The Last Starfigh--Bosconian?!

Might this be the first nostalgio-meme of the year? Only if you answer the question for yourselves! Context: So I was watching The Last Starfighter last week, and it made me think of my arcade years in the 80s. No quarters were more badly spent. And if a machine were ever to hand me a fantastic destiny, what would it have been? Based on amount of time/money spent, it would surely have been the somewhat obscure Bosconian.

I never had the street cred to "own" a popular machine - in fact, the only time a crowd ever huddled around me was to steal my wallet (I was an inconsolable 12-year-old) - so it had to be a game no one else much cared for. I spent many a lunch hour blasting space station from both my front and my ass, and in return getting blasted by the often unintelligible messages from the game's digitized voice. "CONDITION RED! CONDITION RED! CONDITION RED!" However, a powerful race of aliens never came to recruit me. Can't blame them, really, because I never hit any kind of spectacular score.

We'll have to look at consoles if we want to find my real strengths, and the game from my youth I actually "flipped" the score on was Demon Attack on the Atari 2600.

A simple enough shooter pitting you against waves of demons who get increasingly fast, start off increasingly low, shoot with increasing accuracy, and multiply when you shoot them, their babies often turning themselves into living weapons. In the days before pauses and saved games, it was a hand-crippling feat to get to a million points and turning back over to zero. But I did it. And then I was whisked off to the ice planet Krybor to face the real legions of demons. Yeah, I can't believe there was that much detail to the back story either.

But now it's your turn! Go back to your teen years: What arcade or console game(s) would have gotten YOU recruited?

Comments

Anonymous said…
I guess you weren't reading the Omega Daily News in 2003, but it was a big story when they opened up the "Omega Race" training facility in Komar. I spent a few evenings piloting a ship over the city of Komar in their training exercises, zooming around and blasting androids in a ship that handled like a White Star from "Babylon 5". I don't like to brag, but realistically speaking, I command fear and respect from all throughout the galaxies.
mkhall said…
In 1982 I was recruited by the Garden Gnomes of Zurich to help them beat back an assault by hedonistic insects. Notoriously stingy, the Gnomes refused to pay me for this service, but I was allowed to loot magic mushrooms from the bodies of defeated "centipedes." Those mushrooms paid my rent for most of the '80s.
chiasaur11 said…
Man, this is making my UN job look bad.

Just got on a wait list. If they need anyone else to command the extraterrestrial combat unit, I'll get a call. Only got to ride in the skyranger for training once, and the Chryssalids I saw were dead and stuffed.

Such is life, I suppose.
googum said…
Choplifter. You will not believe how hard I take leaving a hostage...
Siskoid said…
Googum: Now somebody's talking my language.