And then, for no readily apparent reason, there was Missile Command. I readily admit that in 1980 when I first played the game, I assumed that you were defending the US from incoming Russian nuclear missiles. I realize this is an invalid, possibly offensive assumption, and I apologize. I now realize the missiles were obviously from Canada.
Missile Command also introduced the trackball, which was a ball set in the cabinet that you spun to move your aiming cursor around the screen. It worked well enough on the initial levels when the incoming missiles were slow and infrequent, possibly due to the cold Canadian winters. However, once they really started coming down, precise control was difficult and you ended up screaming while spastically slapping the trackball. At least I did, which, in hindsight, might be why they asked me to leave the arcade.
Tomorrow: Robots!
6 comments:
I used to love playing an arcade game called 'Defender' back in the 80's.
Wasn't life simpler then!
Philip
www.disabled-help.org
Simpler and full of "bloop bloop" noises. :)
Defender ate many, many of my quarters :)
I remember all of these games. I remember looking wistfully over the shoulders of other kids who were always going to be better at them than I was. I never had enough money get any good in an arcade because I spent all my money on comics and never had anything left over.
Jason,
Ah but you must not have attained the proper Zen of the trackball.
At the higher levels, and with the proper deft hand, you could use the trackball to lay down a "B-line," as we called it, in front of the incoming warheads. This line of anti-missile detonation points could wipe out entire waves of those incoming warheads. And it was the smooth rolling of the trackball which made that sort of sweeping designation possible.
It took some practice - and a whole lot of quarters - but you couldn't have achieved the same effect with anything other than that big rolling ball cursor...
Madoc
I must not have :( Higher levels of Missile Command involved screaming and flailing like a fish-out-of-water having a seizure.
A 'B-Line' eh? If I ever find a Missile Command cabinet, I'll try that :)
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