Jarvis still makes good games. One of my current favorites of his is Space Invaders Frenzy.
You never saw Defender in an arcade? That's almost like never seeing Pac-Man in an arcade.
I didn't know there were Ys games on mobile!
I don't really remember seeing Vanguard in arcades when I was a kid. Unless I just didn't notice it. Which is strange because nearby arcades sure seemed to support other SNK games. It must've been popular enough, though, since it got home ports on systems like the 2600 and even the Vectrex!
I certainly have respect for Defender, one of Eugene Jarvis' first games. But as a kid, I didn't play it much in the arcade because the controls were too complicated for Little Kid Cary. I liked watching the bigger kids play it sometimes, though. I liked it when your ship exploded because it was all colorful on the screen. Yeah I was easliy amused.
I do remember playing Defender on the 2600 like in your screenshot, though. That one was simplified since it was on a home console with limited controls, but I liked it better as a kid because of that. I remember being pretty good at it, too, when I'd play it over at neighbors and family's houses.
This year, Hallmark has a Christmas ornament shaped like a minature Defender arcade cabinet. It makes Defender arcade sounds when you push a button, too. It came out in July and yes I have it.
Yeah I remember one reviewer complaining that Dead Rising wasn't scary, just silly. But my brother Jeff and I agree that we don't think the early Dead Rising games were even meant to be scary.
I kind of liked how Dr. Mario World tried to do something a little different, though. I'd already played the same game multiple times, so it was nice to have a little change.
Well I'm glad it's not a RTS or tower defense because I don't like those kinds of games. :) I'm glad it's a silly dodgeball title. :)
I enjoyed watching my brother Jeff play the first couple of Dead Rising games. I liked that you could put Servebot heads on the zombies and yourself.
Yeah I can't believe I stil play the Animal Crossing game. Pretty good game for a freebie, and I haven't spent one red cent on it. I think it's interesting that Miitomo was just a scaled down version of Tomodatchi Life, and that's the first thing Nintendo went with in their first dive into the mobile world.
I wasn't into the Sierra point and click adventures, but I was into the LucasFilm Games ones for a while. These include games like Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders (my favorite), and Sam & Max Hit the Road.
Since the Internet wasn't around yet, I got my clues in three ways. 1. Back then, games came with all sorts of cool material, some would even give you hints. In the Zak McKracken game, you were a writer for a fake news tabloid, so the game came with a mock tabloid newspaper where the articles had clues written in them to give you hints. 2. I also subscribed to a LucasFilm Games newsletter that I would get every couple of months or so. It was a print newsletter I got in the mail, and sometimes it would give hints on games. That newsletter is also where I discovered Sam & Max comics. 3. You could order print strategy guides from LucasFilm Games, and I think I did that with a couple of them.
