![]() ![]() ![]() 'ANOTHER COIN FOR MY TREASURE CHEST,' the Wizard Of Wor muses at such times, in his eerie mono synth-speak. It takes a lot of experimentation and practice to excavate worthy survival strategies, and back in the day, that would have meant inserting a considerable amount of money into the machine. Everything becomes so fast, so invisible, so overwhelming, so quickly, that the average solo player will hit a ceiling within eight levels that seems impossible to consistently reach or survive beyond. What is quickly unveiled is the brutal difficulty. A first (inevitably short) bout with the game always arouses major player interest, as there seems to be a lot going on and a lot of features to unveil. With an enormous semi-randomised pool of mazes to draw on, rampaging oft-invisible enemies and creepy synthesised speech, WOW offers both visceral punch and a tantalising dose of sophistication. ![]() In WOW, two helmeted, backpacked, laser-toting Worriors storm the overhead-viewed dungeon mazes of the Wizard Of Wor, blasting away at his minion Worlings in one kill-or-be-killed battle after another. It eventually garnered ports to multiple Atari systems and to the Commodore 64, and over the years, the original game has only continued to gain more respect for offering one of the stiffest challenges combined with one of the most dramatic presentations from the so-called golden era of early eighties arcade-dom. This game was Wizard Of Wor (WOW), and while The Wiz might not have made it onto any lunchboxes, his game carved out its own niche of popularity. In fact, it was difficult, scary, rife with killing, and gleefully bombastic. In the same year, Midway released a locally developed maze game which was not quite as accessible. It was intuitive to play, cute and brilliantly designed, and was even as popular with the girls as it was with the boys. In 1980, Midway released into US arcades a coin-op maze game which was to become a cultural phenomenon. That game was the Namco-designed Pacman." ![]() "In 1980, Midway released into US arcades a coin-op maze game which was to become a cultural phenomenon. ![]()
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