Arcade Games

I may have mentioned this story before (or said I would mention it when the topic is more relevant). I remember back from when I first turned 21 and went to my first barcade. Seeing many of my favorite 16 bit games and also having a couple drinks with friends eventually lead to my eye being caught by a big dark billboard with names of games, and more importantly, the names of people with their high scores. I looked through the list, not every game for sure was on there, but one I knew very well and have mentioned many other times was.

That game was Dig Dug, and only within the last year have I looked up strategies and began to practice to improve my scores, as futile as it was. The best I could do was possibly 80,000, a respectable score but the high score on that billboard was 180,000, a 100k difference.

While I may be far away from my goal, that doesn’t mean if I couldn’t ever obtain it. The great thing about these older arcade games is that if you work hard enough and develop a strategy, you can easily beat those high scores. You won’t be able to do it in a night, but with enough dedication you could in maybe a week or two.

For some reading this they’ll never want to dedicate time to a game like that, where others such as myself want that glory of their name on the board, being able to hold some sort of prestige that few others can.

So, with that out of the way, let’s go over some of the popular arcade games high scores and how you may be able to improve your own to climb the ranks, whether you’re a newbie who’s never really been into games but you were dragged out with your friends to somewhere like a barcade or you’re the hot shot of your group wanting to take it to the next level. Let us begin.

While still on the subject, let’s talk about a strategy for Dig-Dug. It’s simple really: group enemies, smash them with rocks and make sure to use at least two rocks for the hidden vegetable for bonus points, if you can’t group them up then kill them normally. This game is much more strategic as I’ve said, with the next game we talk about having three patterns of different difficulty up until the later levels, where Dig-Dug can be more random with no solid strategy for clear victory every time, the next game can have a much clearer strategy.

PAC-man will be the second game we talk about, I’ve mentioned this game a couple times before and for good reason: it’s iconic and super fun for just about anyone. You want to get better at it? Little did I know until writing this post, there are actually three different patterns, all involving the same route but accommodates to different situations such as different ghosts. Pattern one will easily get you through the first level, the focus is to clear out the bottom from left to right, grabbing the power pellet in either the left or right corner, and then clearing out the middle and top right side. Pattern two is similar and will get you through the next two or three levels, the only difference is that when you go right, you’ll want to turn the other way as a blue ghost will be after you. Simply turn around, and grab the left power pellet to have him and the others run while you begin to clear out the middle and head for the top right again.

The third pattern is kind of hard to explain, but it involves going around the whole map while tricking each of the ghosts into grouping up, starting toward the center, going toward the top left and clearing out the top right, going back down through the middle and around to the top right, and then down, tricking the ghosts into splitting up and allowing you to have four separate corners with four pellets. There are videos that can help a bit more with this is you want to dedicate time outside of this post, this is just to have some quick information on hand.

The next one I want to talk about is Galaga, another popular and easy game to get into. There is a secret that few know about, one that will allow you to disarm the enemies in Galaga in order to get further than ever before and to play as if it’s still level one. Your friends don’t need to know, and if you’re not very good at video games it’s a fun trick to play on them, as they see your score climb higher and higher and watch you get further into the game but yet make it seem as though it’s one of the first times you’ve ever played. There is the method as well as to getting two ships at once, however if you want to risk one life for the sake of dual fire power and have the enemies not shoot you, go for it.

Another game to talk about is Donkey Kong. I’ve mentioned it before as being a slightly more difficult game, especially if you try to rush. The very first level is a huge deception to how brutal the game can truly be, especially when you realize if you fall down from large heights it will kill you, meaning you have to time jumps between barrels and holes in the platforms. There are some strategies for different levels, including to clear our one side of yellow markers so that way you can trap flames on the other side of the stage, on top of strategies like getting to the hammers as quickly as possible in order to clear the stage somewhat faster or to avoid hazards that would appear if you went a bit slower through the level. Having a plan for this game will surely help your first couple of times to increase your score and impress your friends(it should as hell would impress me, I’m terrible at this game so I’d be damn impressed).

Lastly I’ll talk about Mario Bros, the original arcade game. This game I talked about in a previous post saying how it was one of the best arcade games and how you could play with a friend to help or hurt them, and that’s basically the strategy here. Help your friend, steal their points, kill them off or take their kills after they knock enemies down. Do whatever it takes, fight fair or fight dirty. If for some reason you’re playing alone however, I used to play this quite a bit on the hand held consoles. A big key to this game is just management of the surroundings. Learn how each enemy works and which you should deal with first. Turtles are the least of your problems when you have angry crabs or angry bees after you. Never be comfortable in one place, be used to being on the bottom, middle, or top parts of the stage, as some parts may turn to ice or have fire balls that will kill you on contact. More points means more lives though, so like I said: manage enemies, grab coins for extra points after killing each enemy, and be comfortable at any part of the stage and you’ll be impressing your friends in no time. And of course, your saving grace: the POW block to help you knock down enemies to easily clear levels. However it only has three uses, so be careful.

That’s it for this post, I will be doing another one hopefully tomorrow about some of the best music from the best arcade games, and maybe some of the home consoles as well. That’s it for this post here at Arcademia, the Arcade Academia.

Welcome back everyone and I apologize for the delay, there was this tornado warning and I was volunteering to help with damage that was caused by the strong straight winds that came through.

With that out of the way, today we’re talking about the best and worst of Arcade games, a very brief guide to some of the worst games out there that you shouldn’t bother with if you find yourself at an arcade or old bowling alley with a game in the back that could either eat your quarters or gave you a couple hours of entertainment.

So without further delay to a simple list of games, I’ll simply do 5 of the best and 5 of the worst, to keep things simple and because you’re very unlikely to see one of these bad games compared to the many popular games that are much better in quality.

Starting with the best games at number five we have Dig-Dug. I’ve talked about this game in the past. It’s different compared to others which is why it’s so low on this list. Compared to something like a racing game that anyone could pick up in a couple seconds or pac-man which is easy to understand, the idea of having to move around, making sure not to get smashed by rocks, keep track of the increasing amount of enemies that also get faster, and first time players or intermediate players still not having any sort of strategy to consistently get better, it’s definitely a more challenging game.

The object is simple: dig through and pop enemies, score points, gloat about your score. This is personally my favorite arcade game, with my goal at a local barcade is me having my name up on the big board they have there. While this game is low on this list for all time best, it’s probably my favorite arcade game.

Next up at number four is Galaga. This game can be hit or miss for some in terms of skill. I myself never score well (the 30,000’s maybe) while my buddy will get double the score with ease. I’m not sure what is it that causes the huge gap in skill, but people out there exist who are just great at this game. That gap in skill is what landed this game in the 4th spot. While the game is much easier to pick up, the risk/reward of getting a double ship for twice the firepower at the risk of losing another life, enemies adopting kamikaze ideals in order to destroy you while also firing at you, the game can become chaotic quickly if you don’t stay calm, have a good aim, and a steady hand.

The number three spot goes to the original Donkey Kong. A simple game with a simple concept, dodge, jump, and get the girl back as an unnamed plumber at the time. This game has random barrels, later on fire, jumps across hazardous gaps and changing levels. If you play this game, you probably understand how it works. Most new players wouldn’t jump straight into this game as their first choice compared to others, as it can be difficult. However the object of the game is simple enough that if someone were to walk up to the machine they could clear a couple levels and after getting over would say “hang on let me try that again” because of how fun the challenge that is present can be.

Oh look it’s number two, and it was mentioned earlier. That’s right, with no surprise that it’s on the list, it’s Pac-Man. This game is probably the most simple to play of those mentioned this far: collect pellets, dodge ghosts. Just about anyone could do it, it’s not till the later levels when things get faster than you need to have a strategy in mind, but for a kid with a couple quarters, someone who’s never played, or someone who’s had a few drinks at a barcade, it’s fun for everyone.

The number one game though in my opinion is the original Mario Bros. While it may take a little time getting used to with the slightly slippery controls (which doesn’t help later on in stages that actually have ice), the reason why it becomes number one is because you can get help from a friend! As silly of a reason it may be, being able to get help from a friend is a huge advantage: get farther in the game, fight for high scores, no waiting to take turns. The game is pretty simple and generous, just be on the lookout later on for fireballs that can go across different parts of the stage or the increasing speed of enemies as stages progress. It all becomes much more manageable with another friend to help.

Well, now let’s get on to the bad games. Starting a number five is one I never personally heard of but seems to have made many older players mad due to their quarters being stolen. This game goes by the name of Name that Tune. The point of it is to either use one screen hints or sounds the game makes. Probably not the best experience on a 16 bit console with a limited sound range. Granted cabinet arcade systems had better hardware than most home consoles, I doubt it was anything spectacular.

Number four will be NARC, a beat ’em up game that focuses on killing drug dealers. Sounds decent enough right? Unfortunately due to the lack of making it stand out in any other way other than the concept of being a cop against drug dealers, the game has nothing original to offer other than being released during the time when there was a war on drugs, and instead of drugs ruining lives it was a video game.

Number three goes to the Road Runner game, with good reason. It’s a boring collectathon that would put you to sleep faster than the truth driving simulator did for my buddy who had insomnia. It’s somehow more boring and repetitive than Frogger yet with tighter controllers and and unreasonable detection for picking up items that it gives me the same sort of anxiety for when I’m trying to color in between the lines. Also hearing the “meep meep” of road runner is so butchered and bastardized that it makes me want to go back 10 seconds into the past so that I never heard of this game.

Number two goes to Journey, the video game. The game is so bland and unoriginal to the likeness of the band that whoever developed the game took the idea of what music literally and didn’t try to do anything clever or unique with it. Doing things like “oh they’re a band so let’s have band related things but not unique to Journey” and “oh let’s have the 16 bit renditions of the songs”. Oh there’s a singer so let’s have a microphone for a weapon, or a guitar or piano as well. It doesn’t do anything special with it, nothing unique to the band for the weapons, they simple put the instruments in there as a way of saying “look a game about music” The execution is so bad it’s laughable. With each instrument collected making horrible noises from the machine and the renditions of the songs sounding like something that was thrown into a garbage collector for songs and then spit out, it’s something to avoid entirely. Not to mention the levels are incredibly short, the whole game lasts about as long as a Super Mario bros speed run (a little more than 5 minutes) and the levels are about as satisfying to complete as unwrapping a a frozen pizza when you’re in walking distance of a pizzeria chain restaurant. In other words it’s very unsatisfying.

Lastly we have educational games. Another Pac-Man one. “oh but Arcademia, that’s unoriginal having two games featuring the same character in one blog post!”. Well that’s too bad really. The problem is that many educational games try to latch onto popular characters like Mario or Pac-Man to make the game more appealing to try and draw the younger crowd in. It’s funny to think about really, I play video games because I want to have fun and not think about school or responsibilities yet video game companies will then use characters I like to then make me try and do something educational. It’s absolutely diabolical, but clever. Too bad it failed.

The game specifically is Professor Pac-Man. A simple game mostly built for what easily seems like 5 year olds and below. The other problem is that it’s two player which means you have to trick a friend into playing it with you. The point of the game is simple enough that a 5 year old can do it. Simple match stuff with the correct answer and do basic problems. The game itself was so bad only 400 units were ever made, with three different revisions for kids, family, and bars or other public places. It was a terrible flop, no surprise. The bottom line: video games and education don’t mix.

So what did we learn from this? Arcade games have many great hits but also can be deceiving in looks just because it has something you recognize representing it. It’s always important to have someone else’s opinion on the game or to even watch the demo footage before potentially wasting your precious quarters.

That will conclude this week’s post, if you enjoyed it as always be sure to come back next week to the Arcade Academia, where I will take a look around the world to see what arcades were like in other countries, if they even had a golden age just like the U.S did and if they still exist.

Tag: Arcade Games

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