00:01
(low-resolution video game music playing)
00:05
Hey, I'm Eric Bangeman from Ars Technica,
00:07
and I'm here with Nate Anderson and Lee Hutchinson.
00:09
We're in Chicago for a couple of days of editorial meetings,
00:13
so we thought we'd head over to Galloping Ghost
00:14
to challenge each other to our favorite video game.
00:18
My choice was Gorf, a classic from my youth,
00:21
around 1980, 81, a combination of Space Invaders, Galaxian,
00:25
and a couple other other miscellaneous shoot-'em-ups.
00:29
Thing I loved about it is it had a very primitive
00:31
speech synthesizer, and it would troll you
00:33
when you did poorly and taunt you when you died.
00:38
I don't think I've ever played Gorf.
00:47
(low-resolution video game sound effects playing)
00:57
What is this, the longer you hold it down,
00:59
the farther your bullet goes?
01:01
Just like a real spaceship?
01:03
[Eric] You can cancel out your shot with the next shot.
01:06
Defies the laws of physics and spacetime.
01:09
Just like real life!
01:20
[Eric] I love how it taunts you.
01:22
And I'm being taunted by a robot voice the whole time.
01:25
[Eric] From 1981, no less.
01:27
Gorfian robots are invincible, and so am I.
01:31
And I picked Road Blasters, a game in which I spent
01:33
far too many quarters at the local Pizza Hut
01:36
when I was a kid, but it lets me take out
01:38
my inner road rage in pixelated fashion,
01:40
and you get to collect Uzis dropped by helicopter
01:43
under your car, and you really can't beat that.
01:46
Try and collect extra gas as you're driving.
01:49
[Eric] Wow, that's realistic.
01:52
I'm gonna lose at my own game, here.
02:02
Oh, you lost your special weapon.
02:04
[Nate] Oh, and he slides in!
02:08
Bump buttons are the weapons, triggers are (trails off)
02:12
Just act like you're driving your minivan
02:14
in a really aggressive manner.
02:23
I watched Mad Max: Fury Road before coming to the arcade.
02:28
And I picked Lander, the Atari vector game
02:30
from, my gosh, the '70s or early '80s,
02:33
where you land a little moon lander.
02:35
I picked it because it's a neat physics game
02:37
and also because it involves some amount of skill
02:41
to actually get the lander to land slow enough,
02:43
which I did mainly to troll Eric
02:45
because he has giant shaky hands,
02:47
and he can't do anything dexterous at all.
02:54
I never played this one that much back in the day
02:55
because it was not much value for the token.
03:00
Let's go for the 5X action over here.
03:03
Hopefully there's something below here to land on.
03:06
[Eric] Yeah, oh yeah, here we go.
03:08
I'm gonna land right on the top
03:09
of that mountain right there.
03:12
[Man] Yes, yes, yes, oh, no!
03:17
[Man] Landed too hard!
03:19
[Man] I don't know if the horizontal speed
03:20
may have you go off the left edge.
03:22
Oh, no, quantity light!
03:28
[Man] Two-mile crater.
03:45
I am the god of lander!
03:48
Actually, I didn't really do all that great,
03:49
but I beat these two suckers!
