Here is a guest post which comes all the way from the UK written by Seth Wrinkle, a passionate and avid fan at Liberty Games. He talks about his passion for Konami arcade titles and lists some history. Check it out after the jump!
Kings of the Arcade: KONAMI
No company’s success is as intertwined with the golden age of the arcade as KONAMI’s is. If
you’ve ever played an arcade game, you’ve probably played a KONAMI title. Castlevania, Contra,
Beatmania, Dance Dance Revolution, Metal Gear, Crash Bandicoot, Gradius, Silent Scope, Lethal
Enforcers and Frogger: all part of KONAMI’s illustrious 30+ year history that began in the arcade and
continues today in gaming libraries in today’s PCs, handhelds and consoles of every kind.
KONAMI in the Arcade
1978: Konami releases its first Japanese arcade titles: the now hard-to-find Block Game, Block
Invader, Space Ship.
1981: Frogger: Guiding a frog across a busy highway then avoiding hungry crocodiles by hopping on
lilipads only to make it to a hole in a log (and doing so over and over again)does not seem like
much of a premise for a blockbuster video game, but it is. Frogger’s simple gameplay and
strange plot is still beloved by generations of gamers and has been is continual play since its
release over 30 years ago.
1983: Track & Field is released and features some of the first uses of alternative button-pressing,
rapid button-tapping and joystick spinning mechanics that would later be updated in the Mario
Party series.
1985: Gradius, a spiritual successor to Konami’s earlier shoot-em-up Scramble and first in the now-
legendary Gradius series, adding multiple weapon types and “Shoot the core!”-style bosses
battles where end-game bosses can only be defeated by shooting the vulnerable flashing cores
after whittling down outer protective shields.
1986: Double Dribble, Konami’s first popular sports title, remained popular even after being ported to
the NES, Game Boy and Sega Genesis systems where it spawned several sequels well into the
1990s.
1987: Contra, Konami’s flagship shoot-em-up, is first released in arcades. Featuring 2-player co-
operative play, punishing difficulty and the now-famous “Up-Up-Down-Down” Konami code,
Contra remains the the gold-standard in 2-player shoot-em-up 25-years later.
1989: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a side-scrolling 4-player beat-em-up, is released, taking
advantage of the growing popularity of the TMNT animated series that began airing in 1987.
Players could control any of the 4 Ninja Turtles, using their signature weapons, and ate pizza to
regain life. The 1991 sequel, Turtles in Time, was massively popular and quickly became
Konami’s best-selling arcade offering.
1991: The Simpsons, like TMNT was based off the popular animated series and wedded polished beat-
em-up controls with the signature humor, characters and locales of the fictional Simpsons
universe.
1992: Continuing its success with custom-tailored animated series beat-em-ups, is X-Men. Players can
play any of 6-mutant powered X-men in 2, 4 or 6-player co-op missions battling the evil super-
mutant leader, Magneto. Critics grumbled about the lack of innovation in the style, but couldn’t
deny the tight controls and entertaining gameplay.
1997: Beatmania ushered in the music/rhythm genre by emulating a club DJ experience where the
player must manipulate simulated keyboard and turntable controls to the beat of the song.
1999: Dance Dance Revolution was released in Japan and America simultaneously and ruled the
music video-game genre until the late-2000s. Players dance to the beat, hitting the dancepads
underfoot, either alone or in pairs in time with the arrows displayed on-screen. Over a dozen
direct DDR sequels are released over the coming decade and over 50 spin-off titles can still be
found throughout arcades internationally to this day.
Written by Seth Wrinkle, via Liberty Games.
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