Arcade Memories Game Of The Week - Green Beret

[Bods]

Another game that was in the Cascade Amusements in Leicester City Centre

I did have a few goes on it now and again then I would play it quite a bit on the C64 which wasn't a bad home version. No idea what the cab looked like it was in

When my mate at work downloaded Arcade Emulator in late 90's to start it was late 70's early 80's ones and I said I hope they do some later ones like Green Beret and it wasn't long before it was in the next Update, this was Dos days and that made my day when you could play such classics again but not C64 this time the original Arcade

of all the PCB's I've bought, even the job lot of 77 years back I've never got a Green Beret original, still need to buy one sometime

Any interesting stories on this game? when you first played it etc

 

[69er]

Quite liked Green Beret but at the time we were buying lots of similar games and I think we had 2 or 3 and I still have one in a subelectro midi cab in the Workshop

As platform left to right action went we bought more like ghost and goblins . Jailbreak , sunset riders, Gryzor ye ar king fu and Rygar , king fu master etc

The period saw numerous new adventure action games in a very short time and some of the better games available as pcb only much of the time made it very competitive of a market and both cabs and pcbs were still high priced so when it was a choice we went for fun games easy to play and appealing to the arcade type players so soon got a flood of more popular games,

Ikari warriors with 8 way shooting / moves and with the new second player pay to join in feature also on a military theme soon became the top war battle game and we still found Sky kid an air shooter both so popular we had a few of each and wonder boy & pacland were others which we did early cabinet conversions for , it was a tough time for arcade cabs as mentioned the home systems had some of these on cartridge for Atari commodore and Amstrads etc which were every kids must have Xmas present…

When we began to make jamma cabs the market got even more fierce we ordered 21 rastan saga pcbs and games like great gurianos . Vigilante and r type were other popular ones then things really went wild as the 1990s began

Games like streetfighter double dragon moonwalker and not least World Cup 90 and it’s similar interactive 2 player counterparts .. it’s really difficult to rate any moderate game of the mid to late 80s as some only had an unfair short life expectancy

Other novelty videos also got some popular response like Snapjack and not forgetting Pac-Man donkey kong and many driver games were still frontline when 5 or more years old ….. green beret only 6/10

The early 90s was the death knell for the video game operators as GameBoy the hand held take to school unit was launched and the rich kids had them , the parents bought the cartridges for around £35 from HMV and game shops and the kids charged their mates to play using their dinner money. Also many games had progressed from10p play to 20p or 50P for 3 goes on the multi coin type cabs or twin slot s10 mech doors

Pcbs got even more expensive for a while but technology and graphics improved to give mor 3D than 2D image. Next major peril 1993 saw the new small 10p introduced so those with games on 20p play rode the expense wave a little better while big 10p slots got shoved to the back burner…….. and cost money to convert to small 10 p tho for a while both coin were in use ……

Don’t think I ever saw a dedicated Green Beret cab as fro the early 80s when electrocoin and the many other universal generic multi video cabs came available all the operators just bought pcbs Like us many had introduced their own design plain or woody cabs … even Atari cabaret minis were wood grain sides and black fronts artwork was less of a selling point than getting the latest game into a prime arcade or sports leisure centre position while the novelty of NEW game was headlining…. Many arcade owners did have the slight advantage of acquiring super videos of course like double drivers and big golf cabs which were too big for chip shops and smaller pubs…

On balance some pubs realising the change in leisure we’re doing Mr Qs pool pubs with 3 or mor pooltables and these pubs opened up space for bigger arcade videos and usually also had a pinball machine too which jab a rebirth through the 89s with the upgrade to electronic and 4 player exciting games .. even round and L shaped pooltables were introduced to keep ahead of trends … The laser disc games als like Mad Dog Macree made it into the odd pubs which led to the video jukebox also with video screened songs..

As said with the number of games and the widening play formats and the general development of arcade equipment it was hard to keep up with what was good or bad .. you could pick up the CoinSlot trade newspaper and the small ads and even the big distributor feature pages listed hundreds of video games , many of which never made the grade and some bombed in price they soon were jus £20 a board.. while others stayed at hundreds of pounds to buy ,,

Just wish back then I could foresee the demand recently for these games, especially when one like green beret gets a mention or less known like amidar or crush roller even king & baloon kong j r or asteroids etc I should have bought an aircraft hanger and stashed them all but life is short and as we all now know games are often not immortal and fail when stored not least the shinobi suicide battery type and monitors a similar fate.. where do you stop ? Horse race games roulettes 2 p pushers huge multiple sensor rifle ranges coin op bowling alley machines you would need a big hanger!

Sadly most of us me included live in a standard sort of house and just have to be satisfied with what we can find , accommodate, enjoy. If that gets you your favourites from back in the day … great!

Keep reviewing Bods … nice to think back on many of these ( I never did Rampage at all so passed that one! ) tho not sure if my kids had it on sega master?

 

[Bods]

Interesting as always @69er

It's not like a Cutting edge or ground breaking game like some were when they hit the arcades, it had been out a couple of years at least when I was playing the newer games and saw it but still thought it was good, even with the likes of Rolling Thunder, Double Dragon, POW around

I'll have to have a look at other games up to 1985 to get an idea of what it was competing with at that time

 

[pooman2084]

Another one I didn’t play, or at least can’t remember from BITD.

I played it a lot on Konami’s Coin Op hits on the Amstrad though. IIRC it had that annoying CPC trait of not really scrolling, or at least scrolling sporadically in chunks.

It only dawned on me a couple of years ago that the alternative name for it, Rush n Attack, was a Cold War pun! It’s only when I said it out loud that it made sense!

 

[Bods]

You can certainly see the quality of the cabs decline, maybe because they wen't over the top earlier on, like with early driving games having working dials on dashboard, though it was harder to include all that on screen I guess but Cabs had great artwork and seem to decrease as they get later on, not all of course but like with modern cars, some area's are made cheaper because of the extra electronics they put in so if more money is spent on Hardware they need to save elsewhere

It was 20p or 3 credits for 50p when I played them

I saw a Laserdisc Jukebox unit on ebay once, thought that looked pretty cool, was tempted to bid but probably good job i didn't lol

others in 1985

Commando
Gauntlet
Ghosts n Goblins
Gunsmoke
Yie Ar Kungfu
Temple Of Doom
Pitfall 2
Dig Dug 2
The Legend Of Kage
My Hero
Shao-Lin's Road
Peter Packrat
Galactic Warriors
Sarge
Field Combat
Spelunker
Ninja Emaki

just being ones similar type games

 

[Bods]

Another one I didn’t play, or at least can’t remember from BITD.

I played it a lot on Konami’s Coin Op hits on the Amstrad though. IIRC it had that annoying COC trait of not really scrolling, or at least scrolling sporadically in chunks.

It only dawned on me a couple of years ago that the alternative name for it, Rush n Attack, was a Cold War pun! It’s only when I said it out loud that it made sense!

I'd still not even thought it about

Rush'n Attack, also known as Green Beret[a] in Japan and Europe, is a run-and-gun and hack-and-slash video game developed and released by Konami for arcades in 1985, and later converted to the Nintendo Entertainment System and home computers.[8] Its North American title is a play on the phrase "Russian attack"[9] due to its Cold War setting. It was ported to home systems and became a critical and commercial success for arcades and home computers.

Apart from always calling it Green Beret the only time I think about it is when it's wrote down in front of me and it's not same reading it Rush'n Attack as I say it how it's read, I've had other things I said aloud and suddenly makes sense so I know what you mean. those old American jokers hey, just like all the Russian bashing in the Hollywood Movies

Thank goodness for the home computers, there would of been many more games we hadn't seen or heard of back in the 80's if it wasn't for having them on these systems

 

[Vamino]

One of my favourite games back in the day, I loved pretty much all of the old Konami games.

It's one of the few games that I didn't see in Dayvilles!

But, the game was in a small chip shop/cafe by Harry Parkes sports shop near the Bham law courts.
A great little game for sure, the short intro set the scene nicely....I'm sure one of the guys tied up was at deaths door!

The C64 version was OK I suppose, the knife was puny and the game just didn't feel the same as the arcade. But the NES version, oh man that was an amazing conversion for the time. I bought it on launch day from Boots and got my moneys worth I can tell you.

Apart from the NES version, I never seen the game playing as Rush 'n attack in any UK arcade. There's a couple of other games of the era that had somewhat double barrelled game titles that are either a coincidence, trying to hide/tell us something or were just blatantly plagiarized for the coolness factor of how they sounded, (Operation) Rolling Thunder, (Operation) AJAX and Operation Thunderbolt.

For 2D videogames, the 80's was the best for me, and Green Beret is in my top 100 games of all time.

 

[kingtreelo]

Green Beret was a holiday favourite of mine, other special mentions that i still play today

Wonderboy
Rygar
Time Pilot '84
Commando
Gunsmoke

i dont recall ever seeing Pacman or Donkey Kong, whether i just looked at how hard they were to 6 year old me and thought i would rather spend my money on something that would last me 3 minutes instead of 1....who knows

 

[Bods]

One of my favourite games back in the day, I loved pretty much all of the old Konami games.

It's one of the few games that I didn't see in Dayvilles!

But, the game was in a small chip shop/cafe by Harry Parkes sports shop near the Bham law courts.
A great little game for sure, the short intro set the scene nicely....I'm sure one of the guys tied up was at deaths door!

The C64 version was OK I suppose, the knife was puny and the game just didn't feel the same as the arcade. But the NES version, oh man that was an amazing conversion for the time. I bought it on launch day from Boots and got my moneys worth I can tell you.

Apart from the NES version, I never seen the game playing as Rush 'n attack in any UK arcade. There's a couple of other games of the era that had somewhat double barrelled game titles that are either a coincidence, trying to hide/tell us something or were just blatantly plagiarized for the coolness factor of how they sounded, (Operation) Rolling Thunder, (Operation) AJAX and Operation Thunderbolt.

For 2D videogames, the 80's was the best for me, and Green Beret is in my top 100 games of all time.

I think the C64 version was harder than the arcade from what I remember when we first had the Dos Emulator. The loading music and title one are superb on C64, I really did like the Music on em as much as the games, Need to dig out some old photo's I have somewhere of pictures I took in my bedroom in the 80's when I had my 64 and Hi-Fi stuff

Never got into Consoles, wouldn't have had many games on em that's for sure, didn't have that money spare

 

[Bods]

Green Beret was a holiday favourite of mine, other special mentions that i still play today

Wonderboy
Rygar
Time Pilot '84
Commando
Gunsmoke

i dont recall ever seeing Pacman or Donkey Kong, whether i just looked at how hard they were to 6 year old me and thought i would rather spend my money on something that would last me 3 minutes instead of 1....who knows

There are loads I don't remember seeing, or maybe just didn't take enough notice because there were far better ones, I don't remember seeing a Pac-Man, Space Invaders coz I didn't know they had mirror effect in which is awesome, Donkey Kong, Star Wars but some had probably gone by time I was in the Arcades

I do remember being round my mates when his cousins were over and they brought the colecovision with them and I 00% remember Donkey Kong on that, they were darn good Coin Op Conversions on that system, Popeye looks pretty good too and many others, puts Atari 2600 to shame

Not sure I saw Commando but another I played quite a bit on C64 and more cool music

 

[Vamino]

I think the C64 version was harder than the arcade from what I remember when we first had the Dos Emulator. The loading music and title one are superb on C64, I really did like the Music on em as much as the games, Need to dig out some old photo's I have somewhere of pictures I took in my bedroom in the 80's when I had my 64 and Hi-Fi stuff

Never got into Consoles, wouldn't have had many games on em that's for sure, didn't have that money spare

I remember the old black box NES games were like 20-25 from Toys R Us at release, some were 20 but others were 25. I had a few part time jobs and was working a YTS scheme for something like 1 pound an hour, overtime at the weekend was 1.50 an hour on Saturdays and 2 pound an hour on Sundays! I felt rich at the time, no tax or national insurance so I got the lot to spend as I wished, my Mom didn't take anything off me which helped with my spending sprees.

It took ages for the 3rd party games to come out, and they were released at the rate of 1 or 2 a month in the beginning so it was easy to save up enough for the next game, all were 30 quid each so not much more than Amiga and ST games for a proper cartridge and better gameplay!

I remember sending off my NES to Telegames to get modded, I bought USA Life Force and USA Rambo and when it was delivered I skipped a day from technical college to play Life Force. Happy days.

 

[Bods]

I remember the old black box NES games were like 20-25 from Toys R Us at release, some were 20 but others were 25. I had a few part time jobs and was working a YTS scheme for something like 1 pound an hour, overtime at the weekend was 1.50 an hour on Saturdays and 2 pound an hour on Sundays! I felt rich at the time, no tax or national insurance so I got the lot to spend as I wished, my Mom didn't take anything off me which helped with my spending sprees.

It took ages for the 3rd party games to come out, and they were released at the rate of 1 or 2 a month in the beginning so it was easy to save up enough for the next game, all were 30 quid each so not much more than Amiga and ST games for a proper cartridge and better gameplay!

I remember sending off my NES to Telegames to get modded, I bought USA Life Force and USA Rambo and when it was delivered I skipped a day from technical college to play Life Force. Happy days.

That Telegames place wasn't far from me I found out, have some old price list thing somewhere

Ah, you were another YTS Government Slave, what was it first year, £27.50 I think we got, forget now it was so long ago, Mary might remember she was one too lol

From April 1987, only approved training organisations will be able to take part, after they have satisfied criteria drawn up by the Manpower Services Commission, and a new training standards advisory service will be set up to monitor the quality of the training provided. Trainees will be paid an allowance of £27–30 per week in the first year and £35 per week in the second year.

I can't remember what year I sold my C64, was before I left school because i had Atari ST after and used to get games off mates must of been 87/88
The days when you had to sell old presents to afford later stuff you wanted

 

[Vamino]

That Telegames place wasn't far from me I found out, have some old price list thing somewhere

Ah, you were another YTS Government Slave, what was it first year, £27.50 I think we got, forget now it was so long ago, Mary might remember she was one too lol

From April 1987, only approved training organisations will be able to take part, after they have satisfied criteria drawn up by the Manpower Services Commission, and a new training standards advisory service will be set up to monitor the quality of the training provided. Trainees will be paid an allowance of £27–30 per week in the first year and £35 per week in the second year.

I can't remember what year I sold my C64, was before I left school because i had Atari ST after and used to get games off mates must of been 87/88
The days when you had to sell old presents to afford later stuff you wanted

Yeah, I was one of those government slave labour workers for a bit. My Dad also worked at the place so they paid me 40 quid a week for 40 hours. Now kids are on as much as their parents!
In one way things have got better I suppose.

I sold my C64 and all the games for £100 to a kid at school, when I got the money I went straight into town and bought me a Mattel version NES from Toys R US! I then took it around my mates and him and his brother tried to convince me that Giana Sisters was better than Super Mario Bros. I wasn't having none of it, I'll happily stick to my 2 button NES controller while they can press space bar with their feet! You had to be there to understand the silence in the room whilst they played it, I was happily being smug owning a Japanese console + joypads which could play arcade perfect SMB.

 

[flem]

I remember the ZX Spectrum version by Johnathan Smith. I never saw the arcade until I got a modded Xbox.

 

[TWB]

I spent 1986 as a fresh faced 18 year old working the holiday season at Butlins, Bognor Regis. What times they were

At the time arcades were everywhere around seaside resorts but there was one particular arcade on the camp that I visited most, can't remember the name but it had the best line of arcade cabs ever and one that I had to recreate when I started collecting. Iron Horse, Ghosts 'n' Goblins, Nemesis, Green Beret. If I remember correctly all in Electrocoin cabs. Sadly I no longer have the cabs but I do have Green Beret, Ghosts 'n' Goblins and Iron Horse PCB's, Would like Nemesis but it's out of my price range now.

Green Beret I remember playing through after only a couple of goes and found it quite easy and repetitive but still put coins in. Iron Horse I remember was the loudest cab in the arcade and you could hear the title music over everything in the arcade. Both classic games.

 

[Bods]

I played it a lot on Konami’s Coin Op hits on the Amstrad though. IIRC it had that annoying CPC trait of not really scrolling, or at least scrolling sporadically in chunks.

your right with CPC

C64 pretty smooth scrolling

 

[pooman2084]

Wow, that’s quite a difference in the 2 versions. I’d have been very jealous had I known that 40 years ago!

 

[Bods]

Spectrum head moving like a Chicken

Graphics good on NES but why do they change parts of the game? intro different and music and not even truck at end of level 1

 

[Bods]

Wow, that’s quite a difference in the 2 versions. I’d have been very jealous had I known that 40 years ago!

But then other games were better on CPC than C64, never liked the use of colours on Spectrum games or the sounds much but gameplay was better on some spectrum games than C64 so really we all just needed one of each and games on all of them

Cauldron on the C64 I used to like (attempting) to play, never got far as It took me half the lives to get out the forest and flying

I was sorting out a Spectrum of some sort a good few years back now to sell and Cauldron was with it, I thought cool I'll have a go on it and was like what the hell, a screen at a time, how could you play it like this