Oh gaming. Perhaps I was spending more time on sports, records and photography, but there was plenty of arcade visits still going on, not to mention playing my friends' consoles at their homes. Here's what I played and remember.
Arcade
Xevious - I was fascinated by the scrolling landscape. It was my #1 game to play when I entered the mall's arcades. The music lived on in my head forever.
Star Wars - This was my childhood friend's favorite game (MK, who I still play games with today), the sit-down version. It was in vector graphics and featured the Death Star battle and trench run.
Gyruss - I always liked this tunnel-view space shooter. You try and get to all the planets by fighting off alien ships in each wave.
Dragon's Lair - Another friend of mine, fellow biker/skateboarder, and I would challenge each other to see who beat the game first. The game is largely a memory challenge - just remember which action to take in each scene. I forget who won, but we both beat the thing.
Crystal Castles - That isometric view again like Q*bert. It used the trackball, a control scheme I enjoyed for several arcade games. You could really get your whole body into the action with it.
Spy Hunter - I used to play this at a little pizza shop on the way biking to and from my summer job landscaping at a local village of shops. I guess this was my first experience simulating driving before actual driving. You had a real foot pedal, gear shift and steering wheel, so it wasn't too different.
PC
There were lots of groundbreaking pc games this year but I've only played these two:
Jetpac - I discovered this in the Rare Replay Collection and really enjoyed it. It's kind of like Joust but the object is to collect parts to build a rocket to escape the planet you're marooned on. If I had a ZX Spectrum computer ('82), and lived in the U.K., I'd have loved this.
Dandy - The game Gauntlet ripped off. It's easier than Gauntlet too, which I like. I played its Atari 2600 version called Dark Chambers but not in the 80s. I would've needed a Atari 1200XL out in 1983 to play the very first iteration of this game.
Home Consoles
Atari 2600 - Even though I wasn't really aware of the video game crash of this year, I must've taken it in subconsciously because my console playing really dropped off this year. I only played Phoenix and Seaquest that I can remember.
Intellivision - I only played the sequel to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Cloudy Mountain, Treasure of Tarmin this year.
ColecoVision - I played only Dk Jr. (thought it was '82 but not), and Front Line. I was really excited to play Front Line at my friend's place.
Board/Card
Jenga - I remember playing this stacking game back then. Pull the pieces out until the tower collapses. The one who wrecks it loses.
Warhammer - The first Warhammer game came out. I've been curious about this minatures war game recently but knew nothing of it back in the 80s. It's an expensive hobby to get into, so I haven't tried it yet. I've only played video games WH: Space Marine 1-2.
Trivial Pursuit card sets - The original game was out in '81 but three card set expansions came out this year: All-Star Sports, Baby Boomers, and Silver Screen. I played it back then. I ought to find a cheap Goodwill copy to try out again. I see them all the time.
TV/Film
Saturday Supercade was on TV, little did I know back then. It's an animated anthology show (look at that! three "an"s in a row. A first!) based on popular arcade games. I may have to check it out again on youtube this month. I seem to remember it's cheesy as heck though.
Some films that ended up inspiring video games: Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, WarGames, Monty' Python's The Meaning of Life (yes, a pc game was made), Superman III, Krull, and two Bond movies and two rereleases of Bond movies. Probably others, but I remember these clearest.
Photography
As a bonus, my other passion of the time was photography. My camera of choice was the Canon AE-1 which was produced between '76-'84. The AE-1 Program released in '81 and I remember that release. So I must've had my first SLR film camera a little before that. I had no interest in upgrading. I loved my AE-1.
I aquired other equipment like lenses, a tripod, an auto-winder and various filters. I had a darkroom in the basement and a used enlarger for printing. I took my camera on bike trips at camp and everywhere I went. I took my interest into college where I took a course and got a photo published in a school literary magazine. I got the use of a large format camera there as well. My hobby sort of declined in the 90s but took off again with digital in the 2000s. Then it declined again to where it is now, just the occasional phone photography I do.
Next is 1984.
I was always fascinated with Xevious, too, even if I was never very good at it. The game has a surprisingly deep history and legacy if you ever want to go down that rabbit hole.
Gyruss is so awesome! You know the creator of that game also did Time Pilot and later worked at Capcom making a game about fighting in the streets.. You might've heard of that one.
When my little brother Jeff was about 5, I introduced him to Spy Hunter and that became one of his favorite games!
David Crane (creator of Pitfall) once said in an interview that unless you were in the business of making games, you wouldn't have noticed the great video game crash. I tend to agree with him. Only thing I noticed as a kid was that I could get games for cheap for about a year or so.
I loved watching Saturday Supercade as a kid, but yeah that show is really awful. I would be so mad as a kid when they'd show a Pitfall cartoon instead of a Q*bert one.
Xevious would make a better film than Battleship. I wish they did that.
Yoshiki Okamoto! What a great set of games he's been involved with, and most of them I really like. I'll have to try and play some of the ones I haven't played.
I was thinking the same thing the other day about the crash. Only if you were in the video game business in some way did you really notice it.
I'm going to watch some Sat Supercade again just to remind myself. I'm sure I'll cringe.
There was a Xevious movie in Japan.
Very cool. I was happy to see some footage of Xevious 3D/G I've always wanted to play on PS1. The 3D effects are subtle but interesting.