Retro Game of the Day! Journey

Retro Game of the Day! Journey

Journey by Bally Midway, released in 1983. Game designed by Marvin Glass and Associates.

Time may not have been terribly kind to the Journey game, but as a kid this blew my mind. Whoa! Digitized photos of real people in an arcade machine? Whoa again! MIDI versions of actual rock 'n roll songs? What deviltry was this?

An obvious cash-in on a popular trend, the game was a collection of minigames (guide each band member to collect his missing instrument, from different planets). The game culminates in a rock concert, while an actual cassette player inside the machine (!) plays a looped version of "Separate Ways" (and the player controls a roadie who must fend off groupies).

Yes, this game had it all - I have never heard of a cassette deck in an arcade machine before! I also would assume this was the first well-known game to make use of digitized characters, a technology developed for a different game which was cancel due to, er, test players flashing inappropriate body parts at the built-in camera. Or so it is said.

Journey - not a wonderful game, but one I remember as being quite eye-catching back in the day, and definitely something of a curiosity which a few of us remember from way back when!

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