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Ready Player One
Group Reads Discussions 2011
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"Ready Player One" The Nostalgia Factor(Unmarked Spoilers)
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The biggest nostalgia bit for me was the game Adventure. We played the hell out of that when I was a kid. A lot of the other stuff didn't do anything for me since I'm 10 years older than Cline, so all the kiddie shows of that era were things I ignored. A lot of the stuff hitting pop culture nostalgia these days -- Transformers, Thundercats, He-Man, TMNT, etc. -- I was too old for.
I had to look up every one of the robots mentioned at the end except for Supaidaman and Ultraman, because those were actually from *my* youth, not Cline's. (In the late 60s and early 70s, my local TV station would run Speed Racer and Ultraman back-to-back in the early afternoon. That set the geek hook early.)
I think the War Games section and the Arcade were big bits for me. I remember loving that movie back then. And going to an arcade with a pocketful of quarters(tokens sometimes) and just wasting away hours and hours at the cabinets.
I thought to myself "try Joshua" as the password when the main character was trying to discover the password.As a child of the 80's, who grew up at the same time as Halliday's character, the book game me a lot of memories.
I also did have a weak spot for the movie Ladyhawke from some reason. I think that it was caused by watching it with some girl I liked.
I hated then and continue to still despise Rush.
I particularly appreciated the Zork interlude.
Andrea wrote: "I particularly appreciated the Zork interlude."I adored that game. :D
The two nostalgia bits that really got me was that "Tomb of Horrors" and Rush's 2112 album were both important to helping Wade solve the quest. Rush is my favorite band, and I played through "Tomb of Horrors" way back in the 80's, though my knowledge of it is fuzzy these days to say the least.
The overall scope of the 80's pop/geek culture, and how it was important to the quest to find the egg, really made this enjoyable. I think I would have rated this book 3 stars just on the story alone, it gets 2 more for integrating so many of my favorite things into this story.
The overall scope of the 80's pop/geek culture, and how it was important to the quest to find the egg, really made this enjoyable. I think I would have rated this book 3 stars just on the story alone, it gets 2 more for integrating so many of my favorite things into this story.
I'll admit that I squeed a bit when "Tempest" turned out to be part of the endgame. I worked at a Chuck E. Cheese back in the day, and after closing, they would sometimes just let us play for a while. Tempest was my machine.Zork also made me very happy; I'm assuming Wade had a torch the whole time, as there were no grue sightings.
Rush is my favorite band ... so it made me smile to see their music mentioned here.I don't know if this is the right thread, but I felt like it took forever for Wade to make the Captain Crunch whistle/phone phreak connection with the second (?) key. My first SO was aware of that incident and had mentioned it to me ... so it seemed surprising to me that Wade didn't catch on for a while.
Snail in Danger (Sid) wrote: "Rush is my favorite band ... so it made me smile to see their music mentioned here.
I don't know if this is the right thread, but I felt like it took forever for Wade to make the Captain Crunch wh..."
Yay! Another fellow Rush fan :-)
Regarding the Captain Crunch thing, I kinda see your point. On the other hand, it did take Wade 5 years to figure out that the Tomb of Horrors was on Ludus. Or perhaps the author needed to demonstrate that Wade was fallible, with gaps in his knowledge.
I don't know if this is the right thread, but I felt like it took forever for Wade to make the Captain Crunch wh..."
Yay! Another fellow Rush fan :-)
Regarding the Captain Crunch thing, I kinda see your point. On the other hand, it did take Wade 5 years to figure out that the Tomb of Horrors was on Ludus. Or perhaps the author needed to demonstrate that Wade was fallible, with gaps in his knowledge.
Although all the references brought back a rush of nostalgia for me, the movie references were my favorite. Monty Python almost goes without saying, and I was a huge Wargames fan. I'm also glad I'm not the only one with a major crush on Ladyhawke. Michelle Pfeiffer won me over for good there:)
Nostalgia galore for me. I played Zork and Adventure both. And, sadly, at least two of the computers I grew up with were NOT listed in the book: a home built Digital Group computer and a Xerox 820 running C/PM. My favorite game, even more so than Adventure, was one called Nemesis by Supersoft. It's Rogue-like (which I prefer to an all-text based interactive story-type). I even found a copy of it via a Google search and am looking for a C/PM emulator so I can really revisit the 'good ole days.' In the meantime, I'll login to Aardwolf and get a quick fix there. Wargames and Ladyhawke are both two of my favorite movies from that era. And Rush, of course, is one of my favorite bands (after Styx and Kansas). The minute he described the star and circle I had a flashback to the albums gathering dust in my basement storage area. My husband's band covers older Rush songs.
I am very glad he didn't spend much time on the fashions of the day and I ignored most of the other music references (as I was a metal head and refused to listen to pop music). I played nearly all the arcade games mentioned EXCEPT for Tempest. I've got to go do more Googling to find out more about that game.
You never played Tempest?
Man, I spent hours just spinning around that damned game. That and the tank simulator. So many quarters...
Man, I spent hours just spinning around that damned game. That and the tank simulator. So many quarters...
Jon wrote: "My husband's band covers older Rush songs. "
Very cool! :-) I've thrown a few Rush covers into a set in previous bands. "Red Barchetta" is perhaps my favorite to play.
Ala wrote: "You never played Tempest?
Man, I spent hours just spinning around that damned game. That and the tank simulator. So many quarters..."
Tank simulator? Do you mean Battlezone? That was a fun game.
Very cool! :-) I've thrown a few Rush covers into a set in previous bands. "Red Barchetta" is perhaps my favorite to play.
Ala wrote: "You never played Tempest?
Man, I spent hours just spinning around that damned game. That and the tank simulator. So many quarters..."
Tank simulator? Do you mean Battlezone? That was a fun game.
Battlezone, that's the one. They had q couple cabinets at the Ralphs grocery store near my house when I was a kid. Tempest, centipede and battlezone. The battlezone one had this periscope deal you had to look through to play.
Coolest game cabinet I'd ever seen at the time. Though thinking back on it and how many gross adolescent smudged their face against that periscope makes me a bit ill.
Coolest game cabinet I'd ever seen at the time. Though thinking back on it and how many gross adolescent smudged their face against that periscope makes me a bit ill.
There was an arcade down the street from where I lived in Anaheim that I would go to after school, nearly everyday, if I had quarters. I would save my milk money and dig through pay phones and newspaper vending machines for spare quarters. All the games mentioned in “Ready Player One”, plus so many others. Battlezone and Tempest were favorites, as well as Missile Command and a Star Trek game that appeared not long after the first movie came out. Many fond memories of that place. I think it’s a restaurant now.
Despite the atrocious soundtrack, I think that Ladyhawke was genius! I loved that movie!
Laurel wrote: "Despite the atrocious soundtrack, I think that Ladyhawke was genius! I loved that movie!"Sigh ... am I the only Alan Parsons fan here? :)
Ala wrote: "You never played Tempest?Man, I spent hours just spinning around that damned game. That and the tank simulator. So many quarters..."
I went and found a screenshot at Wikipedia of Tempest ... I think I played it a couple of times, but not obsessively.
Born in 1981, I think I'm just a little younger than the "target" reader for most of the 80s stuff, but as I'm a huge dork I still got a lot of it. I wasn't old enough for video games until the good old ones were being replaced. I think being in the Monty Python movie would be a blast- a friend and I used to recite the whole movie during cross country practice in high school. (Hence, the odd looks and unpopularity.) I still have an Atari somewhere around here.
One thing I didn't see any references to was She-Ra and He-Man. I found my sister's old she-ra castle in my parents' basement the other day and it brought back memories. I guess those cartoons were too dorky for the geeks.
Oh yeah, I found my old Amiga Commodore 64, too. I remember when my dad brought it home and said "it's the best computer out there." =)
The Aimdoggg wrote: "Oh yeah, I found my old Amiga Commodore 64, too. I remember when my dad brought it home and said "it's the best computer out there." =)"
I remember when my Dad brought home a C64, he said much the same. Besides games, I also used it to keep track of my comics. Yup, huge nerd :-)
I remember when my Dad brought home a C64, he said much the same. Besides games, I also used it to keep track of my comics. Yup, huge nerd :-)
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Any fond memories brought up? Anything you'd rather have forgotten?
Any favorite bits?
Post em here, no need for spoiler tags.