PixlBit

Mattel Electronic's Frogs and Flies is a 1982 console game that was originally on Intellivision as Frog Bog. Frogs and Flies is basically the same game but with even simpler controls. Something about that made it even better.

Mark and I beat the main story a few days ago. The game's far from done though. I'm still doing side missions and exploring for collectibles. At some point, I might try True Vault Hunter mode and replay the game, but maybe I'll just pick a different character and check out their moves. 

I’ve never played the original handheld versions of these games, but I played them on the Game & Watch Gallery collection I downloaded on 3DS. I was surprised at how good they were. They looked so minimal in design, I thought I’d play them five minutes and be done, but I was hooked on several of them trying to get the highest score. I wish I’d picked one up back in the 80s.

I played 1979 arcade game Lunar Rescue (I'm cheating on the date a little bit) on Taito Legends 2 (PS2) and Taito Legends Power Up (PSP). I was surprised at how much I liked it. There are elements of Space Invaders, Lunar Lander and even Asteroids in this game.

College years. I had an Apple Macintosh Plus computer, mostly used for writing assignments but also some games. I had a single arcade cabinet in my tiny college town, and I went to arcades when home. I didn’t know the Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, GameBoy, or Atari Lynx even existed. 

I strangely didn’t notice the release of the NES in ’85. Instead, I had access to an Apple computer and went to the arcades.

Borderlands 3. I'm level 19 and stuck on a boss. So I've been doing side missions and finding audio logs to listen to. Along the way, I've been constantly battling, improving my gear and leveling up.

I can't order my thoughts much right now, so I'm just going to drop a few ideas. 

1983, the year of the video game crash. At the time, I didn’t notice or think about it, but it’s clear from looking at what came out for home consoles, that I didn’t play anything new. Playing at the arcade was much different, though. Some of my favorite arcade games released this year. 

Thanks to my friend Mark, I now have three of the four arcade cabinet Christmas tree ornaments Hallmark has made. I'm only missing the Galaga one, which, is too expensive to get right now, but one day. Here's some pics of Pac-Man. I want to add it to a diorama I'm thinking about making.