Wednesday, February 27, 2013

80's Theme Week: Day 3

Happy Hump Day Mother-truckers!!!!!


So it's Day 3 already, and today's topic of choice is video games. Yes video games, because that's what got the ball rolling when it came to home entertainment for the kiddies.

If there was no Atari or NES, there'd be no X-Box360 or PlayStation 3(now 4)

Without Super Mario and Pac-Man, there'd be no Halo or Assassin's Creed.
Without....well, you get the point.

So today, I'd briefly like to talk about some of the early arcade and video games that had a big impact on me growing up, and no doubt on some or most of you as well.


My earliest memories of playing arcade games has to be around age 5. I was still living in Germany at the time, and was staying w/my folks in a little town on a religious retreat. Yes my folks were religious, and no, it wasn't a cult, you silly bears;)

Anyhoo, the first games I played upon discovering them, were Centipede, Galaxian, and Pac-Man.










Let me tell you, those games really blow my mind, not to mention how cool they seemed even for those times graphically.

Centipede, as cool as it looked, didn't seem to age well with time, unlike Pac-Man and Galaxian. In fact, out of the three, only Pac-Man seemed to thrive the best, spawning sequels  merchandise like candy, lunchboxes, toys, and even his very own animated cartoon.










And who can forger Mrs. Pac-Man?






Yep, she spawned her own game series for a quick minute. Let's hear it for gender equality! Yeahhhhh!

I'd go on to grow up on other classic arcade games like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, The X-Men, Marvel vs. Capcom, TMNT, and more. But that's more during the 90's, and that's a whole theme for next week.

Oops, did I just reveal the theme for next week? SPOILER ALERT!!!!!;)
Ha ha, my bad.

Where was I? oh yeah video games.
I didn't get an Atari when it came out or afterwards, but I did manage to get an NES. And damn did that really blow my mind!

Early favorites for the NES where Super Mario(of course), especially the first one that came with Duck Hunt.
Then it was games like Shinobi, StriderBionic Commando, ZeldaSkate or Die, and one of my early favorites, and the 2nd game I ever played on NES, Double Dragon.



It was THE precursor to future fighting games like the ones I just mentioned like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat.

And that franchise proved so popular, it too spawned cartoons, more games, toys, and a horrible c-list movie starring Scott Wolf from Party of Five.

Good times I'm sure;)

Finally, just in case you were going through a little skit withdraw, here's a little something I whipped just for you guys courtesy of ol' Mr. Morbid.

I call it Pinball Wizard:




Yep, last week I got the Aquaman/Mer-Man DC vs. MOTU 2-pack
 And then my sister got me the Pac-Man candy tin, and now I have an arcade game for my guys(and gals) to play. Cool huh?


 Tomorrow's the conclusion of 80's week. And it's not a bad day to wrap this all up in either, since it's the last day of February. Hey, I don't always plan these things to go as smoothly as this, but I'll take it;)


4 comments:

Shlomo Ben Hungstien said...

that's a serious dis on Mer-man to equate him as jar jar jinx. yeah i used to play all those early games but by the time stuff like double dragon came along i had already moved on from my video game phase. never did watch the pac-man cartoon that was a bit too lame even for me at the time. by the way check out what i posted today i found new stuff to piss on.

Mr. Morbid's House Of Fun said...

Will do, can't wait. And yes, I called Mer-Man Jar Jar. Seriously, just look at him! He's either distantly related to Jar Jar or he's a crack baby, take your pick;)

Randomnerd said...

I played Centipede, and Pacman, and all those early nintendo games. But I remember most clearly playing on the Intellivision system my grandpa got us. Mostly Astro-smash and Burger Time, but with a little Dungeon! thrown in for good measure. I'd like to think of that as the start of my RPing. Of course, from there I graduated to Ultima on the Commodore 64. But that was hardcore. :)

Mr. Morbid's House Of Fun said...

See, I was never into the RPGing games, except for when I played Final Fantasy 7(?) back in 1997. The funniest thing to come out of that was seeing Cloud dress up as a girl for some reason I can't remember.

Hell I never even played on a Commodore 64 myself.

"Closing time. You don't have to go home but you can't stay here."

Well..... I kinda always knew this day would come, and it sure has. It's been a hell of a ride, but it's time to for it end. Ti...