Back then you couldn't save your game, you had to get points to get extra lives, but it was really fun going into an arcade to play these 80's games i remember all the sounds from different machines all at once it was like entering to heaven for me LOL.
These old video games had a magic that can't be captured in any Xbox or Playstation game. Don't get me wrong, there are incredibly awesome games on those devices.... but there was something about the feel about these games as they were introduced to the public that cannot be underestimated. I imagine it would be like seeing the first cars evolve over the first couple of decades. Cars are better now, but how special the pioneer age is is lost.
I think it’s because old school games got straight to the point. You knew the objective of the game and went straight to work. You didn’t have to know a million button combos, you didn’t have long drawn out storylines full of long cut scenes, and you didn’t have long side quests and such where you have to travel in real time to accomplish (such as games like Assassin’s Creed where you may be doing a bit of walking before you get to whatever item or mission you have to accomplish. I’ve personally noticed that with a lot of up to date games, you have to have a lot of patience to play them because nothing is straight to the point.
Wow... Hearing, and seeing this clip brings back so many memories. Makes me wonder how many thousands of dollars I spent on Phoenix, Tempest, and Defender back in the 80's.
I agree. I have not thought about this particular game in a long ass time. And the sights and sounds triggered a whole bunch of memories from that time period.
I have a Phoenix machine in my basement but it needs a new monitor. Phoenix is my favorite of all of the classic arcade games. I first played it at Kroger in 1981.
I remember this back then in early 1980s along with Pac Man, Galaga, Galaxian, etc. and with over ten arcade machines running simultaneously it's very loud that you could barely hear each other.
I love this game! Just played it on my mame emulator the other day. Nothing beats playing this at the arcade during the 80s though. Blue moon carpet, smell of popcorn and pizza, and the sounds of defender, joust, venture, Gorf, robotron, galaxian, dig dug, etc. going on in the background! There is nothing that will ever come close to that feeling and arcade experience, as then. Was magical almost. Something I wish every young gamer could experience today. I still love games and play all the new ones, but nothing compares to 80s arcades! It was awesome! Build me a time machine someone.
Getting dropped off at the mall with $20 to see a movie, browse, get a pretzel and drink, and play video games for an hour was my idea of a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon as a young teen. As a college student, I'd walk between classes to the arcade at the edge of campus, next to the Kinkos copy place, and play Phoenix and Tron (the original one). A fellow computer science student worked at the arcade but was too honest to give his friends free games. :-)
This is what I love most about the Super Retro-cade. All these classic games are available and there's a joystick compatible with it that's readily available. And this classic game is one of the best! Thanks for the video!
Wow, this machine-game was the king in the arcade halls back in the early 80s. The atmosphere around it and the feeling once you hit the boss in the shielded spaceship was awesome (everybody were looking at you once you reached this challenging stage).
Oh jeez, me and my cousin Paul used to sit opposite each other and spend hours playing this in the arcade on holiday when I was a kid, man, so many great memories, sat there, each with a stack of 10 pence pieces, a couple of bags of crisps, and a can of coke to keep us going!
You know that during the "cloud city" scene, you don't have to blast a hole through the underbelly. Just blast all of the moving purple barrier until the ship reaches bottom... then move to the center and your fire will go right through the underbelly and you get your max points.
100%. The 104,000 increase (that wasn't exactly 104,000 ... I don't know how it determined what the increase was, but it was my secret weapon when playing Phoenix. :-)
I worked in an automotive factory and I noticed the stamping presses always played tunes at different times depending on what was being done. Most of these were recognizable (Empire Strikes Back, Camp Town Races, Happy Birthday etc.). My favorite however, played when the steel coil was depleted and I could finally rest for a while in the 95 degree heat. The tune sounded haunting, yet strangely familiar, as it echoed throughout the factory. Now I realize why. It is the song at the beginning of this video. Had not heard it since I was a boy in the skating rink arcade.
This was one of the first video games that came to my town. It seems primitive now but I remember being so captivated by it, especially the sounds of it, as we had never heard or seen anything like it before. I just wanted to play it over and over.
My very first video game addiction @ 80s Galleria (Ghetto) Mall in the 416. When an arcade game can make your ears burn like red hot coal, you know for certain you are completely immersed in it. For me, Phoenix was that game. Best arcade game of the 80's!
Love this game, it's in my top 5 all time favorite arcade games. We used to have one in the lobby of a local movie theater that we would play while waiting to get into the movie. This is one of those games that is pathetically neglected on the home consoles. Other than the Atari 2600 port, I don't believe this game has been ported officially to any other console.
This game had a software glitch that would give you a ridiculous amount of points if you did it right. Me and my friend figured this out and had fun for about two summers......;love the '80's
Ha! I love that at the end of the pink birds section of the 2nd level, you centred the spaceship and whacked the force field. That is how I played EVERY round.
I have a Phoenix arcade machine but it needs a new monitor. I started playing Phoenix during the Spring of 1981 at the age of nine. It has always been my favorite arcade game.
+TheCassiusTain This could be the rejuvenation of British pubs. Full of 45 year old men beating the crap out of Track & Field, trying to take sups of bitter before the next aliens come, victoriously filling out their initials in the top ten GAZ, BAZ, DAZ, ANT...
Yes remember this game I loved it. Around 1986 when I was 8 years old a friend of mine had this game in his garage we played it all the time. I'm 39 now and for about the last 10 years every so often I would try to remember and search for this game but I would always come up empty until I was driving home about 2 hours ago and so a guy wheeling an old arcade game out of a store and it said Phoinex on the side I instantly said that's it. When I looked it up and I was right. Brought back good memories. I miss doing chores around the house or cutting someone's grass in the neighborhood and going to the arcade with a 10 dollar and getting a pocket full of quarters and having the time of your life.
Sounds different from how I recall it. I always thought these older Taito games had the arcade equivalent of a MIDI or PC speaker, and the notes it produced depended on the hardware of the specific machine. Played a lot of this as a kid, and even more recently on my PS2 copy of Taito Legends.
I played this a LOT in the arcades back in the 80s. Those were the days. No save games or anything like that, you HAD to stay on as long as possible with literally every arcade game back then.
Love all these old games, first time I ever cut out of school was in 5th grade to play Donkey Kong. Phoenix one of my all time favorites... sound effects take me baaack Game reminds me of Joust..
Yeah, there was an arcade game on the entry of the supermarket. As child, I could watch only the demos - my parents never ever gave me money to play this :D
Ta igrica je bila popularna i u mom selu , najbolji igrači su bili Arči i Roko. Nekad se dešavao nekakav djelomičan kvar na igrici a onda je bio cijeli ekran plav bez da se išta vidjelo osim metaka iz glavnog broda, i u tom slučaju Roko je rušio neviđeni broj kraljica praktički na slijepo. Vlasnik lunaparka jer bio deda zvani Miškec RIP.
i loved this game!! its amazing what you are reminded of! i have recently bought a slightly inferior version for my tv and i am addicted all over again!!
And I thought Nintendo was bad! This is quite literally the only game where I preferred the sound effects on the Atari 2600 version to the arcade. Great graphics, though!
I used to play this in a working class cafe next to the bus-station whilst waiting for the next bus home from town. To my annoyance, they had turned the sound down to almost zero so as not to annoy the old folks in there enjoying their cigarettes, mugs of tea and toasted teacakes.
Just walking into an arcade back in the late 70s and 80s was so fun... trying to make that $5 in quarters last as long as you could... :) The sounds ... the place lit up mainly by the machines only. Good times :)
Many happy quarters spent on this game in childhood, and many more happy hours playing this on Taito Legends for PS2. Thanks for sharing! (Any similarity between the final boss and The Comet Empire is entirely coincidental.)
Wow I used to play this game in the candy shop around the corner from my school when I was a kid. I loved this game . Watching this today the sounds are so cheesy 😂
I think it's the best arcade game. However, this game was in a different league of difficulty. Like someone was really getting asleep over the regular arcade games and decided to make a really challenging game from the first stage. What's more, if you try playing this on a table/phone it's just not going to work with the touch screen buttons: you need real physical buttons for this game.
I remember playing this game with my brother back at one of the arcades. (Back when there were arcades.) This was more than just another Galaga clone, it had a different feel to it and tougher enemies.
The first time I played this was around 1980...it was in a Shakey's Pizza parlor in Roebuck, Alabama (suburb of Birmingham); my Uncle bought us some thin-crust pepperoni pizza; I was 13, and when he shook my hand he practically *crushed* it (he was a little drunk, lol). I can practically *taste* that pizza when seeing this video of the gameplay :)
Phoenix is a great game, but prepare to be tried to your limits. I'm in a motel where they have this game on a 60-in-1 cocktail (always on free play!) and this game humbles me quickly unless I'm highly focused and remember the birds' attack patterns. I'm not certain if it's part of the original coding or part of the emulation, but their missiles often practically jump into your face, they sometimes appear to "jump" toward you at unfair speed. The shield button sometimes waits a microsecond, long enough to get pasted. And their movements are really fast and jangly, like their bombs. Still, it's one for the ages. It'll challenge you at best and give you a swirly in a filthy Greyhound men's room. The soundtrack is great (classical music), but the small warbirds' and large phoenixes' cries constitute a crime against humanity. As a teen, I bought a "how to win at arcade games" guidebook, and the text claimed that the variations in the calls sometimes indicated their next moves. Listening today, I seriously think I'd been duped back then, or the author copied some incorrect info. I don't see the connection.
I should add the neat advancing score value for shooting birds in a certain flight style, and the phoenixes scored big if you killed their wings first. Strategy!
+Sean Wilkinson OMG! Was that something like "how to master the video games" with really iffy drawings of the onscreen graphics? I had that and read it constantly dreaming about the games I didn't know. Whole thing about phoenix is getting the 9600 bonus at the end or is it 8000 - can't remember now. There s a bug in it where you can get a huge score like 100.,000 for doing some method....
+pigknickers You have to shoot the little bat looking ones when they are flying on their way up with their wings extended, you have to shoot more than 3 in a row. You get 200,000 and all the lives that game can give you.
Man, I forgot all about this game! Definitely one of my faves, but I always thought it sucked that you couldn't get a shooting rhythm with this game. A better fire control would've made this one of my all time favorites!
Concurrent memories: Being driven to the roller-rink (by my Mom) so I could talk/flirt with girls. Buying fireworks from out-of-state, and re-selling them to kids in the neighborhood. Doing yardwork jobs at $2/hour, to save money (quarters) to play this game when it first came out!
plain ad simple one of the best of the best games in 80s. phoneix, tempest donkey kong, centerpide. defender, pacman the sound of these games are awsome ad stilll are atthis age,
I remember a similar arcade game, but unfortunately not the name, where at times there'd be a robot below your spaceship that moved from side to side and would shoot up an arrow. If it hit you, you'd loose a life.
This was really the only arcade game that I got my 25 cents worth. one quarter usually got me about 45 minutes of play. Well, I guess Galaga also. I usually got about 15 minutes of play from a Galaga. Anyways back to Phoenix. If you shoot 3 small birds when they are flying at a 45-degree angle in very quick secession, you will receive 200,00+ points. Also, if you destroy the mothership when it is one click above it's maximum lowest, you will receive the maximum points off 9,000+.
Taken in a vacuum, it would seem weird, but next to more "normal" space shooters, I think they've got something with those out-there visuals and sounds.
This was one of the hardest games from around 1980. If you made it past the second level, you were doing good! The game had left and right buttons instead of a joystick. Very clever from the manufacturers to make it harder!
when i was 10 years old i qualified for the texas video game championships because of a high score on this game, but they didn't have it during the tournament and i had to play tempest instead, which i wasn't very good at. i still got 4th place though...good times
yep. it was an old glitch in the arcade game. also if you shoot 3 small birds at the same time while flying you will get a 200,000 bonus added to your score.
For me, walking by or into a big 80's arcade was never complete without the sound of those birds rising above the noise of all the other games. :)
Back then you couldn't save your game, you had to get points to get extra lives, but it was really fun going into an arcade to play these 80's games i remember all the sounds from different machines all at once it was like entering to heaven for me LOL.
I agree!
I hell
agreed Victor montano
meanwhile a lot of kids not allowed to go in the 'dangerous' arcades playing vastly inferior home consoles..
I agree. It was sad to see how arcade saloons disappeared...
These old video games had a magic that can't be captured in any Xbox or Playstation game. Don't get me wrong, there are incredibly awesome games on those devices.... but there was something about the feel about these games as they were introduced to the public that cannot be underestimated.
I imagine it would be like seeing the first cars evolve over the first couple of decades. Cars are better now, but how special the pioneer age is is lost.
Bonzi Buddy Xbox and others keep you at home the 80s arcades got you out of the house.
Very good point and i agree.
I think it’s because old school games got straight to the point. You knew the objective of the game and went straight to work. You didn’t have to know a million button combos, you didn’t have long drawn out storylines full of long cut scenes, and you didn’t have long side quests and such where you have to travel in real time to accomplish (such as games like Assassin’s Creed where you may be doing a bit of walking before you get to whatever item or mission you have to accomplish. I’ve personally noticed that with a lot of up to date games, you have to have a lot of patience to play them because nothing is straight to the point.
I personally liked the STURDINESS of them. They weren't toys. They were MACHINES.
Wow... Hearing, and seeing this clip brings back so many memories. Makes me wonder how many thousands of dollars I spent on Phoenix, Tempest, and Defender back in the 80's.
sal1701 DEFENDER!!!!! 🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻
I agree. I have not thought about this particular game in a long ass time. And the sights and sounds triggered a whole bunch of memories from that time period.
Yea me too lol 😆
For me all of those and especially BERZERK! "Intruder alert! Stop the humanoid!"
@@dongagne2087 chicken fight like a robot!
I have a Phoenix machine in my basement but it needs a new monitor. Phoenix is my favorite of all of the classic arcade games. I first played it at Kroger in 1981.
download mame and then download the roms,you can have every oldschool
arcade game ever created on a 4 gig usb stick.
Did you get that monitor sorted, what a gem of a arcade machine you have there mate
wayne rorbach how do you do that, I would love to play that game on my phone, if at all possible
It's my second favourite stationary shmup next to Galaga
Ditto
I remember this back then in early 1980s along with Pac Man, Galaga, Galaxian, etc. and with over ten arcade machines running simultaneously it's very loud that you could barely hear each other.
I love this game! Just played it on my mame emulator the other day. Nothing beats playing this at the arcade during the 80s though. Blue moon carpet, smell of popcorn and pizza, and the sounds of defender, joust, venture, Gorf, robotron, galaxian, dig dug, etc. going on in the background! There is nothing that will ever come close to that feeling and arcade experience, as then. Was magical almost. Something I wish every young gamer could experience today. I still love games and play all the new ones, but nothing compares to 80s arcades! It was awesome! Build me a time machine someone.
Getting dropped off at the mall with $20 to see a movie, browse, get a pretzel and drink, and play video games for an hour was my idea of a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon as a young teen.
As a college student, I'd walk between classes to the arcade at the edge of campus, next to the Kinkos copy place, and play Phoenix and Tron (the original one). A fellow computer science student worked at the arcade but was too honest to give his friends free games. :-)
how can you not remember phoenix shooting the big birds in the middle was always so satisfying feeling
This game?
ua-cam.com/video/JvvOxQya_q0/v-deo.html
This is what I love most about the Super Retro-cade. All these classic games are available and there's a joystick compatible with it that's readily available. And this classic game is one of the best! Thanks for the video!
OMG!! Instant memories! One of my favorite games in the 80s. Thats when the video games was the best!!
THE CLASSIC GAMES HAVE THE BEST SOUND EFFECTS
Best/worst haha
Defender had the best by far
The sounds in this game reminds me of a track called “Midnight Waterfalls” by Fred Miller from the album “The Sounds of Love - From A to Zzzz”.
Your right, naitch.
Wow, this machine-game was the king in the arcade halls back in the early 80s. The atmosphere around it and the feeling once you hit the boss in the shielded spaceship was awesome (everybody were looking at you once you reached this challenging stage).
Oh jeez, me and my cousin Paul used to sit opposite each other and spend hours playing this in the arcade on holiday when I was a kid, man, so many great memories, sat there, each with a stack of 10 pence pieces, a couple of bags of crisps, and a can of coke to keep us going!
Yes! Still play this sometimes on Taito Legends for the PS2.
This was one of the best ports the Atari 2600 ever had.
You know that during the "cloud city" scene, you don't have to blast a hole through the underbelly. Just blast all of the moving purple barrier until the ship reaches bottom... then move to the center and your fire will go right through the underbelly and you get your max points.
100%. The 104,000 increase (that wasn't exactly 104,000 ... I don't know how it determined what the increase was, but it was my secret weapon when playing Phoenix. :-)
You learn something new every day!!
I worked in an automotive factory and I noticed the stamping presses always played tunes at different times depending on what was being done. Most of these were recognizable (Empire Strikes Back, Camp Town Races, Happy Birthday etc.). My favorite however, played when the steel coil was depleted and I could finally rest for a while in the 95 degree heat. The tune sounded haunting, yet strangely familiar, as it echoed throughout the factory. Now I realize why. It is the song at the beginning of this video. Had not heard it since I was a boy in the skating rink arcade.
I played this for hours at my local swimming pool every week with my mates.
All these years later is is still my favorite classic arcade game.
me and my dad used to play a table top arcade version of this game in a local pizza parlor while waiting for our pizza... good times
I played the table top version with a friend after school at a long gone Pizzahut. Good times.
Have this on my 60-1…played it in the arcade when I was a kid. Play it now in my own arcade now that I’m 52 years young.
This was one of the first video games that came to my town. It seems primitive now but I remember being so captivated by it, especially the sounds of it, as we had never heard or seen anything like it before. I just wanted to play it over and over.
My very first video game addiction @ 80s Galleria (Ghetto) Mall in the 416. When an arcade game can make your ears burn like red hot coal, you know for certain you are completely immersed in it. For me, Phoenix was that game. Best arcade game of the 80's!
Love this game, it's in my top 5 all time favorite arcade games. We used to have one in the lobby of a local movie theater that we would play while waiting to get into the movie. This is one of those games that is pathetically neglected on the home consoles. Other than the Atari 2600 port, I don't believe this game has been ported officially to any other console.
1982 at the drive in theaters or at the Burger spots, definitely my all time fav of the 80's next to Gorf & Dragons Lair.
Dray Go This, Gorf, missile command, berserker, tempest, and asteroids were my favs.
Replying to a very old post I know, but not many people mention Dragons Lair. I used to stand memorized watching the preview.
Its a very impressive game. Especially for the time@@Mickparrysstepdad
This game had a software glitch that would give you a ridiculous amount of points if you did it right. Me and my friend figured this out and had fun for about two summers......;love the '80's
i remember someone who was good at playing it, my friend tim. rip buddy
Legend
This game was a lot harder than it looks, at times it was damn frustrating.
Ha! I love that at the end of the pink birds section of the 2nd level, you centred the spaceship and whacked the force field. That is how I played EVERY round.
2:30 - all these years later I realise it comes to a stop at the bottom.
Great game and memories.
wow! I remember playing this game back in the day!! spend a lot of limited quarters then ( was a poor kid ) but man, was it worth it.
Yep used to play this when I was 15 yrs old. I am now 56. Thats how old this game is. God Im old, where did time go ?
I have a Phoenix arcade machine but it needs a new monitor. I started playing Phoenix during the Spring of 1981 at the age of nine. It has always been my favorite arcade game.
Loved playing this game at Chuck E. Cheese back in the day during the 80s! Good times!
Played this last week in the arcade a few dozen times and I am still CRAP at it, even after playing it for 40 years!
Ireally wish there still where arcades nowadays.
+TheCassiusTain
This could be the rejuvenation of British pubs. Full of 45 year old men beating the crap out of Track & Field, trying to take sups of bitter before the next aliens come, victoriously filling out their initials in the top ten GAZ, BAZ, DAZ, ANT...
Arcades were so popular in the 80s especially the early to mid 80s.
+TheCassiusTain, we have a bunch of arcades in Fresno, California.
there are!! we have a good one in houston joystix!!!
Flash, AAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
awesome! I've played this arcade long time ago at the seaside when I was child... great memories.
Thank you very much!
This game got me liking classical music! And I didnt know it was classical music until years later?
Yes savio and beethoven
Yes remember this game I loved it. Around 1986 when I was 8 years old a friend of mine had this game in his garage we played it all the time. I'm 39 now and for about the last 10 years every so often I would try to remember and search for this game but I would always come up empty until I was driving home about 2 hours ago and so a guy wheeling an old arcade game out of a store and it said Phoinex on the side I instantly said that's it. When I looked it up and I was right. Brought back good memories. I miss doing chores around the house or cutting someone's grass in the neighborhood and going to the arcade with a 10 dollar and getting a pocket full of quarters and having the time of your life.
I'd completely forgotten about this game. Now I vaguely recall being spellbound by the exploding birds. Thanks for posting it.
Sounds different from how I recall it. I always thought these older Taito games had the arcade equivalent of a MIDI or PC speaker, and the notes it produced depended on the hardware of the specific machine.
Played a lot of this as a kid, and even more recently on my PS2 copy of Taito Legends.
I played this a LOT in the arcades back in the 80s. Those were the days. No save games or anything like that, you HAD to stay on as long as possible with literally every arcade game back then.
this was the Shit back then Frank's pizza place in Spring Valley New York spent many quarters in at machine
Love all these old games, first time I ever cut out of school was in 5th grade to play Donkey Kong.
Phoenix one of my all time favorites... sound effects take me baaack
Game reminds me of Joust..
Brilliant golden oldie. !! 😍😃
I remember playing that game in an arcade back around 1980 or early 1981.
This was my favorite game at the time. Fond memories of the pizza restaurant down the street from us and wasting too many quarters.
I remember every time my ship exploded, I shouted "PHOENIX!"
I was the champ at this in my arcade ... but I always looked up to the Defender champ. Harder game, more buttons.
+Nautilus1972 No kidding, I was pretty good at Phoenix and Invaders but Defender? A very hard game.
Tough game with 6 buttons/controls and it's sequel, Stargate had 7.
Defender was one the few great arcade game ports for the Atari 2600.
I used to love Phoenix! The random and chaotic nature of the bird's flight was always a stress inducer.
An awesome classic that I'm proud to own!:)
I loved this game, and another one which had a very similar theme called Space Firebird.
Yeah, there was an arcade game on the entry of the supermarket. As child, I could watch only the demos - my parents never ever gave me money to play this :D
My arcade days in 1982. Used to play this awesome game.
My 2 favorites were GRAVITAR and STARGATE.👍
I do remember this game very well as it was one of the first games that players faced a boss level.
Oh man, this was the shit back when I was 8 years old
Ta igrica je bila popularna i u mom selu , najbolji igrači su bili Arči i Roko. Nekad se dešavao nekakav djelomičan kvar na igrici a onda je bio cijeli ekran plav bez da se išta vidjelo osim metaka iz glavnog broda, i u tom slučaju Roko je rušio neviđeni broj kraljica praktički na slijepo. Vlasnik lunaparka jer bio deda zvani Miškec RIP.
i loved this game!! its amazing what you are reminded of! i have recently bought a slightly inferior version for my tv and i am addicted all over again!!
This is My Favorite All-Time Arcade Game! Pong was Cool, Pac-Man Changed the Game Industry but Phoenix was MY Game, I could Not Be Beat! Good Times!
And I thought Nintendo was bad! This is quite literally the only game where I preferred the sound effects on the Atari 2600 version to the arcade. Great graphics, though!
Lost a many of quarters playing this back in the 80s.
I used to play this in a working class cafe next to the bus-station whilst waiting for the next bus home from town. To my annoyance, they had turned the sound down to almost zero so as not to annoy the old folks in there enjoying their cigarettes, mugs of tea and toasted teacakes.
Wonderful game! I still play it to this day on my Mame cabinet.
Wow these retro memories. This was one of my favorite games in early 80s.
Still playing it from time to time. Strangely satisfying game. Hard, but after a while you got the rhythm down.
This was another early 80s arcade game (along with Moon Patrol, Centipede, and Ms. Pac Man - DUH!) that the ladies always liked and aced at...
That alien in the ship was the coolest of all in the 80's
Just walking into an arcade back in the late 70s and 80s was so fun... trying to make that $5 in quarters last as long as you could... :)
The sounds ... the place lit up mainly by the machines only. Good times :)
Many happy quarters spent on this game in childhood, and many more happy hours playing this on Taito Legends for PS2. Thanks for sharing!
(Any similarity between the final boss and The Comet Empire is entirely coincidental.)
Wow I used to play this game in the candy shop around the corner from my school when I was a kid. I loved this game . Watching this today the sounds are so cheesy 😂
those were the days ,, hanging out a the arcade , smoke a blunt and just go in play mode :)
They had blunts back then? I was always smoking a joint
I remember this as the "Comet Empire" game when I was a kid! LOL
I used to play this in a grocery store in 1982 when my parents went grocery shopping.
I think it's the best arcade game. However, this game was in a different league of difficulty. Like someone was really getting asleep over the regular arcade games and decided to make a really challenging game from the first stage. What's more, if you try playing this on a table/phone it's just not going to work with the touch screen buttons: you need real physical buttons for this game.
Phoenix, Scramble, Frogger and Astro fighter was the first arcades that I played back in 1980, when I was 12...
80's arcade life was great, I can't believe 45 people gave this a thumbs down, that's about as ridiculous as saying Tron was science fiction.
I remember playing this game with my brother back at one of the arcades. (Back when there were arcades.) This was more than just another Galaga clone, it had a different feel to it and tougher enemies.
i loved the shooting the birds in half lol
Che spettacolo... Memorabile.. Avevo solo 9 anni quando ci giocavo in sala giochi....grazie per avermelo ricordato....😢💖
The first time I played this was around 1980...it was in a Shakey's Pizza parlor in Roebuck, Alabama (suburb of Birmingham); my Uncle bought us some thin-crust pepperoni pizza; I was 13, and when he shook my hand he practically *crushed* it (he was a little drunk, lol).
I can practically *taste* that pizza when seeing this video of the gameplay :)
Amazing. I had totally forgotten about this game but I remember playing it a lot as a kid!
One of my favorite games. Saw it at fisherman’s wharf in San Francisco. Must have spent $10 in quarters. Had a blast and brought back memories
Phoenix is a great game, but prepare to be tried to your limits. I'm in a motel where they have this game on a 60-in-1 cocktail (always on free play!) and this game humbles me quickly unless I'm highly focused and remember the birds' attack patterns. I'm not certain if it's part of the original coding or part of the emulation, but their missiles often practically jump into your face, they sometimes appear to "jump" toward you at unfair speed. The shield button sometimes waits a microsecond, long enough to get pasted. And their movements are really fast and jangly, like their bombs.
Still, it's one for the ages. It'll challenge you at best and give you a swirly in a filthy Greyhound men's room.
The soundtrack is great (classical music), but the small warbirds' and large phoenixes' cries constitute a crime against humanity. As a teen, I bought a "how to win at arcade games" guidebook, and the text claimed that the variations in the calls sometimes indicated their next moves. Listening today, I seriously think I'd been duped back then, or the author copied some incorrect info. I don't see the connection.
(will give you a swirly at worst)
I should add the neat advancing score value for shooting birds in a certain flight style, and the phoenixes scored big if you killed their wings first. Strategy!
+Sean Wilkinson OMG! Was that something like "how to master the video games" with really iffy drawings of the onscreen graphics? I had that and read it constantly dreaming about the games I didn't know. Whole thing about phoenix is getting the 9600 bonus at the end or is it 8000 - can't remember now. There s a bug in it where you can get a huge score like 100.,000 for doing some method....
+pigknickers You have to shoot the little bat looking ones when they are flying on their way up with their wings extended, you have to shoot more than 3 in a row. You get 200,000 and all the lives that game can give you.
I used to love this game back in the day! Way harder than Galaga. The Mother Ship level was always a challenge.
Man, I forgot all about this game! Definitely one of my faves, but I always thought it sucked that you couldn't get a shooting rhythm with this game. A better fire control would've made this one of my all time favorites!
Concurrent memories:
Being driven to the roller-rink (by my Mom) so I could talk/flirt with girls.
Buying fireworks from out-of-state, and re-selling them to kids in the neighborhood.
Doing yardwork jobs at $2/hour, to save money (quarters) to play this game when it first came out!
I was obsessed with this game. I remember my parents took me to London to visit my brother, but all I wanted to do was play this game some more.
Oh that music ! Put a smile on my face real quick 😁
plain ad simple one of the best of the best games in 80s. phoneix, tempest donkey kong, centerpide. defender, pacman the sound of these games are awsome ad stilll are atthis age,
Happy childhood memory's . Many thanks 😄
I remember a similar arcade game, but unfortunately not the name, where at times there'd be a robot below your spaceship that moved from side to side and would shoot up an arrow. If it hit you, you'd loose a life.
I always used to think when your ship explodes, it's the letters that spell "television" flying apart.
This was really the only arcade game that I got my 25 cents worth. one quarter usually got me about 45 minutes of play. Well, I guess Galaga also. I usually got about 15 minutes of play from a Galaga. Anyways back to Phoenix. If you shoot 3 small birds when they are flying at a 45-degree angle in very quick secession, you will receive 200,00+ points. Also, if you destroy the mothership when it is one click above it's maximum lowest, you will receive the maximum points off 9,000+.
Good times.. these games never die.. unfortunately we do.
yes I remember this game very much because at the arcade it was always the loudest u could hear it over all the other games
Taken in a vacuum, it would seem weird, but next to more "normal" space shooters, I think they've got something with those out-there visuals and sounds.
If they had not messed up arcades with timed car racing games and silly combat games, arcades might have survived to this day. But they messed it up.
This was one of the hardest games from around 1980. If you made it past the second level, you were doing good! The game had left and right buttons instead of a joystick. Very clever from the manufacturers to make it harder!
Yup this was one of my all time favourite shooters loved it even got used to those sounds that can really upset someone if you hear them too much :)
I remember spending hours playing this game in the arcade. How nostalgic.
when i was 10 years old i qualified for the texas video game championships because of a high score on this game, but they didn't have it during the tournament and i had to play tempest instead, which i wasn't very good at. i still got 4th place though...good times
yep. it was an old glitch in the arcade game. also if you shoot 3 small birds at the same time while flying you will get a 200,000 bonus added to your score.
While retreating and on the second screen.
And here's how to do it: ua-cam.com/video/wG09CMS35qY/v-deo.html