Welcome to the fourth installment in my list of my favorites from the "Golden Age of Arcade Games". (See the June, July and August 2026 posts for Parts 1, 2 and 3, respectively). Enjoy!
#6 - Crystal Castles
The maze game Crystal Castles was developed and published by Atari for arcades in 1983. Players control the main character Bentley Bear, a hero who must navigate various 3-D style castle mazes in order to collect gems scattered about. The mazes, with their high walls and intricate patterned pathways, are also populated by many enemies Bentley must avoid. These include trees which speed towards our hero, gem eaters who do just what you'd expect, bee swarms, and Berthilda the Witch, who can be defeated by wearing a magic hat. There are sixteen different playfields, and each level has four waves (castles) players must complete before advancing on to the next one. Bentley collects points for eating gems, eating the last gem on a screen, and picking up bonus items such as honeypots which appear. The goal is to get the highest score and advance as far as possible before losing all lives. And Crystal Castles is unique in the fact that the game has a (programed) ending which displays a congratulatory message to the player who made it all the way.
Falling into what I used to affectionally refer to as the "cutesy-game" category, Crystal Castles was always fun to play. Although it is a maze game at heart, you move Bentley around the screen with the trackball controller through many varying, colorful 3-D style castle screens. The mechanics and movement of the trackball, combined with the enhanced visual landscape, make for a singularly unique playing experience. Beyond that, it also has an entertaining musical accompaniment and is a good example of a game where the backstory resonates on screen. That is, the onscreen graphics really aid in imagining the tale of Bentley Bear moving on his magical quest through an enchanted land inhabited by strange and often dangerous enemies (the witch Berthilda comes to mind here). Overall, it's an example of a great early adventure game.
#5 - Defender
The horizontal space-shooter Defender was developed and published by Williams Electronics in 1981 for arcades here in the U.S. and released by Taito in Japan. The game was a huge hit during the "Golden Age of Arcade Games" and ushered in a wave of similar horizontal scrolling shooters. In Defender you control a fighter ship flying over an unnamed planet trying to destroy hostile alien invaders while also rescuing stranded human astronauts on the surface below. The position and movement of your ship are handled through a combination of controls. Specifically, a stick controls elevation, while separate buttons control ship direction, thrust, firing, smart bombs and hyperspace. The latter two are defensive measures that eliminate all enemies on the screen and make your ship disappear and reappear in a random position, respectively. Humans abducted by aliens and carried to the top of the screen before being rescued turn into fast-moving "mutants". And losing the stranded astronauts will eventually result in the planet exploding and a nasty fight ensuing with swarms of these enemies in deep dark space. An extra life and smart bomb are awarded at every 10,000 points, and the game ends when all ships (lives) have been exhausted.
Defender from Williams Electronics (arcade)
I always found Defender, more so than many games, to be obscenely fast-paced and deceptively difficult. The action is relentless right from the start, and despite having a radar scanner at the top of the screen which shows the position of all objects relative to the planet, the enemies seem to always have a way of being right on top of your ship in seconds. That means players must be extremely comfortable with the (admittedly complex) controls and have very agile reflexes as well. Laying down a blanket of fire towards the enemies just off-screen is a strategy I've often used, but this of course runs the risk of inadvertently hitting the human astronauts being brought to the top. Smart bombs can save the day when a player is about to be overwhelmed, but they are very scarce and can get used up quickly if you're not careful. However, despite the steep level of difficulty leading to many very short games, Defender provides the kind of adrenaline rush which begs for another quarter to be dropped into the slot. So, it's no wonder this space shoot 'em up was a best-seller for Williams which helped put the company on the map.
#4 - Star Castle
My April 2025 blog post covered both the arcade version of Star Castle and the Champ Games version for the Atari 2600. So, for this entry in the list, I'll use part of what I wrote there:
Star Castle is a vector-based game with a rich history which was originally released to arcades in 1980 by Cinematronics. Using button controls, you command a ship trying to destroy an enemy cannon in the middle of space which is protected by three rotating energy rings. Your ship can rotate, thrust around, and fire missiles which destroy segments of the rings with two hits. When an entire ring is destroyed, the two inner rings expand outward and a new inner ring generates, thereby protecting the cannon again. If a gap in the rings is created, the cannon is vulnerable to your missiles with a well-placed shot. However, the cannon also becomes more dangerous by firing large projectiles through those gaps that aim to destroy your ship. Additionally, three homing mines pose a constant threat by continually pursuing you. These are released as ring segments are destroyed, and they must be avoided or shot. Points are earned for shooting ring segments and destroying the cannon with that aforementioned well-placed shot. The colorful look of the game, including the ships, mines, and most notably the multi-colored energy ring segments, was created through the use of a color overlay on the cabinet.
Stay tuned for my next post where I will conclude my "Best Of" arcade games list.
