PixlBit

     In the late eighties, instead of playing Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros., Metroid, or Legend of Zelda on NES, or Phantasy Star on the Sega Master System, I was either in the arcades or playing games on my Apple Macintosh computer. At the time, I had no idea there were new home consoles out on the market. Maybe 'cause I was never home. I was in college. This explains the following list of games that I call my number ones from the late 80's.

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     Final Fight (1989): Forget 1v1 fighting, brawling is where it's at! Punch a guy, throw a guy, or throw a guy into another guy. Move through environments and use what is available to beat down the enemy or pick up a nice hamburger or leg of beef from a trash can to regain health. Eew! The mayor of this town is an ex-wrestler and playable! How cool is that! Two players can get in on the fun but stay out of each other's way. A stray punch can send Cody, Guy or Haggar flying. Since Street Fighter and Double Dragon, I was into beat-'em-ups and this was my favorite of the time.                                                                                                                                                                           

     1943: Battle of Midway (1988): 1988 was the date of the NES version of this game. The arcade version was 1987, but I had to have this game in here as one of my top games of this time. Vertically scrolling shooters were a favorite of mine starting with Xevious in '82. 1943 had two-player mode which made it even better, plus the movie Midway was one of the first movies I saw in the theater. The game was hard but not so hard that I couldn't get pretty far in it, especially with two players. But isn't it weird that this is a Japanese developed game where you play the Americans destroying the Japanese fleet at Midway?

     Sky Shark (1987): The only arcade game I had access to in the only pizza shop of the little college town I lived in during these years. Sky Shark was a decendant of Xevious but with a WWI theme, meaning that you piloted a biplane. My then roommate and I competed for top score whenever we went to town. I wonder sometimes what is it about the allure of a biplane? Maybe it recalls to me Barnstorm on Atari 2600, or maybe Snoopy's battles with the Red Baron in the Halloween special "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown". Ah, who knows. Sky Shark was ported to NES, but it's not nearly as good as the original. I'll have to find a rom online to play it in its original form.  

                        

     Dark Castle (1986): My favorite game on the Apple Macintosh Plus I had in school. It's a 2D fixed-screen platformer with some puzzles. The whole game is in grey tones. The Mac Plus I had didn't do color, but the sound was fantastic. Dark Castle used lots of interesting sound samples that still ring in my head today. The scream your character made when he was electrified or torched by a fireball was especially memorable, and frightening. Dark Castle was ported to Sega Genesis in '91 and there were two sequels, the first of which, Beyond Dark Castle ('87), I also played during these years. It was even better, but I had to put 1943: Battle of Midway in here somewhere.

                         

     TwinBee (1985): I didn't play or even see this Konami arcade machine back then, but if I had, it would've been one of my favorites. It's another vertically scrolling SHMUP that is so colorful, so creative, and so full of humor, that I was immediately charmed when I played it in Xbox Live's Game Room. You pilot these anthropomorphic space ships that have arms. You shoot and bomb enemies like in Xevious and pick up bells that change color as you shoot them to signify different power-ups to your ship when you pick them up. The pastel colors remind me of a Kirby game. It's looks cute, but plays tough. I've yet to get past stage 2 in this game. It's sequel, Detana! TwinBee ('91), is even better, but this is about the eighties.

     As you can see, these years were not about consoles for me, but arcades and computers. Home consoles were something I knew nothing about then. The Atari 2600, Intellivision, and ColecoVision were dead and gone years ago. What was left? I had my computer and the last gasps of the arcades, and that was all.