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I instantly thought steampunk too. Now you've got an image in my head of a master engineer with steampunk goggles pulling a lever, custom brass components whirring and chugging, and then a train silently roaring across the frame, occluding the stars, and disappearing in the distance toward Jupiter.

Shades of the old anime Galaxy Express 999, repurposed as the equally obscure laserdisc game Freedom Fighter

I find many modern 3D games have a low "button-press-per-minute" count. Whilst older games always had something going on almost every second, recent titles just get the player to sprawl around for hours. Give me an older title such Bank Panic or Smash TV (both arcade) over a modern 3D shooter any day.

For the games which aren't like that, then they're just too easy I find as well. I've recently bought great playing games such as World of Goo and Zombies Vs Plants, and although they are great fun while they last, it's over all too quickly - more proof that games today are geared towards the masses for 'throwaway' purchase like a McDonalds. It's pretty sad.

If I'm not mistaken, Reagan was the first president to ever appear in a video game. That has to count for something!

That was no simulator! You were just so high you thought you were in Driver's Ed when you were actually playing Death Race!

I thought of that too, I tried one at a walmart once, sure wish there was one around here, or I could make a home version of Prop Cycle.

Here is the KLOV link witch some screenshots

http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9139

In 1983, Bally/Midway had the same problem with the coin-op game Tapper, in which you served Budweiser to queues of thirsty patrons.

Great game to have at your local bar, but because the games were also sold to arcades in which minors were present, overzealous legislators forced Bally to produce a bowdlerized version of the game (new side art, new marquee, and all in-game graphics suitably redone) to Root Beer Tapper.

It seems that everything old is new again. Happy 25th Anniversary, Tapper!

In 1983, Bally/Midway had the same problem with the coin-op game Tapper, in which you served Budweiser to queues of thirsty patrons.

Great game to have at your local bar, but because the games were also sold to arcades in which minors were present, overzealous legislators forced Bally to produce a bowdlerized version of the game (new side art, new marquee, and all in-game graphics suitably redone) to Root Beer Tapper.

It seems that everything old is new again. Happy 25th Anniversary, Tapper!

Not all arcades ... the overwhelming majority, yes, but select examples exist with analog joystick control. http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7871

The logical next step is a CD-firing weapon... oh, wait, that's been done before.

From TFA:
Independent steering on each of its six pairs of wheels... give the vehicle the ability to raise or lower each individual wheel to keep its chassis level on uneven ground.

I've remotely driven that *exact* sort of vehicle! Well, in simulation, at least. I just can't believe it took from 1982 to now to go from simulator to prototype.

And they still didn't get the forward and vertical blasters! Hokey plows and an ancient drill bit are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

Space Lords?
http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9674

This prompted me to go look up that game. It was http://www.klov.com/C/Crazy_Climber.htmlcrazy climber. I remember trying to explain to my wife that I played a game where the objective was to climb a building while avoiding bird crap and falling flower pots. At least now I can prove I wasn't going crazy (about this at least).

I don't know about the "radar" being a Defender first. Battlezone had one too, and they both came out the same year. The Atari 2600 game from 1979, Star Raiders, (God, that was addictive) had a similar concept, but you had to switch to a "sector scan" view to see it. You could still navigate in that view though; it was useful for locating bases and enemies and traveling in their general direction.

*poke* *poke* Here's one I never saw in the arcades: Fire One!. Looks like it had exactly that kind of thing a full year before Defender came out.

What?! One of the greatest games ever made required you to find coke cans to regain health. I guess you're just not a bad enough dude to rescue President Ronnie.

Tempest was the vector graphics game with the spinner and Reactor had a trackball. Tracking those down I found this list of trackball games at wikipedia.

Already done. The first half of Williams/Midway, 1991, Terminator 2: The Video Game. And yes, I'd pay money to see the first half of this game re-enacted with 2007 movie-quality CGI.

Mitchell, was a licensee of Capcom, released the game in 1998.

The clone, Zuma came out around 2004...

I'll throw out my list of games that were important to me...

Pong. You could play a game on your tv. WOW

Mario Bros and Donkey Kong - I swear I can still smell the pizza

Asteroids - ahh, vector graphics (dun dun dun dun dun dun tweee twee twee)

Gauntlet - multi-player goodness

Track and Field - WHOA, this one has the roller ball instead of buttons!

Bubble Bobble - significant for me because it is the game that got me into arcade cabinet collecting

Duck Hunt - shooting a gun in the house

Wolfenstein - groundbreaking

Links 386 Pro - college drinking golf game on the PC, many hours and brain cells killed

Quake MegaTF - spent many many hours playing w/coworkers, made my own maps!

The fun part is that I could go on with a list for a long long time.

Try KLOV for details.

-cmh

Are there any Trek games that you think have really succeeded?

There's only one I can think of: Star Trek... Courtesy Sega.

They already have it, it's called Para Para Paradise: http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=P&game_ id=8978 Although it's not nearly as advanced as something the Wii could do.

Love your ethnocentric viewpoint.

In the pure form, the only legitimate points you have is "get you in shape" and "get you laid." Video games, many, will teach teamwork, leadership, commitment. Teamwork, leadership and commitment can be found in everything from America's Army to True Combat Elite, to Warcraft 3/TFT/WOW among countless other games.

If teamwork was to mean, "play with others", leadership was to mean "lead by example" and commitment to mean "dedication" then even some of the oldest titles such as Atari's Warlords would qualify for that.

Mazan? I have played it at Dave and Buster's, the sword is made of styrofoam or something, weighs maybe 5 ounces, not 5lbs. Fun game.

(I am really surprised nobody mentioned Quake. Yeah, Doom was cool, but Quake Mega Team Fortress was just awesome IMO. Half-life and Unreal Tournament were amazing, but Quake kind of holds a special place.

Doing a 720 = you're drunk and the room is spinning many, many times.

I am suprised that no one replied with this yet.

No, 720 means you are playing a classic video game.

Before that, they whined about Exidy's Death Race (1975), and Chiller.

And at home, in 1982, there was Custer's Revenge for the Atari 2600 console.

And from its very invention up until the 70s, people had to go to court to prove that pinball was a game of skill, not a game of chance, and that pinball machines were therefore not illegal gambling machines.

For everything fun, there's gonna be some idiot with a (D) or an (R) beside his or her name telling you not to do it. Fuck 'em all.

Well I'm only 24 but there were plenty of violent games around when I was a kid. Obviously you don't remember Time Killers, Lethal Enforcers, Night Trap or Mortal Kombat. Sure none of these let you have sex with a prostitute then kill her with a baseball bat to get your money back, but I don't see how that would fit into any of these stories anyway.

Well I'm only 24 but there were plenty of violent games around when I was a kid. Obviously you don't remember Time Killers, Lethal Enforcers, Night Trap or Mortal Kombat. Sure none of these let you have sex with a prostitute then kill her with a baseball bat to get your money back, but I don't see how that would fit into any of these stories anyway.

Well I'm only 24 but there were plenty of violent games around when I was a kid. Obviously you don't remember Time Killers, Lethal Enforcers, Night Trap or Mortal Kombat. Sure none of these let you have sex with a prostitute then kill her with a baseball bat to get your money back, but I don't see how that would fit into any of these stories anyway.

The title screen of the copy of Street Fighter II Turbo for Super NES that I rented said "Hyper Fighting" where the original said "The World Warrior". Wikipedia backs me up. Perhaps you're thinking of the fact that the word Turbo was left out of the arcade game's title in some markets.

That's because SFII:Turbo -was- Hyper Fighting:

KLOV Link

SFII (the original, where only one person could use one character) was "The World Warrior"
then came Champion Edition where 2 people could use the same person, then came SFII Turbo: Hyper Fighting which was I guess just a slightly enhanced, sped up version of SFII CE, after that were all of the pirate versions, rainbow edition and such, then the alphas and SFIII, but yeah, this is just a port of the (IMO) most well rounded version of the game.

I actually bought the PCB off of ebay then went to an arcade game auction, turns out someone was selling the exact cabinet/game that I already had, so I've got my own SFII Hyper Fighting cabinet @home, for less than the cost of any of my consoles. IMO the only way to play SFII is on an arcade cabinet, console controlers just don't do the fighting games (SFII, MK, Etc) justice (except maybe Tekken, that one's pretty good for use with a console controller)

If anyone remembers it, the Arcade game based on the movie based on the arcade game, Seems like it would go over better with the next gen crowd more then 2D sprites would.

The original Guile was the best character. I wish they'd release a remake of the "Original" SFII. You know, a glitched version. It'd be fun to have his unsweepable freeze, handcuffs and invisible throw. Being able to reset the machine was pretty sweet too >:)

http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9814 has a nice listing of the glitch moves. I need to find a machine or ROM that these will still work on.

Here's a nomination for a penny game:

Professor Pac-Man

Ok, I grew up in arcades when I was a wee tot, so I know my way around them pretty well. I went from Space Invaders, to Pac Man, to Pengo, to Dragon's Lair, to Karate Champ, to Street Fighter craze, to Killer Instinct, to .... you get the idea.

Video games were designed to play against other people. Even in the early days. Don't believe me? Think about it. Even though in those very early games you didn't specifically play against other people, you actually were indirectly. We were all playing to get the Hi-Scores. You were playing against the person who got the previous Hi-score, right? Remember how badass it was to get the top Hi-Score? That meant that your initials (and score) displayed top center all the time!

Video Game designed evolved to match players against other players more efficiently. They got pretty good at it too. Street Fighter II was not the most popular game because of it's single-player mode, afterall. Every modern arcade had a vs. mode, or at the very least a co-op mode.

So, what's my point?

People think that modern graphics advanced to the point that going to the arcade was essentially wasting money. A modern PC/console had better graphics (not to mention higher ress) than the crap at the arcade, so what was the point of leaving your house? But that's really not the entire story. People neglect to mention that multiplayer games had made major strides in PC gaming. Games like Quake brought multi-player to a whole new level. MMOGs like Ultima/Everquest made games like Cadash seem dated and boring.

There was one thing that was missing though, and this was in multi-player fighting games. PCs, or even consoles, could never _quite_ do it properly. Also, nothing beats the arcade controls/buttons when it comes to multi-player fighting games. I'm sorry, but I just never quite got the hang of fighting games using a console controller, nevermind a bloody keyboard/flight stick.

Now, here is what I think arcades should have done to get the one-up on PCs/Consoles. Since graphics will be at least par across both PCs/consoles/arcades, then they should take the multiplayer aspect to the next level.

Think about all the acades, like Tilt for instance (which is an arcade I see everywhere in Texas) all linked up via a nice WAN/LAN. If you walk in, and see an empty Soul Edge machine, you can jack in the queue, and play some other bloke standing at a Soul Edge machine at another location! All players, across all locations are now linked together.

Now, think about a giant electronic board that shows all the Hi-Scores across the _entire_ chain of Tilt stores (it could even be available to look at via the www while sitting at home). You can see who has the most wins in a row in Street Fighter 4. The fastest lap in . The highest score in Michael Jackson's Moonwalker... err... you get the idea.

I mean, Doesn't Golden Tee do something like this?

Anyway, I could go on and on. Arcades rooms really should start linking up their stores, and the arcade machines themselves, and drop all Hi-Scores across the organization into one DB accessable via a badass screen.

Arcades should go back to their roots. Then I would love to go back to the arcades and do a little Hi-Score Hunting!

++Om

The exact etymology of Donkey Kong's title is debatable. My favourite honest-to-goodness botched transliteration is that great big-top racing sim, Continental Circus.

The controls seem fairly intuitive, but I wonder if the budget is ready for it's upkeep and operational costs.

There were some other laser disc games that were fun, though:

1. Super Don Quixote -- Like Dragon's Lair, but with visible prompts so you didn't have to guess which way to move the joystick
2. M.A.C.H. 3 -- A very primitive sort of flight simulator game, but really fun anyway
3. Astron Belt -- Like M.A.C.H. 3 set in Tron-style cyberspace (or maybe 2001-style LSD-hyperspace. Not quite as fun to play, but very cool dream-like graphics (for the time)

There were some other laser disc games that were fun, though:

1. Super Don Quixote -- Like Dragon's Lair, but with visible prompts so you didn't have to guess which way to move the joystick
2. M.A.C.H. 3 -- A very primitive sort of flight simulator game, but really fun anyway
3. Astron Belt -- Like M.A.C.H. 3 set in Tron-style cyberspace (or maybe 2001-style LSD-hyperspace. Not quite as fun to play, but very cool dream-like graphics (for the time)

There were some other laser disc games that were fun, though:

1. Super Don Quixote -- Like Dragon's Lair, but with visible prompts so you didn't have to guess which way to move the joystick
2. M.A.C.H. 3 -- A very primitive sort of flight simulator game, but really fun anyway
3. Astron Belt -- Like M.A.C.H. 3 set in Tron-style cyberspace (or maybe 2001-style LSD-hyperspace. Not quite as fun to play, but very cool dream-like graphics (for the time)

You might be thinking of Time Traveler by Sega, made around '91. They also did a (lame) fighting game called Holosseum later in '92 using the same cabinet.

Both are currently emulated by MAME, but the games really lose their edge without that awesome screen.

Oh, here are some handy links:
Holosseum: http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=&game_i d=8132
Time Traveler: http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=&game_i d=10124

Cheers!

-D

You might be thinking of Time Traveler by Sega, made around '91. They also did a (lame) fighting game called Holosseum later in '92 using the same cabinet.

Both are currently emulated by MAME, but the games really lose their edge without that awesome screen.

Oh, here are some handy links:
Holosseum: http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=&game_i d=8132
Time Traveler: http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=&game_i d=10124

Cheers!

-D

Cliff Hanger is probably what you mean. And yeah, I wish I could find it :p

"a Sega game amongst the "classics" list"

Uh, I would consider Frogger a classic. It's at least as old as Donkey Kong.

15 years ago, 3D graphics on a computer was unheard of

The only other one I'm familiar with is MoCap Boxing.

You whippersnappers with your Ikari warriors, guns and grenades. Back in our day we had to use pointy sticks and ride on the backs of airborne ostriches!

I read this article and all I could think about was trying to play Track & Field -- forehead sweating, eyeballs and veins popping, face turning red all from mentally trying to whack those two buttons as fast as you can ... then your head does the whole Scanners thing.

The music in the first stage of the Sega arcade game Quartet started with something a lot like the Deep Note, played on a plain old Yamaha OPM synthesizer.

http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9066

That game rocked. You could duck, move from side to side, shoot, it was pretty cool. The AI wasn't amazing and the motion sensors could be improved, but the thing came out 6 years ago, and I haven't seen anything like it recently. Also no mention of it, or its boxing counterpart in the article.

An anonymous dipshit who started visiting Slashdot after the OMG Ponies!!1! episode writes "When Penguin-Kun Wars came out at the arcades in 1985, many people were perplexed and vaguely disoriented at how different than "normal" table tennis it was. This game was never designed to be a table tennis title at all. Instead, it's actually a game loosely based on table tennis, in that there's a table, and two players, one at either side of the table. Hey, finding enough stories to keep all you oldskool First Posters busy is hard! Here's a review of the original Pong as designed by Nolan Bushnell. UPL Company Limited felt that the blocky graphics and 'outdated mechanics' made it too primitive for audiences of the futuristic, progressive-thinking mid-1980s."
http://rr.cheats.ign.com/rr/009096/005/005100.html



Am I the only person who genuinely misses seeing a bunch of crap copy-and-paste FPs at the beginning of every article? Looks like the latest batch of banal, clueless editors finally alienated the one thing that gave visiting Slashdot some sense of tradition.

I'm just waiting for the next idiot clueless Zork copy/paste - for instance, one that reads "PowerPlay seems to be a promising step forward for internet gaming - apparently it will make your modem feel like a LAN party!?" or maybe one about how "the Playstation 2's 'Emotion Engine' will hopefully allow programmers the ability to enhance AI with human-like traits".