Use the arrow keys to move
Fire missile – space key
Hyperspace – ctrl or shift key
Pause game – P Quit game – Q Mute sound – M

Asteroids made by Neave Games

Asteroids is classic arcade game released in 1979 by Atari. Asteroids uses vector graphics and a two-dimensional view that wraps around in both screen axes (a toroidal topology). The player controls a spaceship in an asteroid field which is periodically traversed by flying saucers. The object of the game is to shoot and destroy asteroids and saucers while not colliding with either, or being hit by the saucers’ counter-fire.

Happy New Year!

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In Berzerk you control a stick figure – called a humanoid – through a simple maze with multiple exits. You can direct your character in the 8 basic directions and use a fire button to shoot. Standing in your way are robots, in the beginning they are slow and can’t shoot, in later rounds they are faster and can shoot back. You must navigate your way through the maze to one of the exits as quickly as possible. Your character loses a life if it comes in contact with a robot, a wall or a laser shot. The robots are stupid and will walk into walls and shot each other… basically killing themselves. In addition, if you take too long on any maze a bouncing smiley face named “Evil Otto” will come after you. He cannot be shot (in the arcade version of the game) and will bounce right into you, through walls and kill you by touch.

The most important/memorable thing about Berzerk is its speech synthesis. Berzerk’s (very expensive at the time) voice synthesizer generated speech for the robots and the game in general including:

“Coins detected in pocket”:  while showing the high score list when game not active.
“Intruder alert! Intruder alert!”
“The humanoid must not escape”: after you escape when killing every robot.
“Chicken, fight like a robot!”: when you escape room without killing every robot.
“Got the Humanoid, got the intruder”: Plays when you die. (“Got the intruder” higher pitch than the “Got the humanoid” part)

Berzerk is a killer! Berzerk is the first video game in history which someone died from playing. In January 1981, Jeff  Dailey(19 yrs old) died of a heart attack soon after scoring 16,660 points.In October 1982, Peter Burkowski (18 yrs old) made the Berzerk top-ten list twice in fifteen minutes, and then a few seconds later dropped dead. True story…freaky.

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The basic concept behind Dig Dug is to kill monsters in some sort of underground mine. The monsters can be killed by dropping rocks on them and blowing them up with a pump until they pop. Two kinds of bad guys in this game:

Fygars – dragon-like little guys, they are green and can breathe fire.

Pookas – round red monsters (basically tomatoes with feet) who wear yellow goggles.

You play as the main character, named “Dig Dug”, dressed in white and blue. You are able to dig through any part of the board other then through rocks. You can be killed if you make contact with either a Pooka or Fygar, burned by a Fygar’s fire, or crushed by a rock. Your character can mine through the dirt, but moves faster in pre-mined areas – or the top of the board. The Pookas and Fygars can turn into ghost like things and walk through the walls. 

Once there is only one enemy left, the music speeds up and the last enemy will try to escape through the top left of the board. When a board is cleared a flower patch grows in various ways in the upper right of the board to equal what round you are on.

The arcade version the game ends on round 256 (round 0) – the board is unplayable. At the beginning of the level, a Pooka is placed directly on top of where the player starts, with no way to kill it (this what is called a kill screen). In a side note, a kill screen is a level in a classic game that stops the game in progress due to a programming or design error. Rather than having a traditional ending, the game will freeze, breakdown or behave in a way that further play is impossible therfore ending the game. Donkey Kong and Pacman have kill screens.

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Nintendo first made a name for itself with hits like Donkey Kong and Mario Brothers, but before Nintendo introduced its home system it released the classic video boxing arcade game, Punch-Out!! in 1984. The game was the first in a series of games including Super Punch-Out!! and the wildly successful console version, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! for the NES. But before the NES version made the protagonist the tiny jump to punch Mac, there was the famous see-through green contender in the arcade version.

The game is housed in a modified upright cabinet, and requires two 19″ monitors, one atop the other, for the game’s display. The top monitor shows stats while the bottom one displays the main action. The game has a joystick and three buttons. The joystick controls punches to the face or body, as well as weaving left or  right. There are 2 buttons left and right punches. Jabs to the face announce “left” or “right,” while punches to the stomach cause the announcer to shout the well known “body blow!” charge. A large blue button delivers a  “KO” punch, which can be used after a meter is filled up after several regular punches are connected without getting hit. When the KO power is ready your corner man tells you to either “Put him away!”, or “Knock him out!”. If you do knock your opponent out the announcer says… “Knockout! Great fighting, you’re an up and coming boxer)

Your opponents in order are:

Glass Joe (the easy to beat French guy, whose name refers to his “glass chin”)

Piston Hurricane (who looks like Sammy Davis, Jr.)

Bald Bull (maybe the most memorable opponent)

Kid Quick (a skinny guy with an overbite)

Pizza Pasta (Italian guy with the most ridiculous name)

Mr. Sandman (the Champ! – after you beat him you fight them all over again defending the title)

Newly minted Nintendo celebrities Mario and Donkey Kong make cameos in the game. And for the record, I can get to Mr. Sandman, beat him and become the champ…on 1 quarter. Yeah, all the ladies like hearing about that.

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