LogFAQs > #949818318

52. Q*Bert (Arcade, 1982)

Q*Bert's my favorite old-school arcade game. Shrouded in the weird geometric shapes and goofy green and purple enemies is a pretty basic concept - move around the block pyramid to land atop each of the blue squares, turning them yellow, as enemies chase you around. The game has a more clearly defined progression than a lot of other old high-score games; each stage changes color to mark it clearly from the rest, and a new "level" adds a new gimmick to the color-switching, maybe it's having to jump on each square twice, or the squares switching back and forth so you have to plan a more cohesive path. Most of the enemy types are pretty straightforward, and though some of them are more tricky and annoying than others they all feel like they mesh excellently with the game's basic mechanics.
I ended up only really getting into Q*Bert off of a friend's PS3 arcade classics version, where we'd trade off to beat each others' high scores. Since then, it's a game I always seek out when I spot it at an arcade; I took this pic at like 2 AM while drunk at a barcade in Cincinnati 5 years ago:

This isn't a super impressive high score or anything, but I had a hell of a time rolling through the game trying to take the top score. Sometimes it's the little things that stand out, and I'm sure this goofy memory didn't hurt me from throwing it up to 52. But I love a good high-score game (as a couple games later on will attest to) and even though I've never taken to a lot of the old arcade classics, I do love me some Q*Bert.

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