My first stereo was my parent's as well, an even older setup from the 70s without a cassette player, just an integrated turntable/receiver. You could stack multiple vinyl records on the center spindle and watch them drop after each record finished playing. Some fun for us kids.

I traded it and all my games. I had trouble getting the UMD discs to read consistently. The door seemed a little flimsy. I always had problems with it. I guess I didn't like worrying about it breaking all the time. Plus the batteries would wear out and expand. I used to plug mine in instead.

I only played Car Wars 'cause my roommate in college would play it with me. It's not for solo play, even though I used to play Squad Leader solo all the time. I've been looking for a copy of Car Wars. I think it was reissued recently. I remember seeing it at Barnes & Noble once - should've bought it.

That's a cool story! I guess I was a little bit older at the time. I was writing up DnD campaigns.

I wish DK jr was easy too.

I have arcade memories all the way up to the late 80s but none after that.

Perfect. "accessible to any one" is exactly me, especially when talking about souls-like games. haha.

I wasn't even born at this point, but your speaker set up was a lot like my parents' a little later into the 80s. I used to love putting records on in the living room, it sounded great.

Oh dang, what happened to your PSP??

I've heard of Car Wars! Sounds like a fun game. It's just so hard to get into pen and paper stuff these days.

1982 was an awesome year for arcade games!

When I was a kid, I took a big roll of my dad's dot matrix printer paper and stretched it out from the front door to the back door and drew Zaxxon maps on one side and a Xevious map on the other. Then I took my toy spaceships and played pretend Zaxxon and Xevious. I got in a little bit of trouble for using up so much paper, but I think my parents were still impressed I was able to entertain myself for a whole day.

I was at the perfect age to soak up all the Pac-Man games and merchandise. If you look at it that way, you can understand why I still like Pac-Man so much.

There were a few games on your list that could tear me away from Pac-Man for a short bit, though. These included Q*bert, Dig Dug, Pengo, and BurgerTime. After I first played BurgerTime I went home and cut out a chef's hat and a pepper shaker out of paper and played pretend BurgerTime around the house! I also loved Time Pilot and Joust.

I never saw Jungle KIng, but I saw Jungle Hunt everywhere!

When I first saw Donkey Kong Jr., I thought it was a Donkey Kong game for little kids and was easier. I was wrong. Still a good game, though.

My cousins had an Intellivision and I swear I played Frog Bog with one of my cousins for what seemed like hours.

I played Choplifter on my Apple ][+ but I had no idea what I was doing as a kid.

The world design is one of its best features! Really cool looking and fun to explore. Plus, I think the lower difficulty settings makes it pretty accessible to just about any one.

I definitely like the world design in this game.

There's always something I'll miss. I liked Ms. Pac-Man more than the original.

Yeah, I didn't even know about G&W until I saw the G&W collections for GBA!

Don't forget Ms. Pac-Man was in 1981!

You know, Nintendo always tells us how popular Game & Watch was, but I don't remember seeing one until the NES was already out. And the only ones I remember seeing before G&W Gallery came out was Super Mario Bros., Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, and the Zelda G&W.

I always keep trying the Castlevania games 'cause they look so great, but never get far (well, I get a little farther each time). However, I tried Dead Cells a little while ago and really liked it. One of those great indie games I got a hold of when I was on Xbox Series last year. I'm interested to try their take on Castlevania when I get back to current systems. I miss finding cool indie games like this.

Looking back, I guess so, although I didn't think about it at the time. I miss making music mix tapes probably the most of anything.

I like playing Returns & Tropicla Freeze too, but yes way hard. I can't believe you finished the first three though. Good for you. I haven't the patience. Those ice levels drive me crazy.

Interesting. It's a Japan-only game I think though. I'd love to play it.

The creation of NAMCO?

I just downloaded the demo and will try it later. I'm not really a big Castlevania fan, though. Just could never get into it. My favorite game in the series is Kid Dracula.

Time sure flies.

I was a kid in the 80s, but grew into an early teen by the late 80s. That was a great time to be a kid.

I could complete the first three SNES DKC games, but Returns and Tropical Freeze were way too hard.

The battle system is way different. You move your monsters around the bottom touch screen with the stylus in a grid based fashion.

No it wasn't a game per se. :)

It is. It reminds me of the newer LEGO Star Wars Skywalker Saga game. More of the same LEGO fun, but with the camera focused more behind the character instead of fixed, giving you a closer to the action feel.

I'm also just about to write a review for Garfield: Escape from Monday which is a surprisingly decent little 3D platformer.

Sneakin' and snipin' isn't really my thing but the controls are solid.

Well, I'm glad about that. I could never get past about 50% of DKC and even less in the two sequels.