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 On 02/16/2018 at 12:42 PM by KnightDriver See More From This User » |
Wherein I warp to 1980 and the Three Mile Island Nuclear Reactor to gather the Kryton being vented from reactor 2 after the accident in '79. I wanted to make some Kryptonite to keep Superman in check in 2018, where he is running amok.
I warped into a parking lot between the cooling towers and infiltrated the facility. I had gotten a fake-o science smock and phony credentials before leaving. I had no problem getting to the control room and finding out where the krypton was being vented. On the way there, carrying a containment vessel in hand, I saw a break room, and what was in there? An arcade cabinet. Well, I couldn't pass that up and went in. It was a Balloon Bomber of all things. I'd never seen one in the wild before.
This is a 2D game by Taito where you control a cannon at the bottom of the screen and shoot at balloons carrying bombs floating by above you. The balloons drop their bombs if you don't get them and make craters in the ground, impeding your movement. You can shoot the bombs once dropped but they make a large explosion, so don't wait too long before getting out of the way. As you clear a row of balloons, a plane drops more, but lower on the screen. Sometimes another plane zips across and drops a large amount of bombs, but they don't make craters for some reason. It all seems like a WWI thing to me. Did they attach bombs to balloons back then?
The game was fun but I had to get going and collect my krypton. I did so and returned to the Warp Hive and took off.
Back in 2018, I played Balloon Bomber again on PS2 via Taito Legends 2. It is a fine, but simple game, reminiscent of something like Atari 2600's Air-Sea Battle.
Japan launched several thousand balloon bombs over North America in 1945. Almost none them exploded. Unfortunately, one of them did explode in Oregon, killing five people. It had been there for several weeks according to the authorities and the group had discovered it and accidentally detonated it.
I drove by Three Mile Island a few years ago and took pictures. I kind of have a morbid fascination with some of these environmental disasters. Some day I'd like to visit Love Canal.
Yea, the Fire Balloons. I read about that later. Interesting choice for a video game. I still seem to remember reading something about bomb delivery by balloon in WWI though. Probably not like the FIre Balloons though. Ones where a person in a basket under the balloon dropped bombs.
I live not too far from that place but have never been there. However, I have a nuclear plant right in my backyard at Limerick and I drive past it every so often. I even see the sirens placed at the edge of the evacuation zone sometimes. Seeing those steam clouds from the plant from Valley Forge National Park is sometimes disconcerting.
Just read about Love Canal. What a mess.
West of Phoenix is Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, which is purported to be the largest nuclear power plant in the United States. I guess it supplies Phoenix and a lot of Southern California with power. It doesn't look like a stereotypical nuclear power plant, and since water is a limited commodity in the desert, it uses waste water, i.e. sewage as a coolant.
Oh man! Sewage coolant. That is firing my mind with bizarre fictional beasts.
I did not know that. Interesting.
The game looks like Space Invaders without the rows of aliens.
How many luftballoons are there? Did Superman ever get to meet Nena?
It is kinda like Space Invaders only the balloons don't go down but off the screen. Then a plane lays new ones lower down. There's like four balloons at a time.
Who is Nena?
Nena was the original artist behind "99 Luftballons." That song, incidentally, was a protest song released during the 1983 nuclear standoff in Eastern Europe. I
Oh damn. I knew that. I didn't know the song was a protest though. Guess I never listened to it that closely. It was kind of an ever present annoyance in the 80s. I liked it at first, but it wears thin after they play it on the radio a million times.
If you've ever seen the music video, it makes the war protest aspect of the song a bit more obvious.
Of course, I knew the history of the song prior to seeing the video, so maybe it was just easier for me to see it.
I must've seen the video on MTV way back when. I guess I just don't remember it.
I have never seen Balloon Bomber in an arcade. Back then or recently.
I've only played it on the Taito Legends collections. I do like how the derpy music goes along with the bombs swaying back and forth on the balloons. Do-do, doo doo, do-do, doo doo...
On the PSP version of Taito Legends, there is an updated version of Balloon Bomber and the background graphics do make it look like it has a WW1 theme.
Oh interesting. I had that PSP Taito Legends Power Up but now I don't. Stupid me, trading things like that. I never saw it in the wild either.
what the fuck happened to Taito???
SInce the release of Taito Legends 2 in '06, Taito has been swallowed, chewed, spit out and chewed on again by Square/Enix.
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