Classic Video / Arcade Games

Cultural excess is the best way to describe the ‘80s: neon clothing, funky music, and headbands. Do you remember break dancing? Pee-Wee Herman was at the top of his game and Madonna took the world by storm. But the biggest leaps were taken by technology in that memorable decade. At this time the microchip was born and everything advertising agencies and developers had went into addicting the masses to new computers and the games that can be played on them. During this craze of gaming frenzy Arcades became big, offering the best place to introduce younger generations to the wonders of technology. Arcades have existed since the ‘30s, but only started to become the cultural phenomenon in the Boy George era. Let’s go back to that golden age of neon, funky hair, and rockin music and take a look at our top video arcade games.

Double Dragon - Fighting games in general have always been popular but they never became influential until Double Dragon. The concept of the game was very simple, the brothers Jimmy and Billy Lee (Spike and Hammer) were martial artists searching for Billy’s abducted girlfriend and riding the streets of the Black Warriors street gang. Featuring side-scrolling game play and the top graphics of ’87, it quickly became a legend in the industry. Quickly following the first game was three sequels, a cartoon series, and a feature film with Alyssa Milano and Scott Wolf. Double Dragon is known as the granddaddy of fighting games.

Frogger - A game of instanct and moving to avoid danger and obstacles. With its catchy theme song this became a popular arcade game in ’81. With Frogger’s popularity it was surprising that a sequel never followed, but the matter was clarified when it became known that there was a war over the distribution rights. Frogger made the jump to cartoons and its theme song was released on an album.

Tag Team Wrestling - Because of the popularity of wrestling that was sweeping the US in ’85. Another simple concept was that you controlled a pair of wrestlers (Spike and Jocko) and you had to defeat The Mad Maulers. As with traditional wrestling only one of your guys fights at a time, the other rests outside of the ring and preps for his turn in the ring to relieve his partner. For its time the graphics were the best, making the moves believable: the Drop Kick, Body Slam and Piledriver.

Donkey Kong - One of the biggest game franchises of its time and still today is Donkey Kong. The original game featured an early Mario (then referred to as Jumpman) as he rescues his girlfriend Pauline from the evil Donkey Kong. Mario, was actually a carpenter in this game before he became a plumber, had to climb and jump his way to the top of the screen avoiding barrels that were thrown at him from DK. Numerous sequels, TV cartoons, dolls, sleepwear, toys, and cereals followed this big hit from ’81.

Pacman - Pac-Man was the virtual incarnation of a Japanese legend of a creature that eats monsters keeping children safe. This was a 1980 labyrinth type game and Pac-Man had to eat all the dots to complete levels. The game would have been too simple if not for the ghosts roaming the maze and threatening to destroy Pac-Man. Of course we cannot have Pac-Man helpless so once he eats fruit he is given the power to eat the ghosts and as a bonus the fruit gives you bonus points.

Pong - This was one of the first games to ever be developed. It was founded by the founder of Atari, Nolan Bushnell in ’72. The game’s simple version of table-tennis was rejected by the industry, Bushnell set up his game in a California bar. Later that same week he installed it he got a call that it was broken. Imagine his surprise to find that it was overflowing with coins.

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