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Archive for the nostalgia Category

Video Games in movies that I totally thought were fake…but aren’t

Posted in Atari, movies, nostalgia, pop culture, video games with tags Cavalcade Arcade, movies, pop culture, video games on May 18, 2011 by Paxton

So, the other day, I was watching one of my favorite movies, Midnight Madness.

In case you didn’t know, it’s about a group of college kids that take part in a city-wide game of chase. They are given clues that lead to specific destinations which eventually end up at the finish line. It’s a great movie and is one of Michael J Fox’s earliest roles. Anyway, about 3/4 of the way through the movie there is a great scene that takes place in a video arcade. It’s always been one of my favorite scenes, especially now, because you can see a bunch of old school video games as the camera changes perspective.

So, after arriving at the video arcade (which is run by a young Paul Reubens in a cowboy costume), the players discover they must play the game Star Fire, and beat it, in order to get the final clue. They gather around the machine with like a million quarters and start playing.

Star Fire 1 Star Fire 2

For years, I thought this game was a creation of the movie. The logo was obviously a rip off of Star Wars and the game play was disjointed and just looked manufactured. You could even see images of TIE Fighters in the game.

Star Fire 3 Star Fire 4

How could this crappy ass game be real? Am I right? However, just recently, while searching around the Internet I discovered that Star Fire was an actual video game. It was manufactured in 1980 by a company called Exidy. The graphics, game play and cabinet were slightly altered in the movie for the purposes of the script (which explains why it felt fake), but the game was most definitely real. Not only that, it is considered a ground breaking shoot ’em up. It was the first arcade game to use the sit down cockpit (however the movie used the stand up version) and was also the first game to keep track of player initials and high scores. Here’s a flyer from 1979 advertising the Star Fire arcade game.

(Via the Arcade Flyer Archive)

I was blown away. I couldn’t believe this was real. I’d seen Midnight Madness thousands of times and I just assumed Star Fire was fake. For me, this is nearly akin to finding out Mattel actually made hoverboards back in 1989. Earth. Shattering. I’ll have to see if I can download an emulator ROM for it.

This got me thinking about other movies with awesome video game machines that I assumed were fake but are, in fact, real.

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What 10 video games would be in my dream arcade?

Posted in nostalgia, pop culture, video games with tags arcades, Cavalcade Arcade, LEB, nostalgia, pop culture, video games on March 25, 2011 by Paxton

I-Mockery put up a fascinating question on Tuesday. What games would be in your own personal dream arcade? I thought this was a good topic for a lazy Friday afternoon.

So I decided to pick 10 arcade machines I would love to have in my own personal arcade. They are in no particular order.

I want to thank the International Arcade Museum for the awesome images of the video game cabinets. I surf their site regularly for images of my favorite arcade and pinball games as well as images of some awesome video game advertisement flyers. To see more images (including screen shots of game play) of these and thousands more arcade games as well as get more detailed info, click the images to go to the International Arcade Museum.

Anyway, on to the games.

Street Fighter II: Champion Edition (1991) – There were like a million different versions of this game. I’d take any of them, but I hold a special place in my heart for Champion Edition and Champion Edition Turbo. This was one of the first great fighting games. Great for competitions. It attracted large audiences to watch two guys just go at it. Lots of fun characters with cool move combos. The character I preferred to use was Chun-Li. She was both pretty and deadly.

Mortal Kombat II (1993) – The only one in the arcade franchise to use Roman Numerals. The next two games would be MK3 and MK4. The first Mortal Kombat was almost too easy but Mortal Kombat 3 was way too damn hard. This fell right in the sweet spot of hard but fun. Also, this game rivaled NBA Jam for the amount of hidden Easter Eggs you could find. Characters, finishing moves like fatalities, friendships, etc. It was insane and fun. I liked to use Sub Zero and my friend, Steve, liked Scorpion. I still hear Scorpion’s “GET OVER HERE!” in my nightmares.

NBA Jam: Tournament Edition (1993) – I talked about this game in-depth over on Strange Kid’s Club. Greatest. Basketball. Game. EVER. I would also like to have NBA Maximum Hangtime, but it’s so close in gameplay to NBA Jam that I am reluctant to have two machines that are so similar in the same arcade.

Karate Champ (1984) – This is the game that got me into fighting games. I LOVED THIS GAME. I used to play it at my local movie theater arcade. I got pretty good and made it through a punch of matches. The scenery changed constantly. One time you’d be in the forest, then on a log spanning a cavern, then on a cruise ship deck. The bonus stage had you battling a bull. This game was kicked all kinds of ass.

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That other charity song that’s not We Are The World turns 20 years old today

Posted in music, nostalgia, pop culture with tags music, nostalgia, pop culture on February 28, 2011 by Paxton

Voices that Care Maxi-Single

The song, Voices that Care, written and sung in support of the troops participating in Desert Storm (as well as the Red Cross) turns 20 years old today. The single was released on Feb 28, 1991. The song was performed by a “super group” of celebrity entertainers in much the same fashion as USA for Africa and Band-Aid.

The recording of the single and the presentation of the video to the troops was filmed and presented in a TV Special that aired on Fox the same day the single was released.

Here’s the Voices that Care music video:

Participants in this “super group” included TWO members of New Edition (Ralph Tresvant and Bobby Brown), Garth Brooks, Celine Dion, Will Smith, Kenny G (yes, that Kenny G), Amy Grant, Michael Bolton, Luther Vandross, The Pointer Sisters and Peter Cetera. And like We Are the World, there were scores of random celebrities singing in the choir in the background like Alyssa Milano, Jon Lovitz, Clyde Drexler (?), Chevy Chase, Jimmy Buffett, Nell Carter, Alan Thicke (?), Orel Hershiser (?), Brian Bosworth (?), Mike Tyson (?!), Don King (?!), Lando Calrissian, Capt Kirk, The Fonz, Gary Busey, etc, etc. And check out much younger versions of Meryl Streep, Kevin Costner Kurt Russell and Michelle Pfeiffer (actually she looks exactly the same 20 years later). The video, like it’s predecessors, is a time capsule of Hollywood circa 1991.

I’m not going to lie. I owned the Cassingle of this song. And I liked it. Actually, I still like it. It’s as cheesy as you would expect a song like this to be. Maybe even more chessy. Like, super hero cheesy. Everyone does the “hold one headphone to your head and sing into the microphone” bit you see in We are the World. You also get a lot of anguished looks to the side of the camera during singing. Michael Bolton is all Michael Bolton-y. It helps add to the mood and it gets me…right here *points at heart*. Oh, and Nelson showed up. I’m not entirely sure they were invited, but they showed up anyway.

By the way, after you watch the video, in case you were wondering, the balding guy in the Elton John glasses at the very end of the song, the one you have no idea who that is…he’s the guy that sang the original demo that went out to all the celebrities. I always thought that was cool they gave him the last solo lines of the song.

And to sing us out, here’s Kids Incorporated with their version of Voices That Care:

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Awesomeness Elsewhere – Jan 28, 2011

Posted in 80s, blogging, movies, nostalgia, personal with tags blogging, nostalgia, personal on January 28, 2011 by Paxton

Hello everyone. It’s Friday. TGIF. I just want to catch you up on my activities elsewhere.

— I wrote a nostalgia piece today over at Strange Kid’s Club. I answer the question, “What Makes You a Strange Kid?” It involves Back to the Future, my dad and the Birmingham radio station I-95. Check it out here.

— I also wrote my weekly DVD column. I’m getting some really good feedback on it. If you want to know what to buy this week in DVD/Blu-Ray, then check out this week’s On The Shelves.

Stay tuned, next week I’m going to put up my yearly review of the Oscar nominations. Should be a blast watching me completely second guess the Academy. Did they get it right this year? Come back Monday or Tuesday to find out.

Have a good weekend.

AWESOME-tober-fest 2010: Werewolf on Fox

Posted in Halloween, holiday, monsters, nostalgia, pop culture, TV shows, Uncategorized, werewolf, werewolves with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2010, Halloween, holiday, monsters, pop culture, TV shows, werewolf, werewolves on October 19, 2010 by Paxton

So, another day has dawned on this AWESOME-tober-fest 2010. This week, we are discussing werewolf TV shows. Yesterday I looked at Wolf Lake on Sci-Fi. Today, we look at one of the first shows ever on Fox Network, Werewolf.

Here’s a promo for the series:

The story involves graduate student Eric Cord whose best friend reveals that he’s a werewolf and asks Eric to kill him with a silver bullet. Eric is forced to do so but not before his friend transforms and attacks him. Cord kills the werewolf but is now infected with the curse. In order to rid himself of his werewolf affliction, he either must kill himself or find the originator of the bloodline. A man Eric is told is the mysterious and crazy Capt Janos Skorzeny (played by Chuck Connors).

Werewolf pic 1
(Via Werewolftv.com)

So, essentially the episodes involved Eric dodging a bounty hunter while searching for Capt Skorzeny. Eric did manage to face and defeat the Capt, but in doing so found out that he wasn’t the originator of the bloodline. It was another, 500 year old werewolf named Nicholas Remy. So the searching and battling began anew. And the audience would not find out if Eric found him as the show was canceled before that could happen.

fox Werewolf pic 2
(Via Werewolf-news.com)

While the show may have been average to good, the makeup effects were top notch. They were designed by none other than Rick Baker who famously designed the werewolf effects for An American Werewolf in London, The Wolfman (2010) and Wes Craven’s Cursed.

The complete series had been announced to be released on DVD, however it was eventually canceled.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.