1984 was a monumentous year, not just for the video game arcade, but for pop culture in general. The arcade’s started to influence the wider world, eventually leading to their demise.
So what was so special about 1984? Quite a lot!
1984 Olympics
Who can forget the heroic exploits of Daley Thompson in the Decathlon, Carl Lewis on his way to four gold medals (placing him alongside the great Jesse Owens in Olympic history), or our own Seb Coe in the 1500m. The Los Angeles Olympics was as quintessentially ‘American Dream’ as Ronald Reagan and the Cosby Show, at the very height of the Cold War, and boycotted by numerous eastern bloc countries.
1984 in film
1984 was the year a number of my favourite films of all time were released. Beverly Hills Cop, Ghostbusters,Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Gremlins,The Karate Kid, The Terminator etc. But more than that, the first ever true movie/video game tie in that never was. The Last Starfighter. We of course never got to see the famous Starfighter video game in real life, but the backstory is a fantastic piece of nostalgia for any gaming fan.
The beginning of the end for the Video Game Arcade
I mentioned the demise of the video game arcade earlier. This wouldn’t happen until the turn of the 90’s, but on my 10th Birthday the first seed had been sown, The Sinclair ZX Spectrum+, and along with it my first taste of all-time classic gaming outside of the sanctuary of the arcade. Jet Set Willy, Match Day, Elite, Sabre Wulf, Daily Thompson’s Decathlon.
Being only 10 years old, of course, I had all the time in the world to indulge in both home and arcade gaming. The spectrum had it’s place in the more cerebral, strategic side of gaming, where hours open hours could be spent alone in your bedroom, away from it all.
But then again, sometimes you just wanted to be among the crowd, experiencing the latest in visuals, technology and adrenaline. In 1984, home computing was still a long way behind the arcade.
Karate Champ
In 1985, The Way of the Exploding Fist made a huge impact on the home computing scene, being hailed as the first karate similar and certainly a watershed moment for arcade fighting games.
But before all that, Karate Champ was the real daddy, paving the way for all your Street Fighters, Mortal Kombats, Tekkens and Virtual Fighters. It started the whole one-on-one beat-em-up genre, and rightly deserves its place in video game history.
The game itself? It’s twin-stick control gave you a ton of options for differing arm and leg attacks, but it’s the dour, disciplined sports-martial arts atmosphere that stands out the most. Karate Champ, unlike most of it’s successors, was a serious video game, and a real test of the reflexes.
Kung fu master
Which brings us nicely to one of the greatest games of all time. Kung Fu Master took the basic Karate Champ formula, upgraded the graphics and introduced us to the world’s first scrolling beat-em-up.
I loved this game (and still do). Every part was pitched just about perfectly. Out went the white and red colour scheme of Karate Champ and in came all the vibrancy of a Chinese Dragon at New Year. This was your Bruce Lee: Game of Death simulator with a charismatic end of level boss at the end of each of the five floors/levels.
The presentation of this game still holds up today, the animation of straddling a foot-solder while fly-kicking those pesky knife-spitting vases, the heart-pounding soundtrack, chain-punching four guards in a row, and best all all, the tense boss-battles.
Unforgettable gaming moment: The ‘Giant’ Boss. Defeated by closing the distance with a jump-kick then chain crouch-punching him into submission.
Kung fu Master then, a game that defined a genre including some of the most fun I ever had in an arcade…
Future classics including Rolling Thunder, Shinobi, Double Dragon, Final Fight, Golden Axe, Street of Rage etc all owe their existence to Kung Fu Master.
1942
Nothing new here, just an expertly packaged, expertly paced slice of shooting planes in a WWII setting. And what could be more fun than that? Even back in 1984, the vertical-scrolling shoot-em-up market was beginning to get crowded. But 1942 still stands out as a classic example of the genre.
Bomb Jack
Do you know what Bomb Jack is? Pure arcade game fun. Sure, like 1942 it’s been copied a million times on all the home formats, but for me, at the time, Bomb Jack represented what was great about the arcades and why they were still on top.
At it’s heart, a simple, single screen platform game, but it had all the love, all the magic, all the polish that only an arcade cabinet could deliver. With all the virtual arcade fighting taking place at the time, Bomb Jack was just pure, colourful, video game fun.
The Spectrum port of Bomb Jack took another two years to materialise. The advertised ‘arcade perfect’ conversion was, in common with almost all others at the time, a mere monochrome facsimile of the real-deal.
In other words, in 1984, home computing was way behind the arcades technology-wise.
I, Robot
Yet again, Atari innovation steps into the arena and blows away all preconceptions of what a video game even is. Forget Asteroids, forget Tempest. This was frighteningly light-years ahead. A fully realised solid 3D world, way back in 1984! You can only imagine what full range of 3D movement in a video game does to the brain of a 10 year old.
Here’s some facts for you. I, Robot was the first commercially produced video game with filled 3D polygon graphics and flat shading, as well as being the first video game to feature camera-control options.
Yep, I, Robot, in essence, planted the first seeds for the all your Unreal etc. gaming engines used today.
But for all the geekiness and technological achievements, Atari had took their eye off the gameplay ball, as underneath it all, I Robot was just another platform game. and not a very good one at that. After the initial impact, there was very little to keep you pumping the 10p’s in.
Still. Atari took risks and pushed the boundaries like no other developer. I loved them for that.
Pac-Land
Although I was never a big fan of this game or even original Pac-man. Pac-Land played an important role in my own arcade history. You see, like Pac-Man before it, Pac-Land did nothing new, it certainly wasn’t the first nor the best side-scrolling platformer around.
What Pac-Land did do, in my story at least, was transcend gaming. We had a Pac-Land cabinet in our local swimming pool at the time, coinciding with it’s very own kid’s cartoon show.
Needless to say, Pac-Land holds fond memories of friends gathered round it’s cabinet, wet-haired and smelling of chlorine after a swimming lesson, with mini-cookies in hand from the pool-cafe vending machine. We’d take it in turns to beat a level, before being dragged away, always too soon, by Mr Mullen our track-suited PE Teacher.
So thank you Pac-Land. No amount of technical wizardry or gameplay genius can replace that.
Return of the Jedi
And now to a big-beast, and one of the reasons for putting this whole series together in the first place.
Let’s get the fluff out of the way first. I LOVE The Return of the Jedi (The 1983 film), considering it to be the best film in the best film franchise of all time, so the game of the same name had a massive head start.
Unlike Star Wars, I was old enough to fully experience the film at the cinema. I had ALL the figures. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect really.
For the next 2 or 3 years then, every time I went to an arcade, Return of the Jedi (along with Tehkan World Cup and Exciting Hour in 1985) got the lions share of my attention.
Why?
It had all the elements I love in a game. Simple.
First off, the subject matter couldn’t have been better. You got to play out the best of the sequences in the film. Home run here.
Next, Although the isometric perspective, spite-based visuals weren’t the huge technological leap Star Wars was. There was far greater gameplay variety in the levels and the difficulty. You were, in effect, creating your very own epic battles, with their own outcome. You got to commandeer a speeder bike, an AT-ST and…… The Millennium Falcon!
At the end of the day, taking out Star Destroyer laser-turrets with X-Wing support, then flying into the Death Star II infrastructure to destroy the main -reactor, then beating the explosion through a maze of obstacles on your way out. That’s never going to get old, no-matter what the game looks and sounds like.
… Nor does triggering Ewok rope, log traps on your speeder.
… Or being Chewie with an AT-ST chain-gun.
Mostly though, Return of the Jedi placed me at the centre of the arcade community as the high-score tables became a vicious competition.
One day I watched an older guy beat the game, nonchalantly enter his name at the top of the high score table, and bolt out, after a short self-celebration of acheiving the fabled ‘Jedi Knight’ status.
I worked towards being at that guy’s level, and soon I would have ‘watchers’ getting tips from me.
Its controls where taken directly from the Star Wars cabinet but with the up/down movement replaced by speed control. It worked so intuitively and probably contributed to its popularity.
Return of The Jedi, then. An all time classic from the Golden Age of the Video Game arcade.
As close to perfect as it gets, and addictive as hell.
Super Punch-Out!!
Finally defeating Bald Bull on the original Punch-Out!! was a scary experience of the unknown. What was coming next? Kid Quick got the better of me on intimidation alone.
On a rainy day in an arcade on near Portsmouth pier. Super Punch-Out!! freaked me out from the very first bell.
Whereas Punch-Out!! starts out as a ‘normal’ boxing game before revealing it’s more outlandish characters. Super Punch-Out!! ups the ante to whole new levels of weirdness.
A Canadian Bear-hugging lumberjack.
A Chinese Martial Artist.
A Drunk Russian.
The list goes on…
What comes across as twee and gimmicky to an adult was anything but to a young boy. The first time I knocked Canadian Bear-Hugger down was another one of those gaming moments. He simply sat down, got back up and violently, viciously attacked with both first together, growling as if to crush my skull.
.. To me at the time it was sickening, X-rated stuff, and turned me off the game instantly.
Other than than. In my view, Super Punch-Out!! is more or less the same game, just with a duck move added. I really think Nintendo missed a trick with Super Punch-Out!!, and would have loved to have seen a bigger and better sequel with the focus on the gameplay rather than the characters and shock factor.
Not that Nintendo we’re ever going to go in that direction.
Tetris
A game that needs no introduction, other than the year it appeared. 1984 of course.
Hypersports
A strange sequel to the pitch-perfect button masher Track & Field. Hypersport’s random event line-up of Swimming, Skeet shooting, Long horse, Archery, Triple jump,Weight lifting and Pole vault instantly dissapoints.
Konami, in an attempt to add depth and colour, lost the hardcore, pure, simple, focused nature it’s predecessor and became more of true arcade game rather than a sports/arcade one.
World records just didn’t seem to matter as much in Hypersports.
In fact, it’s more subtle, slower paced nature made it perfect for an excellent Spectrum conversion a year later.
Firefox
Second only to Dragon’s Lair for mind-blowing arcade events, and Atari’s first and only attempt at the Laser Disk format.
Ostend, Belgium was the place, teeming with arcades and a variety of unusual (and brilliant) games I hadn’t been exposed to in the UK.
Firefox sat proudly in it’s own space, at the top of a ramp, and welcomed you in with clips and a thumping soviet-style soundtrack from the 1982 movie.
Predictably, it was more movie than game, but in 1984 that didn’t matter. What mattered was visuals and sound, and this featured actual footage, imagery and sound from the film itself.
Talking of subject matter, I give you the story of the MIG–31 Firefox…
As for the game itself. Well, piloting the MIG-31 through snowy mountain ranges as Clint Eastwood couldn’t be cooler, and this style of into the screen gameplay paved the way for the likes of Sega’s Afterburner and earlier Space Harrier, but Firefox was mainly yet another Atari showcase of what can be achieved if you really put your mind to it.
Oh, and I almost forget. I had the Grandstand Firefox F-7 handheld game too…
1984: In a backdrop of emerging home computing technology, had the Video Game Arcade peaked or was better still to come? Regardless, 1984 was the year I moved from simply roaming the arcades to becoming, for better or for worse, a true ‘gamer’. 24/7.
I consider myself lucky to have lived through the Golden Age of the Video Arcade as a wide-eyed, enthusiastic dreamer, as well as the see the birth of what would become the home console revolution.
Tune in for The Golden Age of The Video Game Arcade: 1985.
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