November 2008
Play Qix online
Qix was released in 1981 by Taito. The aim of the game was to claim a majority (75%) of the playing field with your little marker. You could draw fast or slow (thus gaining more points) lines to claim your land.
Trying to stop you was the Qix, a randomly moving object (and quite adavnced for it’s time) and two sparx that would travel along the same lines the you would move your marker on. The Qix could only touch you while you were drawing a line, and once you started you could not stop otherwise the fuse would get you.
The were many strategies used in claiming your land/trapping the Qix and required much planning ahead of time in trying the avoid the Qix and sparx.
Play it online here ….
Play Frogger online
Frogger was a very addictive arcade game released in 1981 by Konami. Simple in Gameplay, but hard to master.
The object of the game is to direct frogs to their homes one by one. To do this, each frog must avoid cars while crossing a busy road and navigate a river full of hazards including crocodiles and disappearing lillies.
Play it here ……
ET – “Phone Home”
E.T. (Extra Terrestrial) was the top grossing film of the 80’s.
The Steven Spielberg film, released in 1982, is the story of Elliot, a lonely boy who befriends a friendly alien, who is stranded on Earth. Elliott and his siblings help the alien return home while attempting to keep it hidden from their mother and the government.
E.T. learns to speak English by repeating what Gertie (played by Drew Barrymore in one of her early movies) says in response to her watching Sesame Street .
It enlists Elliott’s help in building a device to “phone home” by using a Speak & Spell toy, hence the infamous line repeated even to this day.
Elliott and E.T. ride a bicycle to the forest on Halloween, where E.T. makes a successful call home. Again, something else synomonous with the film and the 80’s is the picture of them flying in front of the moon.
According to Wikipedia, after his parents’ divorce in 1960, Spielberg filled the void with an imaginary alien companion. Spielberg said that E.T. was “a friend who could be the brother I never had and a father that I didn’t feel I had anymore”. Hence the movie was born.