Break out of the Ark(anoid)

Based upon Atari’s Breakout introduced on 1976 -which by the way was in turn influenced by the 1972 arcade “tennis” game Pong (remember the two paddles and the ball?), our next mould-breaking arcade game was also released in 1986 by Taito, and its peculiar name alludes to a doomed “mothership” from which the player’s controller escapes. Being a game from the "bat-and-ball" genre –in which the player controls a block, also called a "bat" or a paddle, that is used to hit a ball towards another player's bat or game specific object (like a wall of blocks), the classic “Arkanoid” added a plot that redefined the bat as a Vaus spaceship, the ball as an energy bolt and the bricks as a mysterious wall stopping the ship from getting to safety. 

Besides keeping the ball from falling by hitting it with your paddle, there are many other things that will keep your mind quite occupied for the duration of each level: be it bricks that need to be hit more than once, flying enemy ships and of course the power-ups. These helpful capsules will have all different effects, like expanding your bat, slowing the ball or multiplying the number of balls, equipping your Vaus with lasers or with a catching device.

Breakout wasn’t very popular actually, but it was Arkanoid the one which revived the genre with some new ideas and took the world by storm. The game was of course ported to several home consoles and computers, and it inspired tons of clones which in general didn’t add much more to the gameplay, with some outstanding exceptions that I will point out to you right here and now so you can play them online: first there’s the old-school Ball Breaker, then you have to Bounce Back, or get a Curveball (a bat-and-ball game with a twist), but let’s no forget the serious firepower of Wreckanoid and last but not least, the excellent and far more stylized Ricochet Recharged and its sequel, known as Ricochet Infinity. Once you are on the site be sure to hang around and try out all the funny games that are free to play!

Ramp for Ages

This is the first time that I’ll write about games that were released on the same year (1986) ant the reason is pretty simple: too many good games appeared on that year, so I can’t just pick one and skip the rest! One of these instant classic arcade games is no other than the mythic “Rampage”, which featured three giant monsters terrorizing every street and city which they come upon.

The game’s main characters -named George, Lizzie and Ralph- were just ordinary people until they were mutated into humongous monsters as the result of a secret experiment (which obviously went awfully wrong). George turned into a giant ape after swallowing mega-vitamins, Lizzie transformed into a giant lizard once he bathed in a radioactive lake, and Ralph ended up as a giant wolf when he ate sausage scam.

You can go round trashing everything on sight for a total of 768 days of destruction and some. But the most fun you’ll get out of this game is when two other friends join you on your path of devastation. That’s right, three people can play and create havoc simultaneously, each player controlling a different monster.

Each round is completed when a particular city is completely reduced to rubble, eating people and destroying helicopters, tanks, taxis, police cars, boats, and trolleys along the way. Monsters can jump and climb buildings; smashing at the edges for long enough will make them collapse. Buildings also take damage when jumped on by a monster. The police and military are after monsters, so they’ll receive damage from enemy bullets, grenades, shells and so forth, and from falls. Damage is recovered by eating appropriate food such as fruit, plants, roast chicken, or soldiers. If a monster takes too much damage, it shrinks back into its human form.

If you want to play Rampage online follow the link & check out the developer's page, or you can play it in an arcade machine emulator like MAME (Multiple Arcade Macine Emulator) . Then download the Rampage rom (click on Dowload This Rom and enter the numbers) and unzip it into the Roms folder inside the MAME directory (wherever you installed it).

Monstrous Facts

-The game has originally three characters: George (King Kong), Lizzie (Godzilla) and Ralph (Wolfman). But the Atari Lynx version featured a fourth character named Lester, a giant Ratman, who could join in the fun since the Lynx had 4-player support.

Outrunning every other driving game

Does it ring a bell if I tell you that in our next game you have to race with your Ferrari Testarossa over a series of short stages, accompanied by a blonde female (presumably you girlfriend) in the passenger seat, trying pass through four checkpoint between five laps within the time limit? This is perhaps one of the most famous old-school arcade racing games where the cars don't have realistic physics, don't get damaged and have insanely fast speed. Shame on you if you are not screaming “Out Run!” like a madman right now!

The game released in 1986 was designed by Yu Suzuki, who in retrospective interviews has classified it as a “driving” game, instead of a racing game. It was one of the first arcade games that gave the players a genuine feeling of speed, achieving its 3D effects using a sprite-scaling technique called 'Super-Scaler' technology (first used one year earlier in Hang-On and Space Harrier). Other innovations were a moving cabinet (that was great!), the possibility to choose the music you listen while driving and the stages (except the first one) thanks to a fork in the road before every checkpoint, and its strong theme of luxury and relaxation.

Starting at a coastal area, the roads are full of sharp turns and dangers, which can cause the car to roll and make you lose time should you fail to avoid them. Unlike many previous racing games that used a bird's eye view, in Outrun the camera –that appears to travel along the road with the car- is a little above and behind the car, so you can see the driver and his passenger, and gives the player the feeling of passing through the action rather than merely observing it.

There is a great Outrun fan site, where you can even play the game online, and if you are hooked with this one you should definitely check the Wikipedia and the Killer List of Videogames entries about the game.

Run this Trivia past your brain

-The classic red racer you use in the game is quite obviously a convertible Ferrari Testarossa (right down to the "Cavallino Rampante" logo featured in the back of the car), however SEGA had not licensed the likeness of Ferrari products and got into a series of legal issues with Ferrari. The eventually settled but it wouldn't be until OutRun 2 that the car would become an "official" Ferrari.

The Year of Kung-Fu

Quite some time before the well-known fighting games Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat were even conceived, a ground breaking one-on-one fighting game called “Yie Ar Kung-Fu” was introduced to the arcades in 1985. It leaded the way in many of the features that became the standard for most of the fighting games developed years later. These included a health bar, a distinctive cast of opponents each with different skill sets, and different combination of moves distinguished by a punch and a kick button.

A tremendous popular arcade game at the time, Yie Ar Kung-Fu follows the main character, named Oolong, as he fights a wide range of martial arts masters –eleven in the arcade version and five to thirteen in the home ports- in his quest to become a Kung-Fu “Grand Master” himself, and to honour the memory of his father.

The game involves fighting some tough antagonists -the initial five by a cascading waterfall, and the final six in a Chinese court yard- in a traditional one-on-one 2D environment. Oolong has a variety of moves he can use to lower his opponent's life bar, including traditional punching and kicking attacks that depend on the direction of the joystick and which of the buttons is pressed. He also has a jumping ability that is unmatched by the rest of the game’s fighters. On the other hand, they do are well armed and have unique weapons and attacks, so it won't be a walk in the park.

If you pay attention, you’ll notice that in spite of the move that defeated them, male characters always fall unconscious lying on their backs with their legs apart, and female characters always fall lying on their sides. Each fighter has ten hit points, and only one battle decides the winner. If you lose the fight, you’ll lose one of your lives and will have to face the same foe again. You must make sure that Oolong defeats every opponent in order to get the opportunity to face the current champion, Blues.

Should you feel the need of taking your mind to a trip down memory lane, make sure to drop by this link and take a look at the Yier Ar Kung-Fu Online game you can play there. Also, the guide that can be found at the Strategy Wiki is worth reading and the article about the game at World of Spectrum brings tears to my eyes (because it sucked!!). If you want to check out other great games that were released this same year, you should definitely give a try to classics like Gradius (Nemesis in some countries), Gauntlet and Space Harrier.