Game Stooge

Classic Arcade Games: Food Fight and Lady Bug

• Scribbled on September 13th, 2007 by Jonah Falcon
• Filed in Arcade, Casual Gaming, Retro, Reviews

Shameless plug time. Now, I’ve written a ton of reviews and articles, but I also guest-wrote two reviews of classic arcade games, which have disappeared from the public consciousness. Okay, alright, Food Fight and Lady Bug were never in the public consciousness. But these highly underrated games deserve more than just being good ports on the ColecoVision.

My ClassicGaming Game of the Week article on Food Fight. An excerpt:

• Why is parsley deadly? A pie in the face, sure, will make someone run away, or overripe tomatoes, watermelon slices, or bananas in the face will back someone off. But parsley?
• What is it about Charley’s head? Is his head made of rubber? It’s already twice the size of his body — when he engulfs an ice cream cone, it swells to over four times its size. Does he have cartilege for cranial plates?

My ClassicGaming Game of the Week article on Lady Bug. An excerpt:

The other turnoff might have been the entire theme of the game. Lady bugs don’t exactly inspire macho images, and the pleasant opening theme had none of the verve of the Pac-Man opening tune, or the coolness of the fuzz guitar that Defender opened with. Heck, when you got a free life, you were treated to a new lady bug frolicking through a garden, and if you got a free game, you were treated to a wedding ceremony! Brides were to be kidnapped in arcade games, like Karate Champ and Ghosts & Goblins, not actually married. Lady Bug wasn’t the most manly game for a largely male arcade population.

Someday, these games will be popular. Xbox Live Arcade, Playstation Store, Virtual Console, it doesn’t matter. They enjoyed their brief popularity on the ColecoVision - as did other great games like Venture and Cosmic Avenger. But they need their props now.