NOSTALGIA: The Arcades

The best place to be in the decade of the eighties was, of course, at the arcades. A room full of dozens of oversized cabinets, portals to different realities,  each one making its own beeping sounds. Some of them were crowded with people, some of then were abandoned showing an endless loop of a gaming demo, but they all offered hours and hours of entertainment for just a token (or a quarter, depending where you live) every minute.

The advantage arcade games had over home consoles was that they usually featured improved graphics and more characters on screen, and the games were more action, fighting or racing oriented instead of exploration. If playing a NES game was like curling up with an award-winning novel, the arcade experience was like watching a big-budget action film… loud, colorful, and defiantly unrepentant about its brainlessness.

Sadly, this places are on the verge of extinction, current consoles are as powerful as any cabinet now and people just prefer playing with strangers online than in person. So lets take a nostalgic look at some of the greatest arcade game two decades ago.

PACMAN (Namco 1980)

Without a shadow of a doubt, Pacman is the world's most famous arcade game and character, spawning hundreths of classic eighties memorabilia (which will be furtherly discussed here in a future post). As videogame historians should all know, Pacman was going to be originally called PuckMan (because he is a puck) but vandals can easily change a P for an F so the name was changed. 

DONKEY KONG (Nintendo 1981)

In this game you control a carpenter called Jumpman (yes, he would become a plumber and change his name to Mario later) that had to jump barrels and evade other obstacles in order to save a girl kidnapped by one King Kong's descendants called Donkey. Many people thought, including me, that the original name was Monkey Kong, but that someone misspelled it or something but further investigation showed that Shigeru Miyamoto, his creator, thought Donkey meant "silly" or "stupid" so he went with that name.

The obsession Donkey Kong caused in some players to beat the highest score has been documented by the 2007 film The King of Kong, which I found a little bit boring, but interesting nonetheless. 

YIE AR KUNG FU (Konami 1985)

Many supposed experts consider Street Fighter as the first popular one on one fighting game but as you can see now that's not the case. In Yie Ar Kung Fu you control Oolong, a martial arts experts, facing challengers from all over China, each one with its own special weapon. The best parts were the sound effects when you punched or kicked (ppptoooo, ptooooo) and when your opponent fell down on his back when you defeated him with his legs pointing up in a rather humourous manner.

STREET FIGHTER (Capcom 1987)

Although not as famous as its sequel, the original Street Fighter introduced elements that would become fundamental in fighting games, like special moves triggered by button combinations (down, downright, right and punch to throw a fireball being the most famous). In this game you could only choose between Ryu and Ken, though.

DOUBLE DRAGON (Technos 1987)

The original side scrolling beat em up, this game was about two brothers fighting in the streets to find their kidnapped girlfriend. The best part was that if the game was finished with two players, they would have to fight each other to the death and the winner would receive a kiss from the girl!

ALTERED BEAST (Sega 1987)

I really liked this game (and its later Genesis/Mega Drive adaptation) because your hero started as this skinny guy, then after taking a power-up you became pumped with steroids and if you kept getting power-ups you would become a werewolf and then a dragon, really cool stuff. I later learned that when you finished the game, which sadly I never did, the ending would reveal that everything was just a movie and that all the characters were actors in costumes and you could see them laughing together on the set.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA (HEROES in UK) TURTLES (Konami 1989)

When the Ninja Turtles mania began in the late eighties everybody wanted to have all their toys, watch their cartoons, play their games, or even be them (yeah, like me). Since kids were always playing it, I didn't see the first level of the game until months later (you could join the game at any time when someone else was playing). The NES version of this game was the first time I realised how weak the console was compared with the arcades.

And why did they censor "Ninjas" in the UK, what's wrong about them?

NOTE: I didn't play all this games the year they came out, but played them on an arcade later nonetheless

ETERNAL CLASSICS: Labyrinth

In 1986 Jim Henson, creator of The Muppet Show, teamed up with George Lucas to create one of the most fascinating fantasy worlds ever created for the big screen. This was no mere maze, this was Labyrinth, the greatest puppet movie ever done.  Unfortunately, this was Jim Henson's last movie before he suddenly died in 1990 of pneumonia at age 53. 

Labyrinth tells us the story of a young teenage girl who enters a fantasy realm to conquer her fears of growing up and facing reality, a theme used often by writers like Lewis Carrol in the classic Alice in Wonderland and, most recently, by Hayao Miyazaki, creator of anime classics like Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle. In this case, the girl has to find her way to the center of the Labyrinth in order to save his baby brother from Jareth, the Goblin King, after she wishes for him to take his brother.  But, what exactly makes Labyrinth stand out from the rest?

No, it's not Tina Turner. David Bowie, as the Goblin King, stares at the back of a young Jennifer Connelly (who would later star in Dark City and Requiem for a Dream).

VISUAL EFFECTS

In these days where every visual effect is done by computer it's remarkable to go back and see how real craftmen created a breathtaking story using puppetry, make up, and even magic. For instance, there is a part in the movie where the Goblin King twirls a crystal ball down his arm and around his palm, a juggler had to hide behind him and substitute his arm for the character’s in the shot and then do the trick without watching his hand. Today, the effects team would just figure out how to do it with a computer, but in 1986, you needed magicians who could figure out how to do it for real. 

Hairy thing riding a dog, Hoggle and Ludo

FANTASY CREATURES

Both simple and complex puppets were used to create the vast variety of creatures that inhabit the labyrinth. I remember being really impressed by the plant with eyes and almost scared by the tunnel full of hands that made faces when I saw the movie for the first time back when I was still young and innocent. And what about the hairy thing riding the dog? Simply adorable.

The amazing talking hands.

ART DIRECTION

Taking elements from Henson's previous fantasy movie The Dark Crystal, The Wizard of Oz and even from M. C. Escher's famous logic defying rooms, Labyrinth features a visually rich world whose parts are very different from each other yet they remain coherent with the general aesthethic of the film. 

This part of Jareth's castle is inspired by Escher's Relativity, painting that appears in Sarah's room back in the real world. This is a clue that reveals us that this fantasy world exists only in her mind based on the things she sees in real life. 

DAVID BOWIE

After considering offering the part of Jareth, the Goblin King to Michael Jackson, Jim Henson finally decided to cast pop music sensation David Bowie. The addition of this rockstar brought a very interesting look for the villian few times seen before: a metrosexual-punk-TinaTurner lookalike, singing superstar who really is not that evil. Bowie contributed with 5 songs for the movie, some of them cheesy, some of them catchy. Some people really hated his songs, but I think they helped setting the tone for the movie.

Jareth and his goblins sing to his terrified  prisioner.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

At the end of the movie, Sarah finally saves his baby brother from the clutches of Jareth and takes him back home, where the good goblins appear on a mirror waving goodbye.  Sarah is ready now to leave her fantasy world behind and become a mature woman... 

... But what about Toby the baby? Well, as the Return to Labyrinth manga tells us, Jareth and the goblins become his secret guardians thoughout his whole childhood granting him wishes until he reaches puberty and has to go back to the Labyrinth, chasing a goblin that steals his homework. This manga was published in 2006 by TokyoPop and promises to be as fun as the movie although the artwork is not as detailed as I would have hoped. Check it out!