Arcade Parade

As we go to press, the top ten games are Zaxxon, Turbo, Robotron, Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Dig Dug, Stargate, Pac-Man, Galaga, and Centipede, , according to Playmeter Magazine, one of the trade journals your arcade owner reads…Video games continue to cause the decline and fall of Western civilization, except in Taiwan and the Philippines, where they are banned entirely. Philippine President Marcos said, “…the operation…of video machines…tends to corrupt the children…and encourage juvenile delinquency, drug addiction, petty thievery, lying and the gambling instinct which may lead to idleness, economic waste and dislike for work.” And he should know…The Who brought a Space Invaders game with them on every stop of their last American tour…

New games to watch for—Eyes (Rock-ola), Naughty Boy and Boxing Bugs (Cinematronics), Mission-X (Data East), Triple Punch (Thomas), Robby Roto (Midway), Tazzamania (Stern), Dambusters (Game-A-Tron), and Red Clash (Sun Tronics)…We hear the Atari engineers like practical jokes—some of them implanted electromagnets in the ears of their boss’ tropical fish to make them turn upside down when he answered the phone…Where do the manufacturers go to test their new games? That’s Entertainment, an arcade in Glen Burnie, Maryland, is the official test site for eleven coin-op manufacturers…Atari has announced some new high scores. Leo Daniels from North Carolina hit 40,010,910 on Asteroids, Franz Lanzinger from California scored 2,999,999 points on Centipede, and Jay Nelson from West Virginia racked up 512,674 on Tempest. If you can beat any of those, let us know…Things are not looking good for pinball. After a lot of early excitement with Hyperball by Williams, “favorable player interest has not continued,” according to Mike Stroll. Hyperball has been discontinued…

Arthur Asa Berger, professor of broadcast communications at San Francisco State, compares playing video games with masturbation. He says, “As we play these games we are, in effect, playing with ourselves.” It’s tempting, but we have no comment…New York street kids have invented their own Pac-Man—four kids chase one kid until he touches, say, a telephone pole. Then he can chase them…

If you’re awesome and want everyone to know it, contact the National Scoreboard. Each week they make a computer printout of the top scorers in the country. Contact them at: Twin Galaxies National Scoreboard, 226 E. Main St., Ottumwa, IA 52501…Rock-ola is not a corny name for a video game company. It was named by its founder David C. Rockola in 1934…Eugene Jarvis, designer of Defender, said in Playboy recently that when he thought up the game, he had the name, the aliens, and the men walking around, but no concept to tie them all together. “The only thing I knew was that we were going to call the game Defender, so we had to defend something,” he said…

That three-dimensional effect you get on Zaxxon is caused by projecting the image on the screen at a slant…You know, you high scorers who are putting up obscene messages on Stargate are ruining it for the rest of us. The mother of an eight-year-old girl is trying to get rid of video games in Garland, Texas, because her daughter was “intently battling intergalactic invaders when the screen suddenly displayed a message asking her in no uncertain terms if she wanted some companionship that night,” according to the Austin American Statesman…You don’t see too many adventure games in the arcades, but Sega/Gremlin just might change that with 005. You have to guide agent 005 through a street, warehouse, skating rink and up in a helicopter to receive your secret attache case…After eight hours, even Pac-Man calls it quits. Eric Schwibs, 18, racked up nearly three million points in Patrick’s Pub in Orchard Park, N.Y. recently. At that point the machine blew its mind—half the screen showed the Pac-Man board and the other half displayed random numbers and gibberish. Schwibs after the bout: “Last night was my last game.” To people who say all the arcades should be shut down because drugs are sold there, we say—Drugs are sold in our schools too. Should we close them down?