Simon
May 22nd, 2008
The game unit consists of 4 large colored buttons: red, green, yellow, and blue. The game begins by the unit lighting these buttons in a particular sequence and the player repeats the process by pushing down on the buttons as they just heard them. The sequence begins with a single button chosen randomly, and adds another randomly-chosen button to the end of the sequence each time the player follows it successfully. Gameplay ends when the player makes a mistake or when the player wins (by matching the pattern for a predetermined number of tones). It is a memory game and the sequence of tones gets longer as the game proceeds.
There are three variations of the game and you can control which variation you want to play by setting the switch on the front of the case. A second switch sets one of the four levels available. These levels are easy to more difficult.
Simon Says. (Game 1)
The player simply follows along as described above (with four difficulty levels requiring the player to match a sequence of 8, 14, 20, or 31 tones).
Player Says. (Game 2)
The player makes his own sequence at any of the four difficulty levels. Simon chooses the first tone, and then the player can make any sequence he wants.
Choose Your Color (Game 3)
A multi-player game in which each player takes one or more colors. When Simon presents a pattern, the player must only push his own color in sequence. Hitting your color out of sequence causes it to be eliminated. Simon then starts over with the three remaining colors, then two, and the last player left is the winner.
It is named for the simple children's game of Simon says, but the gameplay is based on Atari's unpopular Touch Me arcade game from 1974. Simon differs from Touch Me in that the Touch Me buttons were all the same color (black) and the sounds it produced were harsh and grating.
Simon's tones, on the other hand, were designed to always be harmonic, no matter what order they were played in, and consisted of:
A (red, upper right);
A (green, upper left, an octave higher than the upper right);
D (blue, lower right, a perfect fourth higher than the upper right);
G (yellow, lower left, a perfect fourth higher than the lower right);
Simon was later re-released by Milton Bradley (now owned by Hasbro), in its original circular form, though with a translucent case rather than plain black. It was also sold as a two-sided "Simon Squared" version, with the reverse side having eight buttons for head-to-head play, and as keychain (officially licensed by Fun4All) with simplified gameplay (only having Game 1, Difficulty 4 available). Other variations of the original game, no longer produced, include Pocket Simon and the eight-button Super Simon, both from 1980. Finally, Nelsonic released an official wristwatch version of Simon in an unknown year.
Current versions of the game being sold contain a pocket version of the original game in a smaller, yellow, oval-shaped case; Simon Trickster, which plays the original game as well as variations where the colors shift around from button to button, where the buttons have no colors at all, or where the player must repeat the sequence backwards; and a pocket version of Simon Trickster.
Pacman
April 1st, 2008
When Pac-Man was released, most arcade video games in North America were primarily space shooters such as Space Invaders, Defender, or Asteroids. The most visible minority were sports games that were mostly derivative of Pong. Pac-Man succeeded by creating a new genre and appealing to both males and females. Pac-Man is often credited with being a landmark in video game history, and is among the most famous arcade games of all time. The character also appears in more than 30 officially licensed game spin-offs, as well as in numerous unauthorized clones and bootlegs.
For the North American market, the name was changed from Puck Man to Pac-Man, as it was thought that vandals would be likely to change the P in Puck to an F, forming a common expletive. Puck Man machines can be found throughout Europe.
When Midway released Pac-Man in the United States, the company also redesigned the cabinet's artwork, as the Namco-style artwork was more costly to mass produce. Puck Man was painted overall white featuring multicolored artwork on both sides with cheerful Pac-Man characters in different poses while Pac-Man was painted yellow, with very simple and easy-to-stencil artwork on both sides front and back.
The Gameplay. The object of the Pac Man game is to take Pac Man through the maze and eat as many dots as he can. When all dots are eaten, Pac-Man is taken to the next stage. Four ghosts, known to most gamers as Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde, roam the maze, trying to catch Pac-Man. If a ghost touches Pac-Man, a life is lost. When all lives have been lost, the game ends.
Initially, Pac-Man’s enemies were referred to as monsters on the arcade cabinet, but soon became colloquially known as ghosts. The ghosts are bound by the maze in the same way as Pac-Man, but generally move slightly faster than the player, but they slow down when turning corners and slow down significantly while passing through the tunnels on the sides of the maze. (Pac-Man can pass through these tunnels unhindered.) This is counteracted by the fact that Pac-Man slows down slightly while eating dots, so if a ghost is chasing Pac-Man while he is eating a long chain of dots, he will slowly, but surely be caught. The red ghost speeds up after a certain number of dots are eaten and this occurs earlier in higher levels. The accelerated Blinky is unofficially called Cruise Elroy, although opinions differ on the origins of this term.
Near the corners of the maze are four larger, flashing dots known as energizers or power pellets that provide Pac-Man with the temporary ability to eat the ghosts. The ghosts turn deep blue, reverse direction, and usually move more slowly when Pac-Man eats an energizer. When a ghost is eaten, its eyes return to the ghost pen where it is regenerated in its normal color. Blue ghosts flash white before they become dangerous again and the amount of time the ghosts remain vulnerable varies from one board to the next, but the time period generally becomes shorter as the game progresses. In later stages, the ghosts do not change colors at all, but still reverse direction when an energizer is eaten.
In addition to dots and energizers, bonus items, usually referred to as fruits (though not all items are fruits) appear near the center of the maze twice per level. These items score extra bonus points when eaten. The items change and bonus values increase throughout the game.
Pac-Man is awarded a single bonus life at 10,000 points by default. DIP switches inside the machine can change the required points or disable the bonus life altogether.
The unique game design inspired game publishers to be innovative rather than conservative, and encouraged them to speculate on game designs that broke from existing genres. Pac-Man introduced an element of humor into video games that designers sought to imitate, and appealed to a wider demographic than the teenage boys who flocked to the action-oriented games.
World Championship. On June 5, 2007, the first Pac-Man World Championship was held in New York City, which brought together ten competitors from eight countries to play the new Pac-Man Championship Edition just prior to its release on Xbox Live Arcade. The top two scorers, Robert Glashuettner of Austria and Carlos Daniel Borrego of Mexico, competed for the championship in a single five-minute round. Borrego was named Pac-Man World Champion and won an Xbox 360 console, specially decorated with Pac-Man artwork and signed by Toru Iwatani.
Duck hunt
March 16th, 2008
Duck Hunt was the two original pack-in titles for the first release of the game system. The game was not initially reviewed often, but given mediocre critical praise and positive gamer reaction. Prior to the NES version, Nintendo also made a Duck Hunt game based on Laser Clay Shooting System released in 1976.
Gameplay.
In Duck Hunt, players utilize the Nintendo Zapper Light Gun that must be plugged into their NES consoles, and attempt to shoot down either ducks or clay pigeons in mid-flight. Duck Hunt was also released as an arcade game in 1984, and is included in the PlayChoice-10 arcade console.
The game has three modes: one and two-duck variations on the above formula, and a third mode called "clay pigeon shooting". The clay pigeons are much smaller sprites than the ducks, and, in later rounds, require faster reaction time to shoot down than in comparably numbered duck modes. In Vs. Duck Hunt, Clay Shooting mode appears as the second round with the first round being the two duck variation (the arcade version never had one duck). Also, in the arcade version of Duck Hunt, the dog appears in the clay shooting round when players miss the clay pigeons. In the NES version, the dog only appears in the duck shooting modes.
Throughout the game, the player is accompanied by a nameless dog that laughs at the player if no duck is hit, and congratulates the player if a duck is hit. Since then, the nameless dog has passed into video gaming folklore. A popular urban legend within the video game community claims that players have found a way to shoot the dog. While this is impossible in Duck Hunt's console release, it was made possible in a bonus round of the game's arcade version, Vs. Duck Hunt. However, players will get no bonus points if they do. Also, there have been several unofficial remakes in which the player is able to shoot the dog. The nameless dog makes a cameo appearance in the NES game Barker Bill's Trick Shooting (another Zapper game) and he can be shot.
Rumour has it that by placing a magnifying glass between the screen and the gun, and shooting into the magnifying glass, it is possible to shoot everywhere at the same time with one shot, therefore making it impossible to miss any ducks. While Duck Hunt does not have a traditional multiplayer mode, the manual states that a second player may plug in a standard NES controller in the other controller port and control the duck that appears. This option was only possible in the one duck mode, and could not be done with the clay pigeons.
Packaging and music.
Packaging. Duck Hunt has been placed in several combination cartridges. In the original Action Set configuration of the NES in the late 1980s, Duck Hunt was included with Super Mario Bros. This particular cartridge is found quite often in the United States, due to it being included with the purchase of a NES. If one had purchased the NES system in a bundle with the Power Pad, then Duck Hunt was included on a 3-in-1 cartridge that also included World Class Track Meet and Super Mario Bros.
Audio. The original music was composed by Koji Kondo and Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka, both of which did music for several other Nintendo games at the time. While the sound effects have been described as "pretty much what you'd expect for a game from the early 1980s - that is, awful by today's standards...", the game's music was represented in the classic games medley on the Video Games Live concert tour.
Reception and legacy.
Because of its release in the mid-80s, Duck Hunt received few reviews. Even today, most critics have not reviewed Duck Hunt. However, All Game Guide called the game an "attractive but repetitive target shooter" and "utterly mindless... the game is fun for a short time, but gets old after a few rounds of play." Video Game Critic, another online site, gave the game a negative review in 2004, scoring the game a "D" and stating "there's really not much substance to it... overall Duck Hunt is pretty lame, and only worth playing for a trip down memory lane." Despite the lack of formal reviews, several user groups have rated the game positively. IGN users gave it an 8.7 out of 10, and the Gamespot community gave the Mario-Duck Hunt package a 9.1 out of 10. It was rated the 155th best game made on a Nintendo System in Nintendo Power's Top 200 Games list. Duck Hunt, and the characters in it, have made appearances in video games since its release in 1980s. The dog in Duck Hunt has appeared in Barker Bill's Trick Shooting and can be shot in the "Balloon Saloon" game. In Super Smash Bros. Melee, a trophy can be unlocked displaying the ducks from Duck Hunt. Also, games in the WarioWare, Inc. series feature microgames based on Duck Hunt.
