Galaga - original arcade machine

Today I introduce, or reintroduce to people old and nostalgic already knowledgeable, one of the greatest classic arcade I've ever seen, of great importance in the evolution of video games. This is the game Galaga.

For a time they had few releases and the evolution of games from the same franchise differed in small details with Galaga was not much different. Normally the result of a game does not usually exceed the success and originality of the predecessor, but Galaga was an exception to this rule, which emerged as a result of the great success of Galaxian bringing some innovations in gameplay.

In 1981 Galaga was released, two years after Galaxian. I can imagine these years were the first years of real success of NAMCO (AmusementMachine Nakamura Manufacturing Company), but it was a Japanese company already with over 10 years of existence. In the same year, the game was also released in the U.S., imported by American company Midway.

The game Galaga is a shooting game where you command a spaceship which moves at the bottom of the screen horizontally. Initially we have an empty area directly above the spacecraft player, but at the beginning of each stage will be gradually occupied by alien spaceships. They fly over the screen in groups, giving the possibility of being killed in these movements. If the enemy escaped of first chance of fight, they will go to the top of the screen, to attack the player again.

Stage 1 of the first player, two players can be alternated

Enemies appear in space, flying over the player's spaceship

The enemy spaceships are organized at the top of the screen

The enemy spaceships of the first line from the top can capture the player's spaceship

The spaceship was captured, will have to use a reserve spaceship

After captured observe the player's spaceship on the top screen stuck on the enemy

After reaching the enemy it explodes into small pieces in space

When it reaches the enemy spaceship that had captured a spaceship you come to play with two

At the end of the game displays a summary of the accounting game

The great cheap this game occurs when the player spacecraft is captured by the enemy master. This particular enemy is eliminated only if hit twice by the player. When captured, the spacecraft captured the player gets to shoot his owner.

Using spacecraft booking, you can recover the lost spacecraft and attach it to the player's spaceship. Therefore it is necessary to carefully reach only the enemy spacecraft, without reaching the spacecraft hostage. Thus, the player starts to play with two spacecraft, increasing the firepower against the enemy, but getting more vulnerable to being hit.

There do bonus calls Challenging Stage, where the enemies appear in groups on the screen without making formations and shoot against the player. You can reach all sequentially and thus achieve an extra score. Upon reaching 60,000 points won a new spacecraft reservation, this probably occurs again after a certain new achievement scores.

An excellent game, especially for those who had the opportunity to play it in those years immediately following the launch. For recent generations of players that can be somewhat boring and in bad taste, but it takes respect, Galaga is part of the way to what we have today of electronic games.

Elevator Action (Arcade)

I played this game during the decade of 80, within the first ten years of my life. Again it was my father who begat this opportunity to discover this game at the bar and play it at the arcade. Yeah, my father was not a good example, considering I was around 6 years old, hehehe.

Frankly I was far from being the number one fan of this type of game, because at that time I was very connected to everything that involved fighting, my imagination was very fertile in this part. So games like Yie Ar KUNG-FU called more my attention and interest.

Only after many years, Elevator Action came to me to be more attractive and thence I got to play it on another platform, the NES. Platforms where this game ran, according Wikipedia, are: Arcade, Amstrad CPC, Atari 2600, Commodore 64, Game Boy, MSX, NES, Virtual Console, ZX Spectrum.

The game logic was also much simpler compared to Yie Ar Kung-Fu, but there's no surprise there, Yie Ar KUNG-FU was a revolution in video games. Another factor is the fact that the release of Elevator Action is dated 1983, against 1985 Yie Ar KUNG-FU. They are two years apart, but the jump was great for the arcade games.

Well, let's go, talk about how it was to play Elevator Action, Taito game. The only playable character was a spy who accessed the building through the highest part. Using a kind of zipline to access the building, giving access to the thirtieth floor.

The goal was to enter the red doors on certain floors rescuing secret documents, and finally exit the 0 floor of the building, using the car seems to have strategically await our spy.

But before leaving the building, the agents will face enemies that come out of the other ports (blue doors). The elevators are great helpers during the game, but there are parts that are only using the stairs to transit the floors.

It seems easy and very simple to play but do not get excited about it! There are many "gotchas" such as: down a floor using the stairs, walk all the floor and climb the ladder on the other side to access a red door. Other words, there are places that the floor is locked, you need to get around to hit the goal.

Our spy uses leaps and gunfire against enemy agents. If wanting or not you hit the lamp, this fall and will leave many floors without light. The enemies also shoot often in the shot comes from several sides.

The elavador is another killer tool, you can crush the enemy compressing him to the elevator against a particular floor. No wonder that the name of the game takes its name from elevator, it actually mark quite the game, smash the enemy can be fun and at the same time not so easy. You may also be crushed if not pay attention.

If you still do not know what game I'm talking, I prepared some pictures here:

Game home screen

Raiding the building

Crushing the enemy agent

Skipping the elevator shaft. Looking shot coming!

It is easy to find that play on a conventional console like the NES, equates playing in the arcade. But almost always play in the arcade is much more exciting, sophisticated. I remember my frustration playing Street Fighter on home consoles like the Super Nintendo, very different, especially in the gameplay. Certain opportunities are rare, how have played this game in a arcade machine, but an emulator already causes me a good feeling of nostalgia.

Yie Ar KUNG-FU (ARCADE)

My first opportunity to see and play then this game was exclusively in Arcade machines in mid-1986, when I was about a 6 year old. Yes, it was early, even for its time! My father would visit the bar owner and I stood there at first just watching the guys play. I must have done hell to my father to the point of paying me some chips to make it quiet.

I recently rediscovered this game on the Nintendo DSi, is part of Konami Classics Series Arcade Hits, identical to the Arcade version. It is very difficult to describe what I felt when reviewing this game, because we guard things in memory of the brain that do not even know it's there, then when are revealed to bring forth the true power of nostalgia. Not only brings memories of the game, but the entire context of that time, especially personal memories. Gave shiver! Hehehe.

Here are some definitions found in WEB:

"In his version of Arcade, the only selectable character is Oolong martial artist who follows his journey of honor and glory to become the most skilled between the masters of Kung-fu. For its gameplay, challenges and innovations (for the time, of course), Yie Ar Kung-Fu became an absolute success of Arcades, and Konami wasted no time and adapted for the home versions, including the most popular computer of the time, MSX.

(...)

The success of Yie Ar Kung-Fu served as, without a doubt, an inspiration for other game Houses. The CAPCOM needed this inspiration to create Street Fighter, whose innovation was the inclusion of two-player versus mode and the special moves and spells. Even from the second version of the system life bar game from Konami was adopted. Being that in Yie Air Kung-Fu the bar is divided into pieces, where each takes a blow in Street Fighter 2 the bar is lowered according to the type of stroke applied, especially spells.
Yie Air Kung-Fu is the first fighting game to vary the music, when the defeat of the player gets closer. Idea which was used also by Capcom for Street Fighter 2, with the difference that the music accelerates the pace, regardless of whether the player or opponent are approaching of the defeat.
Star and Fan are the first official women fighters fighting game, but as sprites have poor, Chun-Li from SF2 eventually became the most famous of all.
Nuncha had his clothes and weapon heavily inspired by the movie of Bruce Lee, Game of Death
In Arcade, Oolong (means Black Dragon)."

Wikipedia (pt) - access 03/2013

Searching for this game I found a video on it. The curious thing is that not only can see a bit of the game, but you can also see playing an addict. The guy has lost none and suffered no stroke to the final master, amazing.

In this video below I played a bit to demonstrate Yie Ar Kung-fu. Although the face of the video above is unsurpassed and I was not properly prepared for a good game, hehehe. See:

The gameplay in true arcade until it looked cool, but the Nintendo DSi has a loser. However, the legal handheld console that is on the bottom screen shows how it can be done to apply the blows of Oolong (only playable character) while playing the game on the top screen.

The interesting play on machine bar is that you put more strength in directional (lever) and press the buttons with the same violence that you would like the character had. Sad machine and the technicians that service, hehehe!

Some images: