Flashing Back to my Youth

Playable Classic Midway Games

[atadams]

[midway.com...]

There is a very visceral response to hearing the start-up sounds of these games - esp. Defender for me.

[jetboy_70]

Methinks you need to discover Mame (http://www.mame.net)

[atadams]

Yup...done that too. The 3 or 4 games I usually want to play are on this site (and no having to hunt on some .RU site with a gazillion porn popups for the ROM files).

[jetboy_70]

Fair enough, just checking :) You're right about Defender - it still makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Eugene Jarvis (Defender and Robotron coder) was a total God back then.

[atadams]

Back then, every game was a new genre. Not too many cookie cutter games like today where everything is just a variation of some other game that was just a variation...

:)

[jetboy_70]

Nah, in the 80s they didn't just steal elements from successful games, they bootlegged the whole games!

I think there were just as many unimaginative games then (look at the hundreds of vertical shooters in Mame) as now, but it just seems that now the games that get the marketing budgets are the endless sequels and clones. There's still originality out there - check out Super Monkey Ball, Vib Ribbon, Samba De Amigo etc. None of them are as difficult to play as Robotron and Stargate though. :)