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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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Awesomeness Elsewhere – Mar 18, 2011

Posted in 80s, blogging, movies, music, pop culture, rap with tags blogging, Freddy Krueger, music, nostalgia, pop culture, rap, The Fat Boys on March 18, 2011 by Paxton

Where you can find me this week on the Internets:

— New Forgotten Favorites this week. It involves one of my favorite rap groups. Come see me talk nostalgically about The Fat Boys and how they would rap about comic books and movies. They also had songs with The Beach Boys, Chubby Checker, Freddy Krueger and William “The Refrigerator” Perry.

— I run down the more interesting DVDs/Blu-Rays that went on sale this week. Come see WrestleMania, BMX Bandits and Sharktopus. Yes, I said SHARKTOPUS.

— Over on Held Over! I take a look at ads for The Shootist and BeastMaster 1 and 2.

Since I talked about The Fat Boys over on Strange Kid’s Club, let’s see a few videos featuring them.

It doesn’t get any more 80s than The Fat Boys on Miami Vice.

Another great 80s clip featuring The Fat Boys in the movie Knights of the City. Check out Markie Dee sporting that rad crop top. WTF, dude?

And here’s the video for the Fat Boys/Freddy Krueger collaboration Are You Ready for Freddy? It was used to promote the release of Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master.

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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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14 vintage ads for video games based on movies

Posted in Activision, advertising, Atari, Back to the Future, Batman, movies, Star Wars, video games with tags advertising, Back to the Future, Batman, Cavalcade Arcade, movies, nostalgia, pop culture, Star Wars, video games, vintage on February 21, 2011 by Paxton

I love movies. I love video games. So, obviously, I love video games based on movies. Well, I love the idea of video games based on movies. And this type of corporate synergy has been going on for years. Ever since the enormous popularity of the Atari 2600, both video game companies and Hollywood have tried to capitalize on popular movie brands to boost sales. And it makes for awesome pop culture ephemera.

So here are 14 awesomely vintage ads for video games based on popular movie franchises.

ET (Atari 2600 – 1982) – This is it. The game that felled the house of Atari. Yes, I owned this game and hated every second I played it. I know a lot of people now retroactively say they enjoyed it, but I HATED it. You can only fall into an empty pit so many times before you throw the controller through the TV screen. Surprisingly, this game was designed by the same guy that did Yars’ Revenge, the highest selling original Atari game (and one of my all time favorites). Talk about Jekyll and Hyde. Seanbaby rated ET #1 on his list of 20 worst video games OF ALL TIME.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (Atari 2600 – 1982) – Around the same time ET was released, Atari also released this game based on the first Indiana Jones movie. And it’s starring YOU!

Total Recall (NES – 1990) – Video game based on the popular Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, Total Recall. Seanbaby rated this game #15 on his list of 20 worst video games OF ALL TIME.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Video Game Adventure (NES – 1991) – Bill & Ted. It is amazing this movie was as popular as it was. I mean, the movie spawned a sequel, a cereal, a cartoon show and a live action show at Universal Studios. And Keanu is even talking about making another one. Most excellent. I never played this game but I loved the first movie.

Rambo (NES – 1988) – A side scrolling shoot ’em up adventure game that very closely resembled the Zelda sequel, The Adventures of Link.

(via oldmanwinters)
Star Wars Arcade (Atari – 1983) – The original vector based Star Wars game by Atari was extremely popular with fans. So, of course Atari was going to port it to their home consoles. Here’s an ad for the Atari port of the Star Wars arcade game for the 2600 and 5200.

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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.