A game with a different twist. Not the Chubby Checker one but the one where you surround the bouncer and kick him out. I love Disco #1 as it's more a game of skill rather then just pressing buttons. Here you have a number of different targets. You trap them by running a yellow line around them. You score points when you have completely trapped the target in a yellow lined square. The bigger the square, the more points you earn. Go for the DJ and the Bouncer as they are worth the most points. The only real strategy here is to keep yourself free from being pulled back from the bouncer. Keep yourself in open spaces. Try to use the exit doors as much as possible, as this seems to throw the bouncer off course.
BUBBLE BUBBLE - TAITO - 1986 - SCORE 100%
A very straight forward game where you simply blow bubbles and avoid your enemies. The object of the game is to trap your enemies inside bubbles and pop them. The more bubbles you can pop at once, the more points you get.
The strategy to playing this game is to simply fill the screen with a lot of bubbles, and stay as much as you can toward the top of the screen. When a cluster of bubbles builds up in the middle - (bottom left screen shot) - make your sudden plunge and drop yourself through them all. This is a quick way of making a few thousand points. Don't try following the enemies to much as this will increase your chances of being killed and you'll also waste time and miss out on points.
PAC-MAN - NAMCO - 1980 - SCORE 100%
The game that unleashed a merchandise epidemic at it's time, is still one of my favourites. The object of the game is to move around the frame and eat up all the pellets. Power pills give you the ability to eat the ghosts. My best score was 21,320 whilst clearing out the sixth frame.
Work on each corner of the screen. I first start clearing out the bottom then work myself up. Although it's temping to eat the ghosts for extra points, only do this if they are in close proximity. Going to far is wasting precious time. I mainly use the Power Pills for protection as I clear out a tight corner. I find going into corners without power pill protection risky. Try not to leave pellets here and there. This will really becomes a dog of a job when you're nearly at the end of a frame. Just before eating a power pill, sit right next to it until the ghosts come. This often gives you the chance to eat some ghosts as you're clearing out the pellets at the same time. (screen shot above)
BUMP 'N' JUMP - DATA EAST - 1982 - SCORE 100%
A fast, challenging and action packed game. A bit complicated, but I love it. Race yourself through a highway as hard and fast as you can. Destroy as many cars as you can by jumping on top of them, and side swiping them into the barriers. As you work through the game, you have 32 courses to complete.
Try to keep your speed up and try to jump more then bumping. Bumping tends to limit your control in steering. Even if you think your going to miss, jump anyway. Quite often your car will nab the corner of another and cause a chain-reaction. Keep the speed up as jumping works only above a certain speed. Your speed will become crucial when jumping broken roads. The road-breaks will become more complex as the game proceeds to further race courses. Bonus points are awarded for every car you destroy in the first round.
JUNO FIRST - KONAMI - 1983 - SCORE 75%
This is what you could say is another variation of Galaga. In Juno First your rocket is placed on a grid, where you fire (once again) at floating UFOs. Game play is much more enjoyable then Galaga. You can control your rocket vertically as well as horizontally. This is great to get out of tight situations as the UFOs float all around you. Sometimes they throw guided missiles at you, so watch out. - don't go back to far, you'll crash into another wave of UFOs. UFOs come in waves and at the end of each wave, you gain bonus points.
The only real drawback with this game is some kind of weird function - when starting a new rocket, the first four or five times you fire, the rocket dissolves for a few seconds. I don't know what that's about--Kind of strange. .
