Insert Coins to Continue (1980) Quiz

Answer: Missile Command

Developed by Dave Theurer, "Missile Command" became very popular, in large part because of the relevance of its gameplay to the very possible threat of a nuclear attack at the height of the Cold War. The six cities in the game were originally named for cities in California, and a later update had the city names vary depending on the game level, but all names were eventually dropped.

There was no way to win this game outright. You just had to survive as long as possible to earn the top scores.

Answer: Crazy Climber

While the game was originally released in 1980, it would not reach the North American market until 1982, licensed through Taito America. "Crazy Climber" was the first climbing game until the release of Nintendo's "Donkey Kong".

In addition to the obstacles in your climbing character's path, there were also helps - you could latch on to a 'lucky balloon' which would carry you up eight floors, and once you reached the top of the (one of four) skyscrapers, there was a helicopter that you could reach for bonus points (it would take you to a different, more difficult skyscraper).

Answer: Flags

On every level of "Rally-X", there were ten yellow flags to collect, and you would earn 100 points for the first, then increase by 100 for each subsequent flag... unless you found the 'special' flag (marked with an S), after which every flag found was worth twice the value. The first round began with three red opponents, and as you increased in level, so did the number of red racecars, up to eight.

Although it was marketed alongside "Pac-Man", the company had an expectation that "Rally-X" would be the more successful release. It didn't do quite as well as expected, but was still considered a success in its own right.

Answer: "Red is better than green!"

In addition to the attacking robots (10 per room), occasionally 'Evil Otto' would show up. He was a bouncing smiley-face that could move through walls and was indestructible. All you could do was run away from him. When he showed up, you heard "Intruder alert! Intruder alert!".

If you cleared the room of robots and moved on to the next room, you heard "The humanoid must not escape!" as you did so.

If you chose to escape a room without destroying ANY robots, they taunted you with "Chicken! Fight like a robot!"

And while the robots began as red enemies, their colour would change at different levels, so being red was not necessarily a thing to taunt with.

Answer: Star Castle

Although simple in concept, the game was surprisingly challenging. The mines would home in on you, and due to their small size, were difficult to hit. The gun turret would shoot at you (more accurately as the game progressed), so you could not remain stationary for long, if at all. And, if you managed to completely destroy the outermost ring of shielding, the turret would just grow another ring. You had to make sure to leave at least one section intact per ring so that the defenses wouldn't replenish.

And of course, everything got faster as you beat each level.

Answer: Worriors

Perhaps the 'wor' theme of the different characters was a little much, but it worked. The player's characters onscreen were called 'Worriors', and could graduate to 'Worlords' if you made it past level 7.

The monsters also 'leveled up' in the game. You started out fighting six wolf-like 'Burwors', and they would be replaced by dinosaur-like 'Garwors', then scorpion-like 'Thurwors', and finally insectoid 'Worluks'. And if you managed to defeat all of those, then the 'Wizard of Wor' (a blue wizard) would appear, and he could teleport around the room, making him difficult to finish off.

One fun feature of the game was that in two-player mode, you could also shoot the other player's character, if you chose, causing them to lose one of their lives. This could make the game very competitive, but the option always remained to work together to defeat the monsters.

Answer: Battlezone

"Battlezone" is considered an early example of 'virtual reality' because of the 3D graphics and first-person perspective combined with the 'viewing goggle' that the player had to put their face into. And apart from feeling like you were looking out the 'periscope' of a tank, you also had two joysticks to control the separate left and right virtual 'tracks' of your tank in order to turn and move.

"Battlezone" was well received, and was the runner-up to "Pac-Man" as the 'Best Commercial Arcade Game' at the 3rd annual Arkie Awards in 1982.

Answer: Centipede

Your 'bug blaster' looked like an insect head itself, but basically, it was really just a gun shooting up at the various bugs. The main 'enemy' was the centipede, and it wound its way down the screen, moving horizontally until it encountered an obstacle, at which point it turned around, one level closer to you. Once you hit all of the 'segments' of the centipede, you moved on to the next level.

Getting in the way were fleas, which dropped strait down the screen, leaving a trail of obstacles for the centipede to hit, quickening its descent. And there was the spider that would jump around near the bottom of the screen, but they kind of helped, too, as they ate up the mushrooms they encountered. The scorpion was worth the most points if you hit it -- it just made one pass across the screen horizontally, then was gone.

Answer: Phoenix

"Phoenix" was the first game to have a 'boss' level, which has become ubiquitous today. Every round consisted of five levels. The first two levels just had the regular kind of alien birds. Levels three and four had alien phoenices. You could kill them if they were hit squarely, but if you only clipped off the wings, it would regenerate to full strength.

The fifth level had a mothership with an alien at its center, along with both types of alien birds flying around. You had to shoot your way through the shielding and hit the alien at the center to complete the level and move on to the next round of five levels.

Answer: Puck Man

When it was licensed through Midway Games for release in North America, it was decided (as a preventive measure) to go with "Pac-Man" to forestall the likelihood of graffiti alterations to a certain undesirable 'F' word. It was originally called "Puck Man" due to it's puck-like shape.

In "Pac-Man", your character had to clear a maze of dots while avoiding four ghosts that tracked him through the maze (Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde). Energizer pellets would allow you to turn the tables on the ghosts, swallowing them up like the dots and sending them back to their 'home base' to regenerate.