The history of the innovative twin stick early 1980s arcade game Please visit my Patreon at / pdbowl Follow me on Twitter at / pdqc1971 Follow me on Facebook at www.facebook.c...
Remember playing this in the arcade. It was very hot for a while. When Donkey Kong came out, we all saw the ape and the company name with Ni as the first too letters and assumed it was the same company.
The hairdresser my mom went to when I was a kid had this cab in his back room set on free play. I’d spend the entire time in there playing this game while my mom got her hair done. Thought it was the coolest thing that it was free!
I don’t recall seeing this back in the day but was lucky to find an arcade at a Freeplay a year or so ago. It takes a bit to get the knack of the controls but very unique and creative! I saw about it on Johns Arcade. On a side note, anyone know if John will come out with new content or has a quit other than his podcast?
I always hit up Crazy Climber when I visit home and me and my childhood friends hit the retro arcade Pinball Palace in PA. I think Crazy Climber made me curse more than any other arcade game. As for various ports, I think I remember a Commodore 64 version being released. I could be wrong, maybe you can confirm. Excellent video.
The Bally Astrocade is one of my favorite systems! Rare to see it mentioned. :) Not 100% Crazy Climber, but there's a game on the C64 called Squish 'em, which is somewhat similar. Worth a play if you get a chance. :)
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries That's a good question. I remember the music quite clearly, but not sure if it had voice or not. Now I'm going to have to play it. :D
WoooW man if this game imspired shigaru myomoto to come with a donkeykong game i wouldn’t be surprised about that,but i also wouldn’t be surprised if space panic also became the inspiration to donkeykong as well🤣 Not only that i wouldn’t be surprised if nintendo also created ice climber as an inspiration of this game as well.
I only got to play this game once back in the day, the only time I saw it anywhere. The character was obviously meant to be an African american and the sounds were different, but the name was the same.
Great video! Crazy Climber and Rally X were the 2 very first arcades I saw and played, around 1981, here in Spain, I was like 6. I fell in love with them immediately.
This game with its weird controls and sound effects fascinated me as a kid. It was in an arcade right next to me granma's house and I really sucked at it!
Yeah. The first time I saw Crazy Climber, there were three or four arcade units lined up next to one another in a relatively small arcade. This was so long ago, and such an early memory in my childhood, that I misinterpreted what I was seeing as some insane guy who had decided to crawl along railroad tracks (which technically makes better sense than somebody being able to reach from story to story). It wasn't until I got my hands on a Nichibutsu collection for PS1 that I realized the same company had made the first arcade game I'd ever played (Moon Cresta). I think I did pretty well to make it to the final wave as a kid who could barely form a permanent memory. I was wondering if you'd mention how CC on the 2600 was a fanclub exclusive. A friend of mine at school actually lent me that cartridge. I had to be impressed at the effort they put into a game that they knew would only see very limited sales.
@@PatmanQC-Arcade-Documentaries I'm not sure which I enjoyed more in that game: being smacked in the head with toasters and flowerpots *or* snacking on the women who assaulted me.
It's the gorilla really called King Kong, or was that just your shorthand? Universal sued Nintendo for Donkey Kong (and lost) arguing that the Kong part of his name was copyright infringement.
This reminds me... 3 Cheers for Jermaine..and noo, I'm not talking about of Jackson5 fame but rather--> Mon July 22, 2019 (CNN) The man who scaled a burning 19-story building in West Philadelphia last week wasn't trying to escape the flames, as people initially assumed. The man, identified only as Jermaine, was climbing to the 15th floor to save his bedridden mother. And he did it all with an injured hip.
When reaching King Kong in the first version, the monkey uses the same sample that Mario uses in Monkey Donkey, realised the year after, when he jumps. HIYAaaaaa
Bought the game on my Nintendo Switch recently (half price from the Eshop sale) and I already love it. (The Arcade Archives/Hamster version also let's you cheat a bit by adding in up to 6 lives.) Indeed a very underrated classic. (The balloon music is nice too.) Hard to believe it was made by the creator of Bomberman.
Brings back memories of getting in trouble for being late to dinner because I was really good at this game at my local arcade... 8 on the Break in Dunellen, NJ. The arcade is still there today. Thank you for the memories... particularly this game.
Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it as you have over 176 comments already but have you heard of anther arcade game like Crazy Climber called Fire Trap? Check it out you will be glad you did. PS: Love your work mate, very entertaining and informative not many people can pull that off. www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7813
And of course a lot of these were converted to crazy kongs hence the different sound FX because crazy kong used the crazy climber sound FX. When I first tried this game I just couldn't handle the controls and I assume that was one of it's downfalls-a lack of intuitive gameplay. Like the video says once the controls click it's great but back in the day we were used to left,right and fire.
Yes as a kid we only had crazy long. It actually took me many years until I played the real donkey Kong through mame and realized what a shitty clone crazy long actually was. Still I loved crazy Kong. With that the music and sounds was for me how I felt Mario should sound. Especially the “hoja” expression when he jumps. So I was could not understand why Nintendo has dropped this great sound in super Mario etc. When Mario 64 was released and Mario said “ho” when jumping I though “finally they brought back the jump expression, not a day to soon” Only long time after did I realized that the real donkey Kong never had any jump expression just a sound.
Hey patman. Please tell people that there is a way to play Crazy Climber on Mame using keyboard. The key e is for up for left hand. d pull up. f is lean right. s is lean left. Then for right hand, i is for up. k is for pull up. j is for lean left. And L is for lean right. So now people can download the rom and load it with Mame.
10:56 The first thing that you notice is this game, Sucks! Lol but seriously, thanks for putting all the info together it is very interesting I used to love this game.
I enjoy playing this one in MAME. I own a 2-player tankstick which means I have enough joysticks to play it properly. Fun fact: the lucky balloon music is based on the theme from Doraemon.
One of the few classics in that era I totally missed. I'm sure it had to have been around somewhere but I never remember seeing it. Shame too. Creativity was at it's max. So many unique games everywhere, most developed by 2 or 3 people.. You don't see that kind of innovation anymore. Just reskinned copies of "sure things". Teams of 100's can't make anything original now.
I first played this in Fun City (a Arcade in Ft. Smith, AR) back in 1983 I was 6 at the time when I played this. This was my first game that I rage quit on, but fell in love with it as a adult via MAME. I have yet to see another cab in the wild since the last time I played it in 1984. I also knew of one kid that had the 2600 version of the game, but he would not let any one play it saying that only Atari Club members can play it (my first run in with a video game elitist/snob.)
Being almost forty years old, you'd never catch me posting something as juvenile as "First"... However... I do believe I am *FIRST* !!!! 😀 Damn, that felt good.... Edit: My family are now deeply ashamed and walked out 🥺
@@ItsLine30 Ha! Love it!!! Thanks for sharing that bud 👍 😂 You have my word, I promise never to be "First" at anything ever again. That also includes when in bed with Mrs Elect too. Poor moo has always been in second place for a very long time!!
This game is a long forgotten gem that not too many video game players nowadays remember. I remember that there was this TINY arcade near my house that had about 10 machines in it, and this was one of them. I have so many memories of this little arcade, and I still remember being amazed when I walked in the door, and this machine, "Berzerk" started yelling out, "STOP THE HUMANOID!!! INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!". I grew up loving these machines and still think fondly of them today. Also, when I was a kid, in the early 70's, my mother was in a bowling league. She would usually take me with her, and I would bring along a bag full of stuff to keep myself occupied while she bowled. They had an arcade in the bowling alley, and I used to spend a ton of time in there. I would ask my mother for quarters, and I would usually get one dollar. I had to figure out how to stretch those four quarters. Once they were gone, I still wanted to play the games, but didn't have the cash. BUT, what I did do was study each game, go back to my bag of busy-work stuff, pull out the construction paper, pens, and crayons, and I would design and build BOARD GAMES of the games I wanted to play. I usually made them solo games, because there usually was no one to play them with. I would figure out a rule set, and just.. make these board games. In the 70's, I ended up with this entire shelf full of video game board games that I had made. And these games were often quite complex. They weren't "role and move to race to the end games" that most kids designed. These were complete simulations of the video games complete with rules and charts and everything to govern movement of everything, and random chance events. Everything in these games worked just like their video game counterparts. I often had trouble convincing anyone my age to play the two player versions of these games with me simply because they were too complex for most of the kids I knew. The rule books for some of them were up to 10-20 hand written pages.
I'd like to know how "The Entertainer" was still in copyright in 1981. That song was recorded in the 19th century. It is one of the first commercial song recordings.
Well apart from some inspiration and concepts the game design and gameplay is very very different. This was inspired by King Kong and other games. Donkey Kong was inspired by this game, even more so space panic. And King Kong. This game is mention here as a platform game. But there is nothing that follows the definition of a platform game in ties core mechanics. Great and innovative games though. A true classic
Yup, firetrap pretty much a spiritual successor by data east, great blocky fun conversion on c64 despite some cheap-feeling deaths when crap suddenly appears directly above you 👍🏼
I loved this game as a kid! Why were all the later versions only released in Japan. This was the only game that I became overly obsessed with as I have always had architectural aspirations and this game had appeal that none other have cause as I tell people these days “ I’m not a gamer!”
Here are a few games to consider in a retro review documentary....cobra command, pig skin, cyber ball, space lords , escspe from the planet of the robot monsters...😇
As a teen I always marveled at the players who could get to the top. Never knew Bally had a home console system. I really enjoy the thorough attention you give to obscure but important games of the arcade golden age.
A friend of mine Had a Bally system growing up And the only thing I can recall is that was a lot more expensive than the 2600. I Don't recall much else about it :-)
Wow.......I played sooooooo much Crazy Climber back in the day. I didn't even know about the Playstation version, so will definitely have to check that one out since it's on PSN for the PS3.
