The Golden Age of the Video Game Arcade : 1982

It was now 1982 and the games industry seemed to be utilising the ever-developing technology better then ever, building on the foundations of 1981 and creating larger than life, colourful classics that will never be forgotten.

Every single entry in this year’s chapter exudes a certain confidence which may be down to the developers mastery of the tools, or maybe just a sign of the times.

As I remember it, 1982 in particular was a very positive year. The DeLorean Motor Company, the Falklands war,  Ronald Reagan, the Spain World Cup, Compact discs, the raising of the Mary Rose (flagship of  King Henry VIII), Channel 4 and last but not least, the beginning of the decade-long home computing wars between the Commodore 64 and the iconic rubber-keyed Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k.

But the Arcade was still king, and this wave of advancement and euphoria can sort of be seen in the games, there’s no sense that they were anything but lovingly created by passionate people, having a wonderful time creating history. These gems arrived in the arcades and added a bit a magic, an edge of fun. Maybe 1981 was a struggle, of hard work resulting in an end-product, a business goal.  1982, so it seemed, was the beginning of games being made just for the sheer fun of it.

It was a truly fantastic time to be a ‘gamer’, as any notion of the video game industry being merely niche was blown away in a multi-coloured tidal wave of creativity and space-age technology we used to only dream about. Here, in the arcade, we were at the cutting edge, the coal-face of human evolution. We were the judges of the latest heroes, we could mould and steer history the way we wanted.  Bars, restaurant, night-clubs, even chip-shops couldn’t escape our world’s influence.  And me ? I was right at the centre of it all.

Dig Dug

The simple pleasure of firing a  hose at the bad-guy and tapping away until he explodes is still there, 36 years on. As is the timeless game-play mechanic of dislodging a boulder to crush your unsuspecting prey. This, for me was the game the PAC-MAN should have been. A simple, maze structure, but with a few strategic elements added, and something to indulge my trigger finger too.

Pole Position

Perhaps the most dour of this years entries, but what we have here is the grand-daddy of your Ridge Racers,  Grand Tourismo’s, Out-runs. In fact, this is the grand-daddy of them all. All the basics were nailed first time. You got to sit in a cabinet, you got a steering wheel and pedals and you drove around a 3D track. Pole position quietly went about its business of making history and creating its very own genre, before disappearing again almost unnoticed.

Sinistar

The second game after Gorf to make me jump. I mean, that mother-ship cat-like boss of the title had me psyched out before my first 10p was in the slot.  This was Asteroids on steroids AND L.S.D. Sure, Asteroids was a great game, but now we were getting into the era of bosses, adrenaline and healthy competition. Sinistar, like Dig Dug, took the original template and made EVERYTHING better, adding complexity, interest and tactics were needed, deepening and enriching the experience, and applying coat upon coat of polish.

Tron

One of the reasons I put together this piece in the first place. Tron remains one of my favourite games of all time, and is perhaps one of the most perfectly judged film tie-ins of all time too. Before you even get anywhere near the cabinet, it pulls of its PAC-MAN trick of wowing you with its cabinet livery, and what could be cooler than the fluorescent blue on black of the Tron brand?  Of course I’d recently seen the film, so to get my hands on those light-cycles, tanks and spinning disks was almost unbearably exciting. Then there was the icon 8-bit inspired score, instantly recognisable and almost magically recreated. Tron stood tall, head and shoulders above its contemporaries, often situated in its own “feature” area of a particular arcade, away from the commoners.

So, with my eyes and ears fully stimulated, I gripped the appropriately glowing-blue Trigger-style joystick and, another first, an accompanying twist dial. Tron was split into four separate games, the iconic light-cycles, the tanks, a breakout style level and another, instantly forgettable “clear the screen of spiders” level.

The light-cycle level was worth the admission fee alone, the first and best “snake” game I ever played, but of course wrapped up in all that gorgeous Tron imagery. It was as if you were in the film, re-writing your own story, and for a time at least, it was my obsession.  Facing three cycles to your one for the first time was a fearful prospect, until I took out all three at once by going on the offensive and blocking them all off in move, a golden gaming memory right there.

Of course there was the tank level too, its slower, strategic maze-hunt play a perfect accompaniment to the reflex-lightning pace of the cycles. Although a top-down game, those shell strikes resonated just as well as in Battlezone. I almost wish they hadn’t bothered with the two remaining sub-games, which were merely distraction and filler, but a necessity to see the later levels of the better sub-games.

Like the Film, Tron the game captured a moment in history, encapsulating the futuristic, confident, boundary and imagination-pushing attitude that seems all but lost these days.

Xevious

Spaceships. At the time, and probably still now, my favourite thing. So being in an arcade and hitting that Player 1 button to control your very own spaceship never really got boring. Still, Xevious started out pretty tame, then you began to notice the details in the vertically scrolling background, the crop circles, the alien structures, was it occupied earth? a distant planet? You start to build your own back-story and narrative, and then you’re hooked. Xevious played the basics well, but added in that unexpected something extra that won you over.

Then of course there was the added dimension of land targets, as well as air, a first for the vertical scroller genre at least, oh, and the mammoth mother ship bosses, who could forget them.

Xevious just had a certain bleak atmosphere and style, more Battlefield Earth than Star Wars. It was classy and mature rather than Namco’s usually cartoony offerings at the time. It took no prisoners and made no excuses for what it was but I loved it.

Time Pilot

Whereas Sinistar almost scared you off, Time Pilot welcomed you into its flight through history, from bi-planes to, you’ve guessed it, spaceships and all points in between. Sometimes a simple, catchy narrative is that’s needed to reel you in and that’s exactly what this asteroids-inspired shooter did.  This was bright, fast paced, colourful  humour in the clouds, but what really set it apart was the structure….

Time Pilot gave you a set amount of enemies to take down before the boss appeared for each level (in history), from biplanes and Airships, to spitfires and Lancaster bombers, this was a masterclass in synergy of concept and execution.

I still get a lot of fun out of Time Pilot even to this day. It was and still is pitch perfect.

Mr. Do!

Very similar to Dig Dug, but with the hose replaced by a returning ball which added a faster, more unpredictable dynamic. What Mr. Do! did was introduce the concept of using musical notes as part of the gameplay, with the notes of the scales escalating as you gobbled up the on-screen fruit. There’s not really much more to be said about Mr. Do! other than it was simply a pleasure to play, look at and listen to.  There was just something about tunnelling your way around and firing your ball back through it towards the bad guys, beats me!

Robotron: 2084

This is where all you Smash TV’s and Geometry Wars came from. The original twin-stick shooter. I’ll be honest the game reminded me a lot of Defender (style wise) and I was never a big fan. Much preferring the games it inspired.

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