Reminiscence of 80’s Arcade Games

It is amazing to know that as there was nowhere else to go after school actually apart from the malls therefore the 80s arcades games were the only places where the game enthusiasts of few years back falling under teenage groups devoted themselves and their free time there.

It is true that for 80s arcade games, Pong itself was a big thing – the first ever thing to be done virtually, but it was far in the 60s and it was one considered a great means of entertainment that was only reached by few and very few kids nowadays will consider them worthy to even look at. Same is the case with the game enthusiasts of that time confessing that they would have loved it to be born and raised in this age, in the time when things have been new and cheap as the first video games. Arcade games began to be so popular in the early 70s after the release of the Pong video game based on ping-pong or table tennis by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney that made Atari.

The success of the Pong video game bred lots of copies and created more and more desirous video players that eventually led to the availability of abundance arcade games around the year 1980. It became available everywhere in the malls, department stores, bars and even in restaurants and movie houses in the United States. Among the most popular 80s Arcade Games were Space Invaders one of the predecessors of modern video games, first released in 1978 in Japan. Japanese Toshihiro Nishikado is the proud creator of this game. These arcade game mimics a shooting gallery with a movable laser resembling a cannon placed below the video screen in which the goal of the player is to avoid the deadly rays and bombs and shoot the aliens to prevent them to reach the bottom of the screen to win the game. Pac-Man created by Namco and was first distributed in 1980, still remains to be popular today in their new form. It was non-violent, easy to play and enjoyable. Donkey Kong made by Nintendo and was introduced in 1981 is played by maneuvering the chief character, Mario (formerly Jump man), across a series of platforms to get rid of obstacles that prevent him from rescuing a maiden in distress from the hands of Donkey Kong. There were also many other arcade games like the Battlezone, Pengo, Tron, Tetris, Rubik's cube and many others played at that time.

The craze for 80s arcade games only began to subside with the advent of advanced home video game consoles until the coming of fighting games like the Street Fighter ll that required two players saved these games from dieing completely.