Few things remind me more of the eighties than floppy disks. If you had a computer in the early and mid eighties you know exactly what im talking about, and for Godsakes don't touch the center of the disk!


The first game I would like to talk about is The California Raisins. This game is very hard for me to remember because playing a game as a raisin wasnt that intresting to me, but apparently someone thought it was, because when I was a kid I didn't have any money and someone would have had to buy it for me. According to my research this game was released in 1988 and developed by Starsoft Development. The premise is you are a raisin and in some kind of trouble in, or with a cereal factory, the crazy thing to me is your trying not to get eaten, when the premise for the development of the California Raisins was to eat more raisins. But it wouldn't be the eighties without them


Number Two I would like to mention is Thexder. Released a few time in the eighties but my copy says 1987 by Sierra. In this game you play a robot that can transform, which makes since because every robot in the eighties could transform. With sixteen levels I don't think that I ever made it past level one. There are actually a number of websites dedicated to this game and seeing the pictures there brought back a lot of memories.


The third game I would like to cover is Ace of Aces by Accolade released in 1987. Basically a low graphic flying game set in world war II, this is another game i loved but could not seem to get past the first or second level. The cool thing about this game is your take off was done for you, and also you could pick from an assortment of bombs and missiles which to a seven year old kid is very cool. There were two modes to play practice and missions . I mostly just practiced and shot a lot of missiles randomly, and sometimes at the enemy.

My fourth selection is Karateka. This was an awesome karate game created by the same guy who did Prince Of Persia(Jordan Mechner). The Goal was to save the princess Mariko from some evil guy in a castle. Once again level one proved to be no problem then failure was eminent. I remember climbing some wall then facing a guard with a variety of punches and kicks not unlike
Nintendos Kun-Fu. What sucked about this game, that I remembered from reading about it, was you could not save the game which meant if I actually got past level two I was doomed.




Last but By no means least Bad Dudes. What happens when the President is kidnapped by ninjas, well duh you need some Bad Dudes. Finally I remember a game that I actually beat, with the help of some power up sodas and daggers with the occasional num-chuck. All I have to say about this one is those ninjas had no idea what they were up against. And at the end of every level the guys put up their fists and proclaimed "Im Bad!" and ritefully so those guys were some Bad Dudes.



I was going to mention one more game Epyx's 4x4 but I remembered hating this game, you picked a truck and a track, then if you were me proceeded to crash and loose almost instantly. I was also going to add some screenshots I found on the internet but all the websites had some crazy warnings about stealing their photos, like some screenshot from 1988 with bad dudes fighting ninjas is a big deal, but what can you do. All in all floppy disks had some awesome titles and when the Nintendo got boring I fired them up and played for hours..