Journey

"It has all the qualities of a great game. Challenging, Entertaining, and...Journey"

Journey Escape back on the Atari was considered a flop but to some like me, I liked it. Bally/Midway decided their hands at giving Journey an arcade game and it was a success. Just simply called Journey, this game was released for the Frontiers tour and was playable at their concerts. Being born 7 years after the arcade release and being that there only so few made, the only way I could play it was via Mame.

The game's storyline is Journey's instruments have been stolen by aliens and now they have to go to 5 galaxies to get them back. For today's time, this plot seems cliche and overdone but back then it was awesome. The characters are all cartoony with the exception of their black and white colors of their actual heads. You get to choose which level you want to do first so you can come up with a strategy on which level's you're bad at do it at your own style. The music is all Journey with Lights playing at the level select, Wheel in the Sky for Steve Smith's level, Keep on Runnin' for Ross Valory's stage, Stone in Love plays for Jonathan Cain, Neal Schon is Chain Reaction, Steve Perry's is Don't Stop Believin', even when you die you hear Who's Crying Now.

The overall game is pretty much exactly like Tron, which you choose an area and it has a different goal. Steve Smith's level is the most unoriginal, Jumping on drums to turn them blue to get drums. Ross Valory's is jumping on Green things which towers come out and you use these to get to his bass. Jonathan Cain's level is jumping over gates to get to his famed Red Piano. Neal Schon's level is that he's on a jet pack and you have to guide him through a cave without touching walls to get his guitar. Last but not least, Steve Perry's level involves moving through revolving gates to get his microphone. Unlike Tron, each level isn't random and each level has two parts which involve blasting hoards of "Aliens" to get back to the ship. A random fact that makes this ironic is that when Tron the Movie came out in 1982, Journey wrote a few songs for the movie and Bally/Midway released the Arcade game based on the movie. A year later, when deciding what genre of game Journey was going to be, I guess Bally/Midway decided to make it similar to Tron for the fact they were involved on the Tron movie project which was based on the game.

Another amusing factor in this game is the dying scene. All but Steve Perry fall and just kick in rage. Steve Perry just looks like he gets kicked in the balls which is kind of funny. If you manage to get through all 5 levels without losing all your lives, you get to move on to the bonus stage where you play as I guess Herbie Herbert and prevent fans from getting on Stage while Journey is performing Separate Ways which made the game unique and scarce because of the tape that would play during the bonus stage. This is one that gets impossible really fast and don't be discouraged if you lose because that's the fun of arcade. Once you get the instruments taken away by the fans, you have to start again and no matter how many times you go through, it just gets harder and harder. Here's my breakdown of Journey.

Story/Concept: 5/5- Get Journey's instruments back from Aliens so they can perform again.

Graphics: 5/5- The Cartoony style is done pretty well with black and white photos of the members heads

Sound: 5/5- The midi Journey songs are spot on and they fit in all the stages

Controls: 3/5- For whatever reason, my computer controller would misinterpret a button input many of times resulting in cheap deaths.

Overall: This is one of those arcade gems that got buried right after the fall of the arcades and thus become a scarce and very hard arcade game to come by. However if you find a good MAME emulator, you should be fine. I'm kind of sad that this game didn't get resurrected and ported on to future consoles. But to quote a popular song, Don't Stop Believin' because hopefully this game will find new life on the big 3 consoles.

Tilt- High

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 11/09/09, Updated 11/13/09

Game Release: Journey (US, 1983)