I only saw a Sky Kid cabinet back in the day once. It was at the front area of our local Wal-Mart. Remember when stores used to have arcade games in the front area? Sky Kid didn't last for long so I think I only played it once. Also it had to compete with Super Pac-Man, one of my favorite Pac-games. Super Pac-Man was at the Wal-Mart for a long time, that's how I got so good at it.

My cousins and I loved to play PIctionary or Win, Lose, or Draw when I would visit them in Alabama when we were kids. One day we were playing it inside with a big easel and the grown ups said it was a nice day and to go play outside. So we took the easel and played it outside! I don't think that's what they had in mind!

The first place I saw Super Mario Bros. (and Duck Hunt, too), was in the arcade, not the NES. I thought it was cool, but not enough to make me want to buy a NES right away. I was still happy with my Atari 5200. I think that was part of the crash because I was able to get the 5200 and games real cheap. I know that people say the 5200 is one of the worst consoles, but as a kid I loved it and was happy to have it. The game that actually made me want to get a NES was actually The Legend of Zelda. I was so impressed you could save your game!

I never learned how to ride a bike. Because of my vision disability, I have trouble balancing. Plus with little peripheral vision and little depth perception, it probably wouldn't be very safe anyway.

I just finished Garfield: Escape from Monday which I actually liked. My review is up at GamerDad. So now I'm going back to playing LEGO Batman, which is also good.

I remember Punch Out being super popular in arcades. I didn't play it much, because I'm not really into boxing and also usually the bigger kids were playing it. The volume was always up high though because throughout the arcade you could hear "Body Blow! Body Blow!" When I introduced my brother Jeff to classic NES games when he was little, he LOVED Punch Out and Excitebike.

Marble Madness is my favorite Atari game. I'm so glad I got to play the sequel in arcades this year.

I used to watch Danger Mouse on Nickelodeon. Did you know they're making a game out of it? I hope I get to review it!

Hey Joe! Glad you're liking the upgraded site, welcome back!

There was a Xevious movie in Japan.

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.

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.

My first stereo was my parent's as well, an even older setup from the 70s without a cassette player, just an integrated turntable/receiver. You could stack multiple vinyl records on the center spindle and watch them drop after each record finished playing. Some fun for us kids.

I traded it and all my games. I had trouble getting the UMD discs to read consistently. The door seemed a little flimsy. I always had problems with it. I guess I didn't like worrying about it breaking all the time. Plus the batteries would wear out and expand. I used to plug mine in instead.

I only played Car Wars 'cause my roommate in college would play it with me. It's not for solo play, even though I used to play Squad Leader solo all the time. I've been looking for a copy of Car Wars. I think it was reissued recently. I remember seeing it at Barnes & Noble once - should've bought it.

That's a cool story! I guess I was a little bit older at the time. I was writing up DnD campaigns.

I wish DK jr was easy too.

I have arcade memories all the way up to the late 80s but none after that.

Perfect. "accessible to any one" is exactly me, especially when talking about souls-like games. haha.

I wasn't even born at this point, but your speaker set up was a lot like my parents' a little later into the 80s. I used to love putting records on in the living room, it sounded great.

Oh dang, what happened to your PSP??

I've heard of Car Wars! Sounds like a fun game. It's just so hard to get into pen and paper stuff these days.

1982 was an awesome year for arcade games!

When I was a kid, I took a big roll of my dad's dot matrix printer paper and stretched it out from the front door to the back door and drew Zaxxon maps on one side and a Xevious map on the other. Then I took my toy spaceships and played pretend Zaxxon and Xevious. I got in a little bit of trouble for using up so much paper, but I think my parents were still impressed I was able to entertain myself for a whole day.

I was at the perfect age to soak up all the Pac-Man games and merchandise. If you look at it that way, you can understand why I still like Pac-Man so much.

There were a few games on your list that could tear me away from Pac-Man for a short bit, though. These included Q*bert, Dig Dug, Pengo, and BurgerTime. After I first played BurgerTime I went home and cut out a chef's hat and a pepper shaker out of paper and played pretend BurgerTime around the house! I also loved Time Pilot and Joust.

I never saw Jungle KIng, but I saw Jungle Hunt everywhere!

When I first saw Donkey Kong Jr., I thought it was a Donkey Kong game for little kids and was easier. I was wrong. Still a good game, though.

My cousins had an Intellivision and I swear I played Frog Bog with one of my cousins for what seemed like hours.

I played Choplifter on my Apple ][+ but I had no idea what I was doing as a kid.

The world design is one of its best features! Really cool looking and fun to explore. Plus, I think the lower difficulty settings makes it pretty accessible to just about any one.

I definitely like the world design in this game.

There's always something I'll miss. I liked Ms. Pac-Man more than the original.

Yeah, I didn't even know about G&W until I saw the G&W collections for GBA!

Don't forget Ms. Pac-Man was in 1981!

You know, Nintendo always tells us how popular Game & Watch was, but I don't remember seeing one until the NES was already out. And the only ones I remember seeing before G&W Gallery came out was Super Mario Bros., Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, and the Zelda G&W.

I always keep trying the Castlevania games 'cause they look so great, but never get far (well, I get a little farther each time). However, I tried Dead Cells a little while ago and really liked it. One of those great indie games I got a hold of when I was on Xbox Series last year. I'm interested to try their take on Castlevania when I get back to current systems. I miss finding cool indie games like this.

Looking back, I guess so, although I didn't think about it at the time. I miss making music mix tapes probably the most of anything.

I like playing Returns & Tropicla Freeze too, but yes way hard. I can't believe you finished the first three though. Good for you. I haven't the patience. Those ice levels drive me crazy.

Interesting. It's a Japan-only game I think though. I'd love to play it.

The creation of NAMCO?

I just downloaded the demo and will try it later. I'm not really a big Castlevania fan, though. Just could never get into it. My favorite game in the series is Kid Dracula.

Time sure flies.