Ghostbusters (Activision, 1984)

At my Year 5 school camp to Jenolan Caves I had a Ghostbusters t-shirt that glowed in the dark. I remember putting it into the freezer to ‘recharge’ the luminosity – I still have it, and it still glows, dimly. At the time, everyone was obsessed with “crossing the streams”, Zuul, and, well, Sigourney Weaver. I also remember being in the computer store when I first saw people crowding around a Commodore 64 playing Ghostbusters. Activision didn’t have the best track record for C64 games but Ghostbusters was awesome – and it even had a sampled ‘Ghostbusters!’ shout.

Ghostbusters opens with you setting up your Ghostbusters franchise. The bank advances you $10,000 with which you select your wheels and kit out your vehicle and crew. The game is made up of several sections – the isometric view of the city which shows haunted locations and, crucially, the proximity of the Keymaster and Gatekeeper to Zuul. After selecting a haunted location to ‘bust’ you drive your kitted out Cadillac, along a vertically scrolling roadway sucking in as many ghosts as you can with your vacuum suckers. Arriving at the location the game switches to show the three Ghostbusters which you control to manoeuvre ghosts into the range of your trap. Spring the trap then rush back to your base. As the game progresses and the Keymaster and Gatekeeper reach Zuul you meet the inimitable Marshmallow Man. Sneaking through his legs you enter the final phase where you must cross the streams to close the portal and defeat Zuul.

This was an immensely fun and silly game – remarkable for being one of the few ‘film franchises’ that worked (don’t mention the abominable E.T. on the Atari – possibly the worst big budget game ever) on such primitive hardware limitations. Simple touches like the theme song with bouncing karaoke ball lyrics on the title screen, and, of course the car selections, made it a commercial and critical success.

Seb Chan

Wasteland (Interplay, 1988)

Wasteland, for the Apple II, DOS and the Commodore 64, took away an entire three school holidays from me. I played the four disk C64 version for months, eventually completing it after a long time stuck in the sewers of a futuristic, post-nuclear fallout Las Vegas. It and Ultima IV (Origin, 1985) sit at the top of my list of best ever games – let alone games from the 1980s. They are amongst a few games that are really worth still seeking out and playing (again) on an emulator.

Built in a similar style to The Bard’s Tale series, another excellent sequence of games from Interplay, the gameplay revealed the strong Dungeons & Dragons role playing influence on the generation of game programmers throughout the early 1980s. These games, including the ‘official’ Dungeons & Dragons games released by SSI & TSR, managed to work around the speed and memory limitations of home computers by replicating turn-based rather than the real-time combat until real-time became the norm in gaming in the 90s from Wolfenstein and Doom onwards.

The secret to Wasteland’s addictive qualities was the wonderful script, witty dialogue, and non-player character (NPC) behaviour. Set in a post (nuclear) apocalyptic future, you play a ranger searching through a ruined Las Vegas, scavenger camps, and underground nuclear facilities. Gathering a motley crew of adventurers, the game begins at the Ranger Base where skills are selected then it is off into the desert in search of treasure – first priority, better weapons. By the time you come across some of the stranger parts of the game – the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud Church for example – your party is armed with machine guns, laser rifles, and suited up in kevlar and inflicting huge amounts of ranged weapon damage on robotic guards and heavily armed psychotic vigilantes in long, drawn out turn-based combat, all the while embroiled in an evolving story of intrigue.

Home computer copying was rife in the 1980s with the plain old international postal system being used as effectively as the Internet is nowadays to swap games across the world. Game companies would employ more and more complex disk-based copy protection systems – but in fact some of the most effective seemed to be those that were simplest.

So, as a part of the copy protection for Wasteland, the game came with a booklet of ‘extra text’ – numbered paragraphs – which enhanced the storyline and provided critical clues – passwords especially – and these were referred to by the game from time to time. After reducing an enemy “to a fine red mist” you would be told to “read paragraph 42.” However, the booklet contained many fake paragraphs, several of which gave contradictory advice leading you off the mission if you tried to ‘cheat’. This technique, used by several other similar games around the same period, brings back fond memories of Choose Your Own Adventure books and other clunky attempts at ‘interactive fiction’.

Although a sequel was planned it was never made.

Wasteland’s legacy continued 15 years later in the Fallout series and most recently Fallout 3 on the PS3 which all revive not only the setting but the black humour and aesthetic of Wasteland.

Seb Chan

The C64 Demoscene

It’s 1985, and millions of Commodore 64 computers are connected to millions of television sets around the globe. The sole purpose of these 1-megahertz, 16-color marvels is simple. Games. No question about it – the C64 runs the coolest video games this side of the local arcade, but from the darkest corners of the home computing landscape oozes something new, something that few people will ever see. A curious and passionate computer subculture is forming that exists purely to push this humble machine to its very limits for the purposes of self-expression. 1985 sees the birth of the demoscene.

The demoscene (more commonly known as “the scene”) was made up of fiercely competitive groups of programmers, computer musicians, and computer graphics artist who collaborated to create real-time presentations called demos. A demo doesn’t do anything – it’s just a collection of visual effects set to music – kind of like a bad 80’s music video where all the effects are generated on-the-fly via some hardcore maths and bags of technical wizardry. A demo had to look awesome, it had to sound awesome, and most importantly of all – it had to be technically astonishing, bordering on improbable. The demo was about making the machine do things it was never meant to do.

The scene itself emerged from the dodgy world of the “crackers” – people who would take commercial video games, remove the copy-protection schemes from them and then illegally release the copyable games to the public. Cracking games required expert programming skills – and the crackers where not shy about vaunting their talents via small messages that displayed while the game loaded. Over time the introductions became more and more elaborate. The simple messages were replaced with flashy graphics, original 8-bit music scores, and impressive programming tricks – combined with scrolling text that praised the group’s allies and ridiculed their rivals: fuelling the competitive spirit and raising the bar for computer-based design, music and technical accomplishments.

Eventually the demos expanded from small game ‘intros’ into epic standalone productions of art direction and mathematical genius that consumed entire floppy disks! As the culture spread, the best demo groups attained celebrity status. Huge parties were held where thousands of pasty nerds would gather from all around the world (but mostly Europe) to create demos and see their heros.

If you care to revisit the old Commodore 64 demos you’ll find a treasure-trove of poor grammar, juvenile sci-fi drawings, and seizure-inducing special effects. But the awesomeness of the demoscene laid in the spirit of pushing the home computer beyond imposed limitations and not for money, just to see what might be possible, making it an endeavour into the realms of pure 80s art.

Now feast your eyes and ears on this!

Double Dragon (Technos/Taito, 1987)

“In the year 19XX, half of the world was ravaged by a nuclear war and violence ruled the streets in America…”

Marian is kidnapped by a violent street gang known as ‘The Black Warriors’. The brothers, Jimmy and Billy Lee AKA ‘Double Dragon’ must now fight their way through the gang and defeat ‘Big Boss Willy’ to save her.

What set this beat ‘em up game apart was that you could use your enemy’s weapons against them. Foes attacked with daggers, whips, baseball bats and dynamite, which they dropped when they were hit. I remember constant arguments about who got what weapon; the baseball bat being the most popular, while no one wanted the whip. Also new were combination attacks that allowed you to throw your enemies, knee in them in the head and even hold them down while your team mate taught them some manners. The foes included punks, dominatrixes with blonde afros, ‘Mr T’ clones (brown and green varieties) and a machine gun toting final boss.

The finale was one of the most exciting parts of the game. Once the foes were defeated the brothers had to fight each other for Marian, (despite the game’s back story that claimed she was Billy’s lover!). My theory is that the Street Fighter franchise expanded upon this aspect of the game, as it is much more difficult and exciting to challenge a fellow gamer.

The excellent theme song (thanks Yamaha), state of the art graphics and boyhood wish fulfillment elements all combined to make a unique and enjoyable gaming experience. It was so successful it spawned numerous sequels, comics, cartoons and a Hollywood film. Also check out the brilliant version of Double Dragon II (my favourite in the series) on the original Nintendo platform, which is far superior to the arcade sequel.

Track & Field (Konami, 1983) / Hyper Sports (Konami, 1984)

There is a largely unknown reason that velcro wallets were such a huge hit in the early 80s. And that reason is primarily that they had the perfect design for the button-mashing required for these two titles from Konami (and their clones). Eschewing joysticks altogether these two titles used three button combinations to move your player, thus requiring the kind of repetitive button pressing that would make an occupational therapist faint.

Released in the period leading up to the massively hyped Los Angeles Olympic Games of 1984 these two titles gave the least athletic of us a chance to make little pixelated figures run, jump and swim in ways we never could.

Track & Field opened with the 100m dash requiring rapid two button pressing to make your character’s legs run as fast as possible. The second stage, the long jump introduced the third button. Again, you would run as fast as you could, then hit the third button on the line and hold it until you got as close to 45 degrees as possible then released it – and off you would sail. Getting past the long jump took a good many plays. Javelin followed much in a similar vein, running then holding the third button on the line to release. I never got past the hurdles which requires you to run, then hit the third button to jump every few seconds.

Hyper Sports opened with swimming which required two buttons then a third to breathe every few seconds. This was not a friendly way to start a game – it was the equivalent of hurdles in Track & Field! Skeet shooting followed which made it all worth while and was, along with archery, the best two stages of all the games – running at a more relaxed pace.

These games would spawn many offspring on home computers. I remember destroying several joysticks playing Decathlon (Activsion, 1984) and Summer Games (Epyx, 1984) on the Commodore 64. Both of these titles replaced the button mashing (which would have destroyed the Commodore 64 itself) with joystick waggling. This managed to spread the effect of RSI from the hands to the upper arm.

Seb Chan

Ghosts & Goblins (Capcom, 1985)

I think I only ever played Ghosts & Goblins once in an arcade proper.

Ghosts & Goblins was almost impossibly difficult combination of platform scroller and shooter, as well as having a ‘level timer’ requiring you to complete a level before the timer reached zero! I played the Commodore 64 version (Elite, 1986) for hundreds of hours as it had the benefit of not requiring the continuous emptying of a piggybank.

Controlling Arthur (or Mr Knight in the C64 versions) you start in a graveyard from populated by zombies, ravens and venus fly traps. These were easily dispatched by firing your unlimited supply of lances at them (a kind typical piece of video game nonsense – why a lance? Aren’t they a little awkward to carry around in bulk?). As Arthur progressed the platform elements played a greater and greater part in the game requiring you to meticulously time jumps and climb ladders all the while firing at faeries, bats and the like before reaching some devilishly difficult end of level bosses.

The game spawned a sequel Ghouls & Ghosts (Capcom, 1988). This was far more satisfying to play as Capcom fixed the difficulty gradient of the game meaning you could play for more than two minutes without dying.

Seb Chan

R-Type (Irem, 1987)

R-Type was one of the last major shoot-em up games in the arcades that I spent a lot of money on.

R-Type built upon the popularity of the earlier Gradius/Nemesis (Konami, 1985) side scroller but with enhanced graphics and a combined multiple power ups (fantastic reflecting lasers, homing missiles and the like) with a pod-like add-on officially called ‘the Force’ (although no one I know called it that). Your (invincible) pod could be detached from your main ship and fired forward or backwards to fire your weapons from in other areas of the screen as well as picking up its own power-ups. As you progressed through the cleverly designed levels – including a huge alien mothership on level 3 which filled several screens dwarfing your own ship – the game required detailed memorising of attack formations and ‘safe spots’. Similarly, the use of the pod became a key element of the gameplay with some areas only being able to be traversed with a certain combination of powerups and the correct configuration of the pod – the use of it as a rear-firing cannon towards the end of level 3 for instance.

R-Type became a long running franchise which continues to today on many platforms. There were two main arcade sequels – R-Type II (Irem, 1989) and R-Type Leo (Irem, 1992) – and then other variants and ports on the SNES, Gameboy, Playstation, and PSP.

Seb Chan

Out Run (Sega, 1986)

Looking back at the racing games of the mid 1980s it is hard to understand what the fuss about games like Out Run was really about. Compared to the arcade racers that came in the 90s and those more recently, the graphics seem so unrealistic, primitive, and the motion controls so limited. But at the time, Out Run was the best arcade racer around. It had a sense of speed, the hydraulic cabinet shook and moved, and it cost almost four times as much as any other game to play (at least at Timezone).

The game used the same hardware and graphics technology as the other big hydraulic title of the time, Space Harrier (Sega, 1985) – a rather psychedelic 3D space shooter with bouncing mushrooms.

Back on Earth though, zooming along in a Ferrari Testarossa on a three lane highway you and your blonde passenger would zip past ‘realistic’ scenery avoiding other cars and trucks on the road. Racing against the clock and more and more crowded roads (I’ve never seen a dirt road in the desert so packed with cars and trucks!), the end of each stage would be met with a forked path effectively allowing for multiple paths through the game to one of five different end sequences. The other ‘innovation’ in Out Run was the ‘selectable’ car radio stations something that continues as a feature in games today like the Grand Theft Auto series. The music was such a notable part of the game it was even released separately as a CD in Japan!

Surprisingly Out Run was actually a short game to finish – a beginning to end sequence would last under ten minutes – but sitting in the hydraulic cabinet surrounded by a huge queue of gamers waiting for their turn was a rush in itself.

Seb Chan

Donkey Kong (Nintendo Game & Watch, 1982)



Donkey Kong was the most prized Nintendo Game & Watch in my collection that consisted of Octopus, Fire Attack and Parachute. What set it apart from the others was that it was one of the first dual-screen Game & Watch titles (and one of the earliest multi-screen portables). This meant double the screen real estate and therefore double the action played out across these two screens. They folded neatly together, where the influence of its clam-shell design is evident in the form of today’s Nintendo DS. 



As Mario the courageous carpenter your job was to rescue the girl held captive by Donkey Kong at the top of a construction site. This required you to destabilise the girder upon which Donkey Kong was standing, by lunging onto a moving crane, each successful leap of faith allowing you to remove the support wires. Sounds simple until you realise that there were a number of obstacles preventing you from doing this including an ongoing stream of barrels thrown with greater speed and frequency from above by Donkey Kong. There was also the potential to lose a life from hitting your head on moving girders or jump for the moving crane only to miss and therefore plunge to your death.



There were two modes on this game A & B, the latter being more difficult. As the game got faster and the barrels became a blur I would rely on the metronomic pulse of the barrels’ movement to help coordinate the jumps. This and the ever responsive santoprene ‘jump’ button ensured that on a number of occasions I was successful in achieving what every Game & Watch player aimed for – ‘clocking’ the game. In the case of Donkey Kong the score would reach 999, then without the capacity for any more numbers to be displayed it would start at 0 again. Given the limitations of these early liquid crystal displays all the movements in the game were pre-printed onto the screen.



While the Game & Watch Donkey Kong may not have the complexity of my niece’s Nintendo DS today, with its games that explore everything from cooking to car racing and functions that allow her to narrate stories, Donkey Kong will always be a classic both in the 80s and today.



Janson Hews

Galaga (Namco, 1981) / Gyruss (Konami, 1983)

Galaga was the seminal space shooter of the early 80s. Forget Space Invaders (1978), or even Galaga’s prequel, Galaxian (1979), Galaga is the one that stuck with gamers.

Galaga had two things going for it. First the attraction of being able to get a ‘double ship’ by letting your first ship get captured by one of the Boss Galaga’s tractor beam and then later shooting the Boss on its way down. Second, the bonus stages.

I loved Galaga machines and probably spent several year’s worth of pocket money feeding them. Once you got the hang of the tractor beam you’d be hooked trying to get captured as early as possible to get into dual fighter mode. Often though, especially if you’d had a week or two off playing, you’d muck it up and be down to your last player within the first minute or two – another 20 cents lost.

The dual fighter mode was essential for the bonus stages. These were basically easy-to-shoot patterns of Galagas that required you to learn the best position to place your ships and then ‘button mash’ as fast as you could to wipe them out before they disappeared off the screen. Coming in waves of 40 the aim was always to score a perfect 40.

By the time Gaplus, the sequel, came out in 1984 I’d moved on to other sorts of arcade titles even though in Gaplus you could capture more than one enemy ship to have super-multi-ships!

Gyruss, released in 1983, crossed Galaga with the circle game board of Tempest. As you moved your joystick left or right your ship rotated around the screen. Enemy ships would loop in from the sides of the screen, settling in the middle of the circle vortex before flying outwards in formation. Like Galaga there was a fantastic pattern-based set of bonus stages.

Perhaps predicting the expulsion of Pluto from the Solar System the game began with the ‘Two warps to Neptune’ stage before moving closer and closer to Earth. Of course there were many primary school giggles to be had at ‘Three warps to Uranus’. And every time I hear Bach’s Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor I think back to Gyruss.

Seb Chan

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