‘I hope all your troubles get zapped’
The Shout! Factory Twitch channel has begun its six-day marathon of ’80s arcade game show Starcade, featuring hapless contestants competing on the biggest games of the initial arcade boom for some amusingly repetitive prizes.
The Starcade show, which ran from 1982 to 1983, was hosted by the disinterested Mark Richards and then the much-more welcoming Geoff Edwards. It features players, or teams of players, score-attack games such as Mappy, Pole Position, Star Wars and Donkey Kong Jr. with the ultimate aim of winning their very own arcade cab.
It is a bit clunky, but delightfully quaint, featuring a cool neon set, some great (and not-so-great,) games, hilariously mismatched opponents, occasional ’80s saltiness, and more metal detector prizes than you can handle. It’s definitely worth tuning in for a look at a bygone age, a more innocent time just before the Video Game Crash put everyone out of business.
The Starcade marathon will run until September 3. If you need any more reason to check it out, they sometimes screen MST3K clips between episodes!
