Arcade Answers (The Power Of Assisted Flight)

Answers for the fourth quiz!

For heaven’s sakes, don’t look at the answers before you sample the questions.

Ship 1 – Asteroids


Sure, graphics, sounds, etc. are much more realistic nowadays, but you get in this spaceship and find yourself drifting into large rocks, with an alien spaceship scooting by and throwing out bullets, and you’ll find it’s still some pretty damned good gameplay.

Ship 2 – Galaga


I never dug this game. When my brother was in college in the early 80’s at ISU, comedian Gallagher, who was just then starting to pick up steam, and was in town for a show, dropped by an arcade where my brother happened to be at, and joked that they named this game after him. Very funny, Gallagher. Very funny.

Ship 3 – Zaxxon


I suck at this game too much to comment on it. Okay, I will say that I love the weird windy whistling in the background, and love the sounds of the lasers the ship shoots. And I suck at this game really hard.

Ship 4 – Gyruss


Didn’t play this game too much, but when I did the music part of it made it really enjoyable. However, if I had to choose between this game and Tempest, I’d choose Tempest every time.

Ship 5 – Time Pilot


This game I played a handful of times. I enjoyed playing it, but wasn’t so good. I don’t think I ever got to the last stage (UFOs in the year 2001!).

Please ID This Song

Okay, here’s the song fragment I warned you about. Please help me identify the song and artist.

The Night, The Night!

Thanks for any help.

UPDATE:

DGuzman nailed it!

I had misheard the lyrics, just as D did when she was younger.

Thank you so much for your help!

If anyone has a song fragment they want identified, there’s a fair chance one of the musical geniuses hearing it will be able to help you.

And now…

Patti Smith – Because The Night

Going Mobile

I’m thinking about possibly posting from my cellphone a little during my trip.

This post is testing the functionality of blogging-by-email.  I’m cheating a little with this one, in that I’m sending the email from my Gmail account.

If it helps any, I’ll abbreviate a little.

L8R D00DS CYA MY PEEPS!!!!!

SPL!

This Blog Now Open To Bloggers From Other Universes

I have had anonymous commenting turned off for quite a while, mostly due to some jerk leaving a comment that had some crappy JavaScript which would cause a person’s browser to redirect.

So, for the longest time only people with Blogger accounts have had the ability to leave comments here.

Blogger has just instituted a feature by which non-Blogger accounts (LiveJournal, WordPress, etc.) can also leave comments, and I have incorporated this feature on both this blog and Who’s In Charge Here.

More details about how to do this for your own blog here.

Arcade Quiz (The Power Of Assisted Flight)

With this post I revisit a feature I left off way back when (May 2007 for those keeping track). Yes, it’s time for another arcade sound quiz!

All of these games share a common theme.

In each game, you pilot some kind of flying craft (airship/spaceship/etc.).

I’ll give you the year the game came out, to make it very slightly easier. Even if you’re not really into arcade games, I find the sounds themselves quite pleasing, in an experimental kinda way.

Ship 1 (1979)
A classic vector graphics game, and still a lot of fun after all these years.

Ship 2 (1981)
A game for all you cool “weekend warrior” arcade game players. For many casual gamers, it would be a choice between this game or Ms. Pacman — in most bars you could probably find both.

Ship 3 (1982)
Wow, do I suck at this game. It was one of the first to introduce a 3D-like perspective. Oh, and I sucked and continue to suck at it.

Ship 4 (1983)
This game is a little reminiscent of Tempest in that your ship rotates in a circle shooting at oncoming ships. The game’s background music actually uses some snippets from a Bach piece, to excellent effect.

Ship 5 (1982)
I wasn’t so good at this game, but it was quite a bit of fun. Plus, you got to fight all sorts of interesting aircraft, from biplanes to UFOs.

Quiz answers have been posted!

A Suggestion To The YouTube People

If you are actively posting to a blog, there’s a pretty good chance you have posted a video from YouTube at some point.

Unfortunately, the videos of YouTube are not forever archived. Consequently, if someone attempts to view a video you posted a while back, there is a possibility that the embedded link to YouTube on your post will be unable to play the video.

For example, if you were to attempt to view my submission for the Gayest Video Ever ™ contest, you would be presented with the following:

If I may be so bold, I would like to suggest the YouTube people add one more line of verbiage to a video that fails to play: