The 80s Club

We’ve been borrowing my sister’s PS2 and her Dance Dance Revolution. The game has a pretty good mix of songs to “dance” to, some of them from our favorite decade. (The 80’s, in case a few of you are new here or just aren’t paying attention. ;) ) A few of them even have the videos to go with them, including Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, David Bowie’s Let’s Dance, and Lipps Inc.’s Funkytown.

Here’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun via YouTube. Annie Potts’s character of Iona in Pretty in Pink always reminds me of Cyndi Lauper in this video. Enjoy. :)

I remember when the Rubik’s Cube came out and how unexcited I was to get and solve one. Seriously, it looked like absolutely no fun at all to me. My brother got one, and I think he was able to solve it, without even taking the stickers off and just replacing them. I tried it, I couldn’t get it, I didn’t care.

Now a new generation of kids, and an old generation of middle-aged people who still think they’re kids, can try to solve a new version of their favorite old game. Head on over to Hsien’s post to find out how you can try to win a yet-to-be released Rubik’s Revolution. Can you guess how anxious I am to get my hands on one of these? ;)

I know, I know, you just have too much time on your hands, don’t you? You look at your week’s schedule and think, “Wow. I just don’t know what I’m going to do with myself this week. There are just tons and tons of big white spaces indicating huge blocks of time with which I don’t know what to do!”

Well, do I have the solution for you. The b5media forum arcade. Oh yes. What, you ask, is the b5media forum arcade? Thank you for asking. It is the most monumental time waster, but it is fun. :)

So, if you’d like to whittle away precious hours of your life trying to beat the retro games scores of those of us b5 bloggers (and new forum members as well) who have already wasted our best years in front of the computer, click on over to the main site for b5media, then click on the forums tab. This will lead you to the part where you come up with a clever username and let us know as much or little about you that you think is safe for us to possess, and then join in the arcade fun! Oh yeah, and introduce yourself in the forums and join all of the wackos, erm, my colleagues there. :D We really do have some fun conversations going on there, a few of which are actually useful. ;)

I’ll be watching for you!!!

Have you seen these joystick games? I was so excited when walking through Target (I think it was) and saw the cute joystick with Ms. Pac-Man’s likeness pictured on it. I pointed it out to my friend and she said, “Oh yeah. I have a couple of games like that. All you do is plug it into your TV and there are several games that you can play.” Crazy. Apparenly, a few of my friends have these and are enjoying hours of 80’s reminiscence and fun and are not inviting me over to join them. Hmph.

Anyway, this particular product includes Ms. Pac Man, Mappy, Xevious, Pole Position and Galaga.

Are any of you out there whittling away your days remembering the joys of Pac-Man with these games?

I mentioned earlier that I was going to be playing the Trivial Pursuit: Totally 80s game. Last weekend, I got my chance. I’ll tell you what, there’s a whole lot of useless information pertaining to the 80’s! More than I could have imagined. Yeah, I probably did better on it than I would have done playing the original Trivial Pursuit game, but still ended up feeling like an idiot when all was said and done.

I really thought I’d read somewhere that one of the game pieces was a Rubik’s Cube, but no. In fact, this was the first time I remember there only being 4 game pieces for a Trivial Pursuit game, instead of 6. There were so many other icons that would have been great to use: Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, a Cabbage Patch Kid, or even a Trivial Pursuit game piece with all its pies.

What would be your recommendations for the 80’s game pieces?

I can’t believe it! Trivial Pursuit 1980s is out. Yeah, now I’m feeling a bit old.

But check out the game pieces! A Trapper Keeper, Care Bear, a CD, and what looks like a TRS 80 (though I could be wrong there). Too fun!

Go here and you can even try out a few of the sample questions, as well as see some of your favorite 80’s celebs as they look today.

Thanks, Jack, for the heads up! Now, who’s up for a game?

BTW-One way you can tell you’re still stuck in the 80’s: You hear your 2 year old telling your 5 year old to “chill out!” Can’t imagine where he learned that from. :?

Are you up for a little 80’s trivia? Head on over to VH1’s Online Arcade to test your 80’s Trivia memory. I seemed to retain more as the 80’s went on. Let me know how you do!

And don’tcha just love the joystick? :) Ahh…memories….of having to try to seperate it from my mother’s hands when she got addicted to Pac-Man….

The year: 1985
The obsession: Duran Duran
The collection: a miscellaneous assortment of fan magazines, posters and music; and most impressively, a board game.

You read that right- there exists a Duran Duran board game, and I own it. My friends had more music albums than I did, and more posters; but I had the game. I felt pretty dedicated, let me tell you.

‘Into the Arena’ is a hard-to-find board game. You might be lucky and stumble upon a complete game on Ebay, or at a yard sale or used goods shop. Somehow I doubt it, because I found very little results when I ran a search online. Luckily for me, and also for you, I never did sell my game, and so you get to see what this game looks like!

It was put out by Milton Bradley Company, Springfield, MA 01101, in 1985. It’s rated ages 7 and up; and can be played with 2-4 people. The purpose? To collect record, video, and band member cards.

Who would enjoy playing this game? Probably nobody other than Duran Duran fans. ;)

Image of the cover and misc game pieces:

Image of the game board and band highlights blurbs:

(and no, I’m not interested in selling my game :P )

I got a spiffy new PlayStation 2 for my birthday last week, and the first game I ran out to purchase was Singstar 80s. Singstar, for those who don’t know, is the greastest game ever. Essentially, it’s a karaoke-style competition game where you and a few of your drunken friends get together and sing along with your favorite artists. You can read me going on and on about the game here and here and I think here, too.

Now, depending on your geographical location, the song choices are different. If you’re in the United States, for example, you can’t get the game at all, because Europeans are too cool to share. They aren’t too cool, however, to put a bunch of American songs in the game.

But back to the 80s one. I purchased the 80s version here in France which means that there’s about six songs in English and the rest are in French. One is even in Italian. Being the American Idol-wannabe that I am (think: scary auditions style), I spent most of my weekend practicing these songs. I have no idea what I was singing, but it was entirely fun.

I’ve reached the following conclusion: Europe had the best 80s songs ever. Okay, maybe not ever, but they do have a bunch of really great tracks on there that I would’ve hated to get through life not having heard. In fact, I think my favorite is the Italian one.

I do have plans, however, to order the UK version of Singstar 80s because it has some great song choices, like Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5″ which we all know, I’m in love with.

Lesson learned: the 80s rocked. Everywhere.

As an 80’s child, one of the games that left the biggest impression on me was the Leisure Suit Larry series. On my old XT with the EGA monitor as a 13 year old, Leisure Suit Larry was the naughtiest thing I’d ever done, and of course it was addictive. Back in those days the “reality” of the porn was nothing compared to some of the more recent reincarnations (the latest of which was banned in Australia). The goal was 222 points, and you did this by interacting at various levels.

From Wikipedia:

“The “Larry” games were one of Sierra’s most popular game series during the genre’s heydays. As such, they remain well-known among fans of the type today. The series stands out among Sierra’s catalog in that they are the only games the company produced that contain significant sexual themes and nudity.

In general, the games follow Larry’s escapades as he attempts (and mostly fails) to convince a variety of young nubile women (rendered with increasing sophistication throughout the series) to have sex with him. A common link between the games are Larry’s explorations of luxurious and cosmopolitan hotels, ships, beaches, resorts, and more commonly, casinos. One of Larry’s trademarks is his manner of introducing himself: “Hi, my name is Larry; Larry Laffer.”

Because of the nature of the games, the first and third episodes of the series featured an age verification system, which consisted of a series of questions to which the authors reasoned only adults would know the answer. This frustrated some non-American gamers, and the multiple-choice questions did little to deter adolescents with some patience and a notepad. (The verification system could be skipped by pressing Alt-X in episode one, or Ctrl-Alt-X in episode three.)”

Of course the Age Verification was a classic. It generally related to American things, so for us Australian’s it was pot luck, but we always managed to get through it.

Leisure Suit Larry 3 I can particularly remember because of the Island Maze. I’m not sure if I ever finished it. It was the last Larry release of the 1980’s and it took the genre to a whole new level with great EGA graphics.

I’ve not played a Leisure Suit Larry game since then, and I’d hate to think what they are like now, but I’m happy remembering poor old Larry the way he was.