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It's a late rush win!

rotb.gifFor almost 24 hours, it was a contest between Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man and Galaga. But neither the dot-chewers nor aliens-as bugs space game has taken the crown.

In a last minute surge, the ostrich riders of Joust pulled out a victory. I have a sneaking suspicion that this guy had something to do with it.

For those of you who are not old enough to remember Joust, I am not kidding about the ostrich thing.

Tomorrow, we will move on to console-based games, but not before I present the Lifetime Achievement Award to a certain genre of PC games in the morning: the good old text adventure/graphic text adventure.

If you have something you would like to say on behalf of the games that paved the way for adventures in gaming, please do so here so I can add your testimonial to mine. Damn, I'm getting all verklempt.

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Comments

Joust, proof that sotriches could fly if you could flap their wings fast enough

Me? I only voted once. I blame that pesky pterodactyl.

I still have a great affection for those old text adventures.

Zork

Deadline (I still recall finding George in the hidden room with the update will, right before he ran and threw it in the lake)

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Dayam...that was amazing. Wonder who could have voted so many times for that one. Whew!

Moria!

A combination of alcohol and Moria doomed my first semester of college.

Too young to remember Joust?? Yeesh! That'll make a person feel old...

My favorite text-based game was either called Adventure or Pirate Adventure. I played it on a TI-99/4A. It loaded off of a tape player (another joy the younger folks missed out on). It's been so long since I played it, I'm not sure I even remember the point. Just random bits like 'pieces of eight' and 'flotsam and jetsam' stuck in my memory. A talking parrot was in there, too.

As you move on to console games, I'd like to give a nod to the little known Studio II by RCA. It was, as far as I am aware, one of the earliest console systems. No joysticks, just keypads. It had games like pong, and bowling ( a personal favorite... ten little squares on the right side of the screen, a slightly bigger square on the left), plus some obligatory educational games. Compared with the Atari 2600, it sucked, but I have fond childhood memories of it nonetheless.

Lousy cheating vulture-riding...

I demand a recount!

Ah, yes, text adventures. Besides that little Zork thang, I remember getting kidnapped from my favorite bar in Upper Sandusky Ohio (make sure you go in the right bathroom door) in Leather Goddesses of Phobos or spending way too much brain power trying to figure out how to get the damned door open in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Here's a cool tribute link to the Infocom games.
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/

I am a disenfranchised Galaga voter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

if you want to know thre real roots of computer gaming, google for the terms PLATO, Moria, and Avatar. MMRPGs from back in the late 70's, early 80's!

You're in a maze of twist passages, all alike.

Colossal Caves, the Original Adventure.

I always loathed text adventures, course I was too busy RPGing back then (the ole' pen & paper type), something that even MMORPGs have yet to re-create. I did give Hitchhikers a go, as well as Leather Goddesses of Phobos and the truly lame Leisure Suit Larry.

The old Pools of Radiance AD&D computer game. Clunky graphics and all, I had a blast playing it and the following games like Curse of the Azure Bonds and the third sequel whose name escapes me.

I assume you know about this awesome "toy."

http://www.jakkstvgames.com/namco.html

I'd picked up one at Toys-R-Us for a gift exchange, then found one at Target the next day (for $15) that I kept for myself, "just in case." A solid entry, even without Joust.

you gotta be shitting me....JOUST?? joust wins? over PACMAN!?!?!?!

clearly you got some seriously videogame-challenged people voting here.

yeah joust has been such a classic that is has spawned how many sequels and remakes because people loved it SO much....uh....oh yeah. NONE. Meanwhile pacman has had Ms. Pacman, Baby Pacman, Pacman Jr., Pacmania....the list goes on. Plus it was made into a cartoon.

i gotta cry foul on this one.

I missed the vote, but I TOTALLY would've voted for Joust. Pacman's just too obvious and was ultimately a fad that wore out its welcome (at least with me): if you want to talk defining pop cultural icons of the 80's, yeah, I'd vote for Pacman, but not for it as a great game.

Dude, Joust was bad ass. Don't be hatin'.

You textfans might be interested to know that text adventures live on! Do a search for these games: "So Far", "Photopia", "Anchorhead", "Rematch", and "Shade". Seek out "FROTZ" for a console to play them on. When you're done with all that, check out "Inform" and "TADS" and write your own. Also there is a newsgroup: rec.games.int-fiction.

Hey...Joust was great! It's all about timing your coast and kickin off most of the vulture riders in one pass and then running them over in the next pass...

Yeah!