, I can't remember.

[jpgray]

10. Let's see--how do you feel about Ghosts 'n Goblins?

Arthur running around in his boxers dodging malevolent and devious flying red demons vaguely resembling a gargoyle Patrick Stewart. Two hits and you die, whereas the monsters take up to twelve or more. Truly a game of skill. :D

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. Never played that one, nor have I heard of it

Or if I did hear of it, or play it, I don't remember it at all.

[PVnRT]

11. I go with Galaxian

Simply because I made it to very high levels in that game...once I had two ships gunning side by side I was unbeatable.

[Rabrrrrrr]

13. Galaxian was cool because it had an easter egg

that, once played, rendered one invincible to all enemy fire, and one could rack up as many points as one wanted.

I could play Galaxian for hours! It was awesome!

[PVnRT]

14. I never heard of that

I really only played it at the pizza place I worked for between deliveries - we'd have one game going all night, just taking turns.

[Rabrrrrrr]

15. I can't remember exactly,

but it was something like in any of the waves, if you cold could destroy all the galaxians except the special two or three that hovered at the top, and then avoid those two or three for like five minutes (which wasn't that difficult to do), then a miracle would happen and you would become invulnerable to attack.

[Rabrrrrrr]

17. Whoops - my bad - it was Galaga I was thinking of

Found an online video game place -

http://www.tripletsandus.com/80s/80s_games/arcade.htm

Kinda cool.

[Kellanved]

16. Herzog Zwei ?

:shrug:

[Ricdude]

19. NARC!

I've been playing video arcade games since before they had to use colored plastic over regions of the screen to produce a "color" display (breakout, etc.), so I consider myself something of an authority here. =)

NARC: You're a cop. If your friend has some quarters, you both work together as a team. You're out to bust (or kill, if that's easier) drug dealers. You can shoot them. With your gun, or with a grenade launcher. If you hit a group of them with the grenade launcher, their bodies fly up into the air, and come down as a flaming pile of cinders. Dogs come after you, but if you shoot them, they just turn into puppies, and run away whimpering (animal rights, I guess). In one segment, you can run over the pushers. But the large guys on PCP throw garbage dumpsters at you to slow you down. Then there's the booby trapped greenhouse with all the marijuana plants, and the hookers being carried off by clowns with large knives...

Eventually, you end up in the headquarters of Mr. Big, who rolls around in a machine gun powered wheelchair. After you finish him off, you go up against the real Mr. Big, a 10 foot tall head on a platter that spits wagging toungues at you, until you shoot his glasses off. Then he shoots fireballs out of his eyes at you. Eventually, his head explodes, spewing arteries and bits of grey matter all over the screen. Now you still have to fight with the skull of Mr. Big, shooting out his vertebrae (connecting the skull to the platter) one by one. If you succeed in this, the skull explodes, and bones erupt all over the screen. If you survive the bone shower, you get to raid Mr. Big's vault, siezing large quantities of gold bars, cash, and drugs as evidence.

After all this, you receive the message, "Congratulations, you have just finished the NARC training mission," and encouraged to seek employment opportunities at your local police pricinct.