Answers To The Old School Video Game Recognition Test

1. B. Defender is a horizontally-scrolling shoot 'em up arcade game created by Williams Electronics in 1980. It was designed and programmed by Eugene Jarvis (who later formed Vid Kidz and made more of Williams' hits), Larry DeMar, Sam Dicker, and Paul Dussault. This game was slow to become a hit when it was released as many thought it was too difficult due to its control configuration of five buttons and a joystick. It ultimately gained many fans and remained popular throughout the 1980s. Defender has been described as "quite possibly, the hardest significant game there is".





2. C. Asteroids is a video arcade game released in 1979 by Atari Inc. It was one of the most popular and influential games of the Golden Age of Arcade Games. Asteroids uses vector graphics and a two-dimensional view that wraps around in both screen axes. The player controls a spaceship in an asteroid field which is periodically traversed by flying saucers. The object of the game is to shoot and destroy asteroids and saucers while not colliding with either, or being hit by the saucers' counter-fire.





3. C. The 7th Saga is a role playing game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, known as Elnard in Japan. The player chooses one of seven playable characters, all of whom separately embark on a quest to locate seven magical runes. As the player progresses through the game from one town to the next, they will encounter the other six characters on multiple occasions. The player may partner with one of the other playable characters to fight as a team, and they may also fight against other playable characters for the runes.





4. D. Jr. Pac-Man is an arcade game released in 1983 by Bally Midway. It is based on Pac-Man and its derivatives, but is not officially part of the Pac-Man series — along with Baby Pac-Man, this game was created without the authorization of Namco. This was one of the games that eventually led to the termination of the licensing agreement between Namco and Midway. The gameplay of Jr. Pac-Man is largely identical to that of its predecessors, with a few differences. The maze is now two times the width of the display, and a virtual camera pans left and right along the maze to follow Jr. Pac-Man, sometimes resulting in the ghosts being off-screen. A total of seven mazes appear throughout the game, and unlike previous Pac-Man games, none of the mazes have tunnels that wrap from one side of the screen to the other. Like Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man, Jr. Pac-Man has a kill screen: when the 146th screen is reached, the maze is invisible and there are no dots to eat, effectively preventing the player from completing the level.


5. D. Galaxian expanded on the formula pioneered by Space Invaders. As in the earlier game, Galaxian featured a horde of attacking aliens that exchanged shots with the player. In contrast to Space Invaders, however, Galaxian added an element of drama by having the aliens periodically make kamikaze-like dives at the player's ship.
The gameplay was relatively simple. Swarm after swarm of alien armies attacked the player's ship that moved left and right at the bottom of the screen. The ship could only fire sparingly by default, but rearmed instantly when an enemy was hit. The player would defeat one swarm, only to have it replaced by another more aggressive and challenging army in the next screen. A plain and repetitive starfield scrolled lazily in the background.
Galaxian was very successful for Namco and introduced several "firsts". Although true color (as opposed to a color overlay for a game that was otherwise black and white) began appearing as early as 1975, Galaxian took graphics a step further with multi-colored animated sprites and explosions, a crude theme song, different colored fonts for the score and high score, more prominent background "music" and the scrolling starfield, and graphic icons that showed the number of ships left and how many rounds the player had completed. These elements combined to create a look/feel that would set the standard for many other 1980s arcade games such as Pac-Man.


6. B. Phoenix is a popular shoot 'em up arcade game created and manufactured by Amstar Electronics (which was located in Phoenix, Arizona) in 1980, and licensed to Centuri for US distribution, and to Taito for Japanese distribution. Phoenix was one of the first full color arcade games, along with Galaxian, so at the time it stood out. Also, it has distinctive shooting sounds that have become very familiar to fans of the genre. Most importantly, the Phoenix mothership was the first video arcade game boss where the boss was presented as a separate challenge.


7. B. Xevious is a vertical scrolling shooter arcade game by Namco, released in 1983. It was designed by Masanobu Endoh. In the U.S., the game was manufactured and distributed by Atari. Xevious runs on Namco Galaga hardware. The player uses an 8-way joystick to pilot a combat aircraft called a Solvalou, which is armed with a forward-firing "zapper" for aerial targets and a "blaster" which fires an unlimited supply of air-to-surface bombs for ground targets. The game was noted for the varied terrain below, which included forests, airstrips, bases, and mysterious Nazca Line-like drawings on the ground.
There are various aerial enemy aircraft which shoot relatively slow bullets, as well as (presumably unpiloted) fast-moving projectiles and exploding black spheres. Ground enemies are a combination of stationary bases and moving vehicles, most of which also fire slow bullets. Giant floating motherships appear in certain areas; these are killed by knocking out their cores. These are considered one of the first level-end boss to be incorporated into a video game.


8. B. Space Invaders is an arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado in 1978. It was originally manufactured by Taito and licensed for production in the U.S. by the Midway division of Bally. Initially released in its native Japan in 1978, it ranks as one of the most influential video games ever created. Though simplistic by today's standards, it was one of the forerunners of modern video gaming.


9. C. Rygar is an arcade game created by Tecmo in 1986 and originally released in Japan as Argus no Senshi ( Arugosu no Senshi, "Warrior of Argus"). It is a scrolling platform game where the player assumes the role as the "Legendary Warrior", battling through a hostile landscape. It included a rich set of attack and movement capabilities. Only with these mastered would the player stand a chance of progressing through later stages.
The main feature of gameplay is using a weapon called the "Diskarmor", a shield with a long chain attached to it.


10. A. Street Fighter is a 1987 arcade game developed by Capcom. It is the first competitive fighting game produced by the company and the inaugural game in the Street Fighter series. While it did not achieve the same popularity as its sequels (particularly Street Fighter II) when it was first released, the original Street Fighter introduced some of the conventions made standard in later games, such as six attack buttons (only found on some versions of the game) and special command based techniques.
It was released on the TurboGrafx-CD console under the title Fighting Street.


11. B. Ms. Pac-Man is an arcade video game produced by Midway as an unauthorized sequel to Pac-Man. It was released in North America in 1981 and became one of the most popular video games of all time, leading to its adoption by Pac-Man licenser Namco as an official title. This game introduces a female protagonist, new maze designs, and several minor gameplay changes over the original game.


12. C. Zaxxon is a 1982 arcade game developed by Ikegami Tsushinki and released by Sega. The game gives the player the experience of flying a fighter craft through a fortress while shooting at enemy entities (missiles, enemy gunfire, etc.). The object of the game is to hit as many targets as possible without being shot down or running out of fuel, which can be replenished by shooting fuel drums.
At the time of its release, Zaxxon was unique as it was the first game to employ isometric projection, something of a three-quarter viewing perspective. This effect simulated three dimensions from a third-person viewpoint.
The world record on Zaxxon is 4,680,740 points scored by Vernon Kalanikaus of Lā'ie, Hawai'i, on March 15, 1982, according to the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard.
A bootleg of the game was released in the arcades in 1982 called Jackson.



13. C. Star Castle is a 1980 vector arcade game by Cinematronics. The game involves obliterating a series of defenses circumferencing a stationary turret in the center of the screen. The game was designed by Tim Skelly, who also created a number of other Cinematronics titles, including Starhawk. As with many other titles by the company, Star Castle was ported to the Vectrex video game console in 1983. The object of Star Castle is to destroy an enemy cannon which sits in the center of three concentric, rotating energy shield rings while avoiding or destroying 'mines' – enemies that spawn from the core, pass through the energy rings, and then home in on the player's ship. They can stick back to the shield if the player maneuvers in such a way that a ring is between the ship and the mines. The player-controlled spaceship can rotate, thrust forward, and fire small projectiles. The cannon's shields are composed of twelve sections each, and each section takes two hits to destroy. Once a section is breached, rings beneath it are exposed to fire.
Once the innermost ring has been breached, the central weapon is vulnerable to attack from the player. However, the player is also more vulnerable at this point, as with the shield rings eliminated, the gun can fire out a large projectile that hisses with white noise. Moreover, the central core tracks player movement at all times. If the player manages to hit the cannon, it explodes violently, collapsing the remnants of the shield rings, and the player is awarded with an extra ship. The next level then starts with a new gun and fully restored shield rings, with the difficulty increased (the mines move faster, the rings rotate more quickly, and the core tracks the player faster).



14. C. Space Zap was essentially a space themed arcade version of one of those handheld reflex games that were so popular back in the day. But instead of memorizing patterns or colors, it's just pure reflex action. With a simple control scheme consisting of up, down, left, right, and zap; your job is defense. Defend your base, located in the center of the screen, from attacking enemy swarms. Lucky for you enemies only attack in one of four different directions. The more you zap 'em, the faster they come at you until you eventually defeat the wave of invaders. Later levels mix it up a bit by including disappearing ships and attackers that can encircle your base.



15. C. Shinobi is an arcade game, developed and published by SEGA. It was originally released in 1987 and ported to numerous systems. The game spawned numerous sequels. Shinobi is about a ninja named Joe Musashi who has to stop a criminal organization called "Zeed" who are kidnapping the children of the Oboro clan. Through five missions of increasing difficulty, Musashi must make his way to Zeed's headquarters and free all the hostages before confronting Zeed's leaders known as "Ring of Five", which are formidable enemies on their own. "Ring of Five" are the bosses at the end of each level.



16. B. Wizard of Wor is an action-oriented game for one or two players. The game takes the form of several maze-like dungeons infested with monsters. The players' characters, called Worriors, have to kill all the monsters.
Each dungeon consists of a single-screen rectangular grid with walls and corridors in various formations. The Worriors and the monsters can travel freely through the corridors. Player one has yellow Worriors, on the right, and player two has blue Worriors, on the left.


17. C. Super Contra is the 1988 arcade sequel to Konami's Contra, released during the previous year. Like the original Contra before it, a version of Super Contra was later released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990 under the shortened title of Super C in North America and as Probotector II: Return of the Evil Forces in the PAL region, while the corresponding Japanese Famicom version retained the original title. The Japanese title of the arcade version also bore the subtitle/tagline of Alien no Gyakushū Erian no Gyakushū, "The Alien's Counterattack" or "The Aliens Strikes Back"), which was ommitted in the western versions of the arcade game, as well as the later Famicom port. Unlike the original Contra, the arcade version of Super Contra was distributed in Europe with its original title and cooperatively 2-player gameplay intact.
In Super Contra, the alien forces from the original game have taken over a base in an undisclosed region of South America and the player(s) once again assume the roles of protagonists Bill Rizer and Lance Bean to counter the invasion.



18. D. Tempest is an arcade game by Atari Inc., originally designed and programmed by David Theurer. Released in October, 1981, it was fairly popular and had several ports and sequels. The game is also notable for being the first video game with a selectable level of difficulty (determined by the initial starting level). The game is a tube shooter, a type of shoot 'em up where the environment is fixed, but is viewed from a three-dimensional perspective. The object of Tempest is to survive as long as possible and score as many points as possible by clearing levels of enemies. The game takes place in a closed tube or open field (referred to as the playfield, whose shape depends on the level) which is viewed from one end and is divided into a number of segments. The player controls a claw-shaped spaceship that crawls along the near edge of the playfield, moving from segment to segment. This ship can rapid-fire shots down the tube, destroying any enemies within the same segment, and is also equipped with a Superzapper, which destroys all enemies currently on the playfield once per level. (A second use of the Superzapper in a level destroys one random enemy.)


19. A. Pac-Man is a Japanese arcade game developed by Namco (now Namco Bandai) and licensed for distribution in the U.S. by Midway, first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. Immensely popular in the United States from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is universally considered as one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games, and an icon of 1980s popular culture. Upon its release, the game became a social phenomenon that sold a bevy of merchandise and also inspired, among other things, an animated television series. It also inspired the Buckner & Garcia single Pac-Man Fever, which in the first half of 1982 became a #9, million-selling pop single.
When Pac-Man was released, most arcade video games in North America were primarily space shooters such as Space Invaders, Defender, or Asteroids. The most visible minority were sports games that were mostly derivative of Pong. Pac-Man succeeded by creating a new genre and appealing to both males and females. Pac-Man is often credited with being a landmark in video game history, and is among the most famous arcade games of all time. The character also appears in more than 30 officially licensed games and sequels, as well as in numerous unauthorized clones and bootlegs.



20. C. Castlevania is a video game series created and developed by Konami. The series debuted in Japan on September 26, 1986 with the release of Akumajō Dracula ( "Demon Castle Dracula") for the Famicom Disk System (FDS), followed by an alternate version for the MSX 2 platform on October 30. Although the MSX 2 port (localized in Europe and Brazil as Vampire Killer) was released first outside of Japan, the series did not receive wide attention outside of Japan until the FDS version was ported to cartridge format for the Nintendo Entertainment System and localized for North American and European releases of Castlevania in 1987. The series soon became a recognized landmark in the design of action platforming games. It soon became known for its elaborate design aesthetic and theatrical soundtracks. The earliest games borrowed source material from motifs in iconic horror cinema, though the series later developed a more artistic and dramatic direction drawn from Gothic fiction and dark romanticism.
The Castlevania series is one of Konami's most famous franchises, and has seen titles released for the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super Nintendo, the Sega Mega Drive, PC Engine, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64, PlayStation 2, and Microsoft Xbox video game consoles. Several franchise titles have been released for handheld game consoles, including the Game Boy, the Game Boy Advance, Playstation Portable and the Nintendo DS, and for various personal computer platforms, including the MSX 2, the Commodore 64, the Sharp X68000, the Commodore Amiga, PC MS-DOS, and Microsoft Windows.



21. B. Metroid provided one of the first highly nonlinear game experiences on a home console. The basic gameplay is a mix of action adventure and platform shooter. The player controls Samus Aran across sprite-rendered two dimensional landscapes, starting with only a weak blaster shot and jumping ability, preventing progress to certain areas of the game world. As the player explores more of the area, they will encounter power-ups that can be used to pass the previously encountered obstacles, allowing them to explore further and find more power-ups. In addition to common enemies that inhabit the world, Samus will encounter bosses that she will need to defeat before progressing further. In the year 2003 C.C. (Cosmic Calendar), the leaders of various planets united in order to form a congress that became known as the Galactic Federation in an attempt to construct a fair and structured universe that would enable society to grow and prosper. Under the guidance of this new federation, the individuals of the planets began to associate with each other, and a new civilization began to develop. Various leaps in technology for transportation were created, such as interstellar spaceships, and society flourished through the use of such expansion.




22. C. Ninja Gaiden is an arcade game released in 1988 in North America by Tecmo. This game is known in Japan as Ninja Ryūkenden ( "Legend of the Ninja Dragon Sword") and in Europe as Shadow Warriors.
In North America, it saw domestic releases on the Atari Lynx and PC (DOS based) as Ninja Gaiden. In Europe, it was released for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga and ZX Spectrum as Shadow Warriors.
It also inspired an action platform game for the Nintendo Entertainment System bearing the same name.
This game is mostly remembered for two specific reasons. One reason is the absurd difficulty, as several enemies can be on screen at the same time, making it difficult to move. The game also throws players back to certain "check-points" in a level when they die; forcing them, in some instances, to fight through immensely difficult scenarios again. The other reason is its morbid and gruesome continue screen where the main character is tied to a table while a saw is being lowered towards him.



23. A. Metal Gear (commonly abbreviated to MG) is a stealth game designed by Hideo Kojima. Metal Gear was developed and first published by Konami in 1987 for the MSX2 home computer. It was well-received critically and publicly, scoring 91% in GameSpot's aggregate.
The game's premise revolves around a special forces operative codenamed Solid Snake who goes into a one-man sneaking mission into the hostile nation of Outer Heaven to destroy the Metal Gear, a bipedal walking tank capable of launching nuclear missiles from anywhere in the world. Most of the subsequent games in the series follow this same premise, often changing the characters, locations, and weapons.



24. B. Pong is a video game released originally as a coin-operated arcade game by Atari Inc. on November 29, 1972. Pong is based on the sport of table tennis (or "ping pong"), and named after the sound generated by the circuitry when the ball is hit. The word Pong is a registered trademark of Atari Interactive, while the term "pong" is used to describe the genre of "bat and ball" video games. Pong is often regarded as the world's first video arcade game, but Computer Space by Nutting Associates had been launched a year earlier in 1971. Pong was the first video game to achieve widespread popularity in both arcade and home console versions, and launched the initial boom in the video game industry. The popularity of Pong led to a successful patent infringement lawsuit from the makers of an earlier video game for the Magnavox Odyssey. Pong is a first generation video game, a term used to describe the video game industry between 1972 and 1977.