Fractured Arcade Games 2.0 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Galaga

"Galaga" was a 1981 release developed by Namco and licensed to Midway Games. It was a direct sequel to the successful "Galaxian" (1979). While many of the features of gameplay were similar (aliens in formation, aliens divebombing your fixed-shooter ship), there were innovations that made the game one of the most popular releases of the "Golden Age".

Some of the alien ships could potentially capture your ship with a 'tractor beam' and carry it back up into the alien formation. If you still had more lives, there was a chance to win your captured ship back and have a dual ship to shoot with. But, you could only win your ship back if the alien holding it did a divebomb. If you killed the alien while it sat in formation, your ship would then become part of the alien fleet, shooting at you.

Answer: BurgerTime

Originally created for the DECO Cassette System platform (by Data East), BurgerTime soon found its way to the arcades through Bally Midway (in 1982).

The game was all about constructing gigantic burgers. Your character was 'Chef Pepper' and the game consisted of ladders and platforms that the chef needed to climb to reach the different ingredients. You would then have to 'walk' across the ingredients to make them fall down to the next lower level. In this manner, while being chased by enemy food items (Mr. Hot Dog, Mr. Pickle, and Mr. Egg), you would complete the requisite number of burgers per level.

Answer: Elevator Action

This 1983 arcade game from Taito was a mixture of a shooter game and the ever-increasingly popular platform game. You controlled a spy (Agent 17, code name 'Otto') who had to make his way down 30 floors of a building, collecting secret documents hidden behind red doors and killing or avoiding the enemy agents littering the building. If you collected all the documents successfully, Otto escaped the building successfully and ended the level. If not, you were transported back up to the highest level that still had a red door unopened, and you continued until you either died, or finished the level.

Answer: Star Castle

"Star Castle" was released in 1980 by Cinematronics and used vector graphics to create a fortified turret gun floating in space. Your job was to penetrate the three layers of shielding surrounding the gun and destroy it. In addition to the turret gun firing at you, three mines would also home in on your location, forcing you to keep moving and/or destroy the mines (which would be replaced). You had to be careful not to completely destroy a level of shield segments, because if you did, a new layer would grow, re-fortifying the turret.

Answer: Defender

Williams Electronics released "Defender" in 1981 and it popularized the horizontal scrolling shooter game. You controlled a spaceship as you flew above an alien planet, and you had to destroy the aliens attacking while also protecting the astronauts on the surface from being captured by the aliens.

As an added incentive, any of the humans that you failed to protect would return as mutants attacking you.

Answer: Karate Champ

"Karate Champ" was a 1984 game released by Technōs Japan for Data East. The Japanese release was called "Karate Dō".

The game was basically a karate tournament, where your character would be matched up against an opponent and you had to fight using a two-joystick control system that allowed for 24 possible maneuvers. Depending on how you struck your opponent (or they struck you), points would be awarded - either a full point or half a point. The first to two points would win the fight, and a match was best-of-three to either advance or lose.

The initial release of the game was just human vs computer, but "Karate Champ - Player vs Player" came out later the same year, allowing for two players to compete with each other.

Answer: Battlezone

"Battlezone" was a 1980 release by Atari, Inc. that is considered to be an early example of 'virtual reality'. Wireframe vector graphics created a simple 3-D environment and the gameplay was from the player's viewpoint of controlling a tank. It even provided a 'goggle-like' periscope viewer to look through to approximate the same equipment on a tank. Movement of the player's tank was accomplished through the use of two joysticks, which would operate the imaginary treads of the tank, allowing for forward or rearward motion and turning.

Answer: Jungle King

"Jungle King" was the first iteration of a 1982 game released by Taito that encountered some copyright trouble from the estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs in that the character was a ripoff of his character Tarzan, complete with the Tarzan 'yell'. In quick order, the game was retooled to have a 'British explorer'-style character, and the game was renamed "Jungle Hunt" (with no Tarzan yell). Otherwise the gameplay remained the same.

Your character had to traverse a jungle, swinging on vines, swimming through crocodile-infested waters, and leaping over boulders, all to rescue a damsel in distress being held by natives. There were four levels before the game would start over at a higher difficulty level.

Answer: Paperboy

Atari Games released "Paperboy" in 1985, using the unique controller of a set of bicycle handelbars. Your character was, appropriately enough, a paperboy who had to deliver "The Daily Sun" to subscribers in a neighbourhood successfully over a period of seven in-game days. Part of the game included vandalizing non-subscriber houses, and avoiding crashing the bike due to obstacles and other vehicles.

Players had the option of starting the game in three difficulties: Easy Street, Middle Road and Hard Way.

Answer: Time Pilot

"Time Pilot" was released by Konami in 1982 and distributed in North America by Centuri. In the game, you piloted a futuristic aircraft that had to battle enemy aircraft of the different time periods you found yourself in. There would also be a 'mother ship' to defeat before moving on to the next level.

One unique property of the game was the unlimited scrolling in any direction - it made it feel almost like flying a real plane with no limitations on direction or distance flown.

The different time periods represented in the game were: 1910, 1940, 1970, 1982/1983, and 2001. Once those five 'level's were completed, the game would repeat the levels.