How very cool of that mom! And how nice to see her continuing to play whether the husband had interest or not as well as encouraging her daughter. Women gamers encouraging their daughters to game has been under discussion on some of the women in games sites for a while. A newer generation of gamers is growing up, hopefully with far fewer gender barriers to gaming acceptance and enjoyment.
 

I sure hope so. But hey, I've got a home full of women gamers, so the Barnson household isn't slacking in that respect!
 

Adventure, I haven't heard tell of that game in quite a while. My brother and I grew up with just an atari 2600. Friends of my grandparents from Alaska sent us a box of about 60+ games and a gas powered UFO when we were kids.

Unfortunately, when me and my brother left home, he wound up with the atari, and my grandpa would up with the UFO. Luckily it's hard to find titles for the 2600 these days, so I didn't wind up having to pay console support each month. Ah, these brother divorces can get messy. :-)
 

Aww, that warms every Arcade nostalgic's heart!
Even finding a quiet and enjoyable place to play Arcade here in Japan is impossible! There are only loud and noisy arcade parlours here. I remember one Arcade parlour in Berlin long time ago that was totally enjoyable... quiet, only the low sounds of the machines coming from the corners, carpet, plants, smoking allowed! What a relic!
Well at least I could play a round of Monster Bash Pinball in a 'not-soo-bad' hall when we went out on christmas.
 

It shows even with primitive graphics and sound, that the games can still be enjoyed by younger gamers.

Galaga is one I consider one of those "perfect" games.

I've got namco museum for my gamecube, and like that's almost the only thing I play.

I think alot of the early namco games really had this down good. It's the thing that keeps you addicted to it.

You have the standard risk/reward schedule. You can hit a boss galaga in formation with two other regular ones, and get the largest amount of points. Of course the risk is greater, three ships firing at you instead of just two or one, and proportionately those go down, and you get the lease amount of points from flying in formation. But then there's like the Uber-risk/reward where it's extreme in both respects. In galaga, you want to let a boss galaga capture your ship, and then shoot it down, so you can have double the firepower! A mechanic like this keeps you addicted. First it's not that hard to do. Second if you succeed it gives you twice the firepower but then you're twice as likely to get hit and lose that extra, as you've already lost your life. But then you get chances for big points. The double firepower really helps on the bonus rounds. So thus it tempts you to keep using it to get higher points.

Just perfect game mechanic. If you notice pacman/ms pacman do the same thing. The power pellets are there so you can eat ghosts, you eat all of them you get a big score bonus, but then after you eat a ghost you increase risk of hitting a regenerated ghost as they regenerate fast. Mostly I just use the power pellets so that I can clear off a section of the board. That can be risky too as it gets on the levels.

Let's see digdug... you blow one up you get points, you crush them under arock, you get alot of points. But you also increase your chance of getting caught, or crushing yourself under a rock.

So i've been trying to think of how to do that in my game starcatcher, which now will probably be rewritten and be the additive hit of the year ;-)

Keith
 

I agree, Keith. Galaga is just one of those games that got it right and aged very well. (Ms. Pac-Man did, too). It's still fun to play, and while I've seen a lot of games that have adopted similar gameplay, none have really surpassed it.

The captured fighter concept was absolutely brilliant. It was a clever touch which broke all the previous "rules" of top-down shooters, yet worked fabulously well for risk vs. reward. I can't DO a bonus round without double ships!