LoC 90: Top 50 Arcade Games Countdown

[CJones]

#34 (tie) – Space Invaders

29 Points, 2 Lists, Top Vote: #7 Stethacantus

Production Date: 1978
Manufacturer: Taito (licensed by Bally/Midway in the US)

It's Space Invaders. You know how Space Invaders works. On to the MANY fun facts:

Space Invaders was developed over the course of an entire year, by one person: Tomohiro Nishikado. The reason it took so long was because Nishikado not only designed and programmed the game, he developed the hardware necessary to run the game. In fact, according to Nishikado himself, developing the hardware was by far the hardest part of creating the game. He designed a custom circuit board, with an Intel 8080 main processor and a Texas Instruments sound chip.

The game is monochrome because there was no available processor capable of rendering that many sprites in color. A deluxe version of the game came with a colored cellophane overlay that made different rows appear different colors.

You know how the game speeds up as there are fewer and fewer Invaders left on screen? That wasn't by design. That was a consequence of the limitations of the processor. As the number of sprites on screen decreased, the time it took to redraw what was left decreased. Nishikado had originally intended to program in some form of speed compensation to keep the Invaders moving at a fixed speed. However it turned out people actually liked that it got faster.

Initial sales of the game were very low, and Taito didn't think the game would be successful. However the few units that were produced ended up raking it huge amounts of money. As word of mouth spread, demand for the machines skyrocketed. Over 100K units were sold in Japan alone, far more than any other game. At least another 60K were sold in the US.

Japan actually suffered a coin shortage thanks to the success of the game, and the Japanese Mint had to drastically increase coin production to compensate.

There were numerous accounts of theft and juvenile delinquency attributed to the game. One 12 year old tried to hold up a bank, demanding only coins, not paper currency.

Eric Furrer holds the record for the longest uninterrupted game of Space Invaders. He played the game non-stop for 38 hours and 37 minutes, rolling over the score 111 times.

The game was originally supposed to have planes, not aliens, but Nishikado thought the movement of the planes just didn't look right. Star Wars was all the rage at the time, so he changed them to aliens.

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/waY3svOHGGI" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/waY3svOHGGI</a>

Up next, quite possibly the first "boss fight" in video gaming.       

[CJones]

That will have to do for today. My allergies are acting up really badly, I've got a sinus headache, and I'm zonked out on Nyquil. I'll start putting these up earlier in the day starting tomorrow, so I can get more done. I hope people are finding these interesting. I know I am. That's part of why it's taking so long. I'll start looking up info about a game and end up spending an hour reading articles and watching videos, just because I enjoy it.

[ScottotD]

#34 (tie) – Space Invaders

29 Points, 2 Lists, Top Vote: #7 Stethacantus

...Space Invaders?

[Pak-Man]

That will have to do for today. My allergies are acting up really badly, I've got a sinus headache, and I'm zonked out on Nyquil. I'll start putting these up earlier in the day starting tomorrow, so I can get more done. I hope people are finding these interesting. I know I am. That's part of why it's taking so long. I'll start looking up info about a game and end up spending an hour reading articles and watching videos, just because I enjoy it.

The love shows. I'm reading every entry (Even the ones I didn't vote for/know about, which I usually skim past). This is a fantastic list. :^)

[Darth Geek]

#34 (tie) – Space Invaders

29 Points

Never tell me the decimal points.

[Pak-Man]

#34 (tie) – Space Invaders

29 Points, 2 Lists, Top Vote: #7 Stethacantus

...Space Invaders?

Gotta respect the roots! If you throw yourself into it, it's a very satisfying game.

[Johnny Unusual]

"Drop Down, Increase Speed, Reverse Direction!"

[CJones]

#32 (Tie)– Phoenix

31 Points, 2 Lists, Top Vote: #9 Stethacantus

Production Date: 1980
Developer: Amstar Electronics
Manufacturer: Centuri (licensed by Taito in Japan)

This is another Space Invaders / Galaxian style game, except instead of alien bugs, you're fighting alien birds. However their are a few features that make Phoenix stand out. One, you have a shield. With the shield up, you can't be hit, but you also can't move or fire. After using the shield, it takes a few seconds to cool down. Second, every fifth stage, you'll be facing one giant mothership that takes up most of the top half of the play field. You have to blast away at its underside, exposing a revolving barrier, much like the MCP segment of Tron. Once you manage to blast a hole through that, you finally have a clear shot at the alien inside. All this while avoiding more dive bombing alien birds

Don't take this as a certainty, but this is the earliest game I can think of that had something like a boss encounter

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/V3SIEmcdLYo" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/V3SIEmcdLYo</a>

Fun fact, there is a trick you can do, which you can see in the above video at the 1:00 mark, where, under the right circumstances, killing a bird is worth 200,000 points instead of the usual 200. It has something to do with hitting the bird while it's flying upward diagonally, just as it spreads its wings.

Next up, let's just throw everything together and see what happens.

[CJones]

#32 (Tie) – Marvel vs Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes

31 Points, 2 Lists, Top Vote: #3 Johnny Unusual

Production Date: 2000
Manufacturer: Capcom

Capcom is the video game king when it comes to reusing assets. Capcom already it's existing Capcom fighting game character line up. Then they got the rights from Marvel to make a new IPO: X-Men: Children of the Atom. It was a new style of fighting game, one that was fast and frenetic, involving long combos, super jumps and lots of air juggling. Then they made Marvel Super Heroes, which brought in a bunch more Marvel characters. And then they wondered  "We've got all this animation already drawn. How can we use it, other than for more sequels of existing series?" The answer: jam them all together, have them fight in teams and give them the ability to call in standby characters for assists. Thus Marvel vs Capcom was born.

Marvel vs Capcom 2 is actually the fourth game in the series, after X-Men vs Street Fighter, Marvel vs Street Fighter and Marvel vs Capcom 1. MvC2 is generally agreed to be the pinnacle of the series. It condensed the standard six attack buttons down to four, and re-purposed the remaining two as dedicated Assist buttons. Like pretty much every game in the series, the character balance is pretty wonky. Storm, Magneto and Sentinel could abuse their flight mechanics, and there was Cable's infamous AHVB (that's Air Hyper Viper Beam, where you buffered his super into a jump, giving him an instant long range attack).

If anyone here is a fan of Skullgirls, Mike Zaimont (aka MikeZ) says he based much of that game's mechanics on MvC2. He stated that there is a lot going on in the inner workings of such games that, as a player, you only realize on a subconscious level. But when making Skullgirls, he played a lot of MvC2 and kept asking himself, why does so-and-so work the way it does, and how do I reverse engineer that on a technical level, so I can program similar features into a brand new game.

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/mtbK0uVPKv0" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/mtbK0uVPKv0</a>

MvC2 is one of the few fighting games that Americans consistently dominate Japanese players at tournaments.

Fun fact, Tron Bonne is from "The Misadventures of Tron Bonne", a Mega Man spin-off. Like many other Mega Man characters, her name is a musical reference, in this case to the instrument, the trombone.

Up next, What's so special about that one axe?

 

[Pak-Man]

#32 (Tie)– Phoenix

31 Points, 2 Lists, Top Vote: #9 Stethacantus

Don't take this as a certainty, but this is the earliest game I can think of that had something like a boss encounter

Did Gorf come out before this one? Also I TOTALLY FORGOT GORF!

[CJones]

#32 (Tie)– Phoenix

31 Points, 2 Lists, Top Vote: #9 Stethacantus

Don't take this as a certainty, but this is the earliest game I can think of that had something like a boss encounter

Did Gorf come out before this one? Also I TOTALLY FORGOT GORF!

Gorf was 1981, so it came out after Phoenix.

[soguru]

you know, i LOVE... LOVE MVC 2. But you know what? That final boss... that FINAL BOSS!!! 

[Johnny Unusual]

#32 (Tie)– Phoenix

31 Points, 2 Lists, Top Vote: #9 Stethacantus

Don't take this as a certainty, but this is the earliest game I can think of that had something like a boss encounter

Did Gorf come out before this one? Also I TOTALLY FORGOT GORF!

And his video Gorf on Dolf!  Oh, Tim Conway, you so crazy.

[CJones]

#32 (Tie) – Golden Axe

31 Points, 3 Lists, Top Vote: #4 Sugar Ray Dodge

Production Date: 1989
Manufacturer: Sega

Golden Axe technically falls into the "beat em  up" category, but "slash em up" might be more appropriate. Golden Axe is all about people with inexplicable "=" signs in their name. Ax=Battler, the guy who doesn't use an axe. Tyris=Flare, the "Amazon" who starts forest fires. And Gilius-Thunderhead, the dwarf who has an axe that is clearly golden, but is apparently not THE Golden Axe. Death=Adder has kidnapped the royal family and seized the titular Golden Axe. He also earned the wrath of our three heroes by killing members of their family. The heroes trek across some pretty nice scenery, ride on a giant turtle, find a Giant Eagle that can fly them to the royal castle where Death-Adder has holed up. A castle which, according to the map, is right next to where you started. Way to take the scenic route.

The game is notable for several things. One, it looks really cool. Two, it's one of the first, if not THE first beat-em-ups where the characters, including enemies, use weapons. Third, the game has Mounts (ie, creatures you can ride), the first of which you encounter, the Cockatrice, is borrowed from Altered Beast, another Sega game. But the most memorable part of the game for me personally, was the 'WAY harder to make than it looks' jumps across pits. The concept of forward momentum simply doesn't exist.

Also, there were those gnomes that you mug for potions and food, prompting them to try and steal them back while you slept.

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/1v7VL4P4tbI" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/1v7VL4P4tbI</a>

Fun fact, Death=Adders' Axe is clearly bronze, not gold. It seems like the villain and the Dwarf got their Axes mixed up. Lucky for Death-Adder, considering bronze is much stronger than gold.

Up next, a game with way too many buttons     

[CJones]

#32 (Tie)– Phoenix

31 Points, 2 Lists, Top Vote: #9 Stethacantus

Don't take this as a certainty, but this is the earliest game I can think of that had something like a boss encounter

Did Gorf come out before this one? Also I TOTALLY FORGOT GORF!

And his video Gorf on Dolf!  Oh, Tim Conway, you so crazy.

I didn't know that GORF is actually an acronym for Galactic Orbiting Robot Force, before today.