Description: "The Hottest Band In The Country Is About To Take Over The Planet!"-taken from the game flyer.

Journey was released by Bally/Midway in 1983 at the height of Journey's popularity in the early 80's following the release of the albums Escape and Frontiers. The game features the then current line-up of Steve Perry (vocals), Neal Schon (guitar), Ross Valory (bass), Jonathan Cain (keyboards), and Steve Smith (drums) as they attempt to retrieve their instruments that have been stolen. The game begins with the band jumping on board their "Scarab" space ship, modeled after the scarab beetle featured on many of the band's album covers, and fly into a portal located on the forehead of a large blue alien face with a space helmet (taken from the Frontiers album cover) with the player then having their choice of five planets/galaxies to travel to. In each area the player has to navigate one of the band members through various obstacles to reach their instrument and then fight their way back to the ship. Once all five areas have been cleared a special sixth mission becomes available where the player takes on the role of "Herbie" who acts as a bouncer deflecting fans, sometimes known as "groupoids", from rushing the stage. Should any make it, they swarm the stage and steal the instruments again and the player then repeats the process of retrieving the band's instruments at a higher difficulty. The game was Bally/Midway's attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the band during that era. The game featured the digitized heads of the group placed onto cartoon bodies. Upon it's release the game was heavily criticized by critics, however, the game is considered a collectors item by Journey fans and coin-op collectors alike.

Game Play: The game is divided into five separate areas, one for each band member, plus a bonus sixth area once all instruments have been retrieved. In each area players must first guide the band member to their instrument and then fight their way back to the ship. Each area has a midi style song taken from Journey's catalog.

STEVE PERRY: Players must navigate through a series of turnstiles to reach Steve Perry's microphone. Once it is obtained the player then uses it to shoot their way back to the ship. The background music is "Don't Stop Believin" from the album Escape.

NEAL SCHON: Players must navigate via jet pack through a cavern to reach Neal Schon's guitar. Once obtained the player navigates back the way they came while shooting various obstacles. The background music is "Chain Reaction" from the album Frontiers.

ROSS VALORY: Players must navigate up the screen via platforms with risers inside to reach Ross Valory's bass. Once the player has obtained it they must then shoot and dodge projectiles fired from cannons now atop the platforms. The background music is "Keep On Runnin" from the album Escape.

JONATHAN CAIN: Players must descend a series of walkways that have rotating barriers the player must jump over to reach Jonathan Cain's piano (sort of a reverse of Donkey Kong). Once obtained the player has to shoot rows of discs while ascending back to the top. The background music is "Stone In Love" from the album Escape.

STEVE SMITH: Players must bounce on a series of rotating drums turning each one from red to blue. Once that has been accomplished Steve Smith automatically retrieves his drum set and players must shoot their way back to the ship (sort of a reverse of Galaga). The background music is “Wheel In The Sky” from the album Infinity.

BONUS CONCERT STAGE: Players take control of "Herbie" and move left and right deflecting groupoids attempting to rush the stage. The speed and number of groupoids increases as the level continues until one of the groupoids slips past Herbie and they storm the stage, retaking the band's instruments. The background music for this stage is “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” from the album Frontiers. The music for this stage was a section of the song looped on a cassette tape stored within the cabinet and played back, this is why there is no music for this stage when played on an emulator.

Journey Review

Difficulty: 7 
The game is not overly difficult in terms of game play although the game does increase in difficulty as you progress. The controls may take some getting used to as each stage has different controls for various actions. Another challenge is learning the physics of each stage as this also varies. The true difficulty is with the controls themselves. In some stages the control scheme changes completely once players have retrieved that stage's instrument and can often lead to a losing a life while trying to adjust quickly. Once players get used to the controls and game physics, game play becomes much easier yet remains challenging as the difficulty increases.

Depth: 6
The game offers a total of six stages that repeat with increasing difficulty. The only real change with each increase is enemy and instrument placement and the speed of enemies and moving obstacles. The layout of each stage remains the same. The different controls for each stage is a nice touch, breaking up how players progress depending on the selected stage and before and after retrieving the instruments. The only notable downside in this area is that despite the difficulty increasing, it is still the same six stages with the same layout, just with different enemy patterns and speed.

Story: 7
"Wild Alien Groupoids Have Seized Journey's Electro Supercharged Instruments. Your Mission Is To Help Journey Retrieve Their Instruments From The Dangers Of The Five Galaxies. Trek Through Hazardous Obstacles In Quest Of Each Instrument Then Battle Your Way Back To The Scarab Vehicle. When All Five Missions Are Completed Journey Begins A Spectacular Concert At The Galactic Stadium. Journey Plays Their Hit Song While Herbie Guards The Stage From Frenzied Groupoids Who Are Trying To Take The Instruments" - taken from the games attraction screen. The story is about Journey's quest to reclaim their stolen instruments that blends sci-fi elements taken from the band's cover for Frontiers. It parallels Journey's rise to fame during the height of their popularity, and taking it from a global phenomenon in real life to an intergalactic one within the game's story line. An added touch is giving the band members an action/super hero role within the story. The really nice part is that unlike most games from this era there is an actual story involved, with the "ending" being the playable concert stage and then having the story continue at a higher level of difficulty.

Addictiveness: 6   
The main drawing point of the game is actually getting to play as the band members themselves, the first arcade game that lets players do so. Like most games from that era there is no actual ending, so the game's replay value is in seeing how far you can progress with the increasing difficulty. Another added bonus is completing the five main stages and seeing how long you can last in the bonus concert stage, as game play continues as long as you keep the groupoids away from the band's stage. Advanced players may find the game to become repetitive after extended play since, as I covered in the depth section, it is the same six stages that repeat with a higher difficulty.

Sound: 5
The game features seven songs from Journey's catalog with six of the songs played in a midi style format. Along with the songs from the five main stages, "Lights" from the album Infinity is played as the band boards the ship at the beginning of the game. These songs are faithful interpretations of the originals and tie the levels together nicely. The seventh song played during the concert stage is where the format changes, it is also why the sound score gets a lower rating. The original arcade cabinet contained a cassette player that would play a section of "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)" on a continuous loop. The major drawbacks of this were flaws in the tape, such as the tape being broken, tangled, stretched, or partly or completely erased, or malfunctions with the cassette player. This often resulted in either poor quality sound or no sound at all apart from in game sound effects. Another serious drawback to this format is that, as of yet, it is unable to be reproduced by an emulator. This has the rather comical effect of making it seem like the band forgot to plug in their instruments or that they are dancing to the "boing" sound made when groupoids are being deflected by Herbie. Anyone who has this song on any of their devices can correct this flaw by playing it on this stage. When/if it becomes possible to replicate this on an emulator this will easily change from the lowest to the highest in my review.

Graphics: 7
The game was one of the first to utilize digitized graphics, in this case digital pictures of the band member's heads. Several pictures of each member's heads were taken from various sources and used for different animations such as looking up or down, getting hit by an enemy, or completing the stage. The heads were rendered in black and white and placed on small animated bodies, with each body unique to each member and had animations corresponding with the head animation. The game also uses many of images and themes associated with the band such as the scarab and the artwork for Frontiers and incorporate them into game play. The downside is that so much detail is given to these areas that the stages themselves seem bland in comparison, giving some stages an almost unfinished look to them. Taking into consideration the limits of the technology of the time, the developers likely saw this as unavoidable as emphasis was placed on the digital rendering of the band and it's music and imagery. 

Overall: 6.7
All in all this is a rather enjoyable game. It may not be the best game that I have played from this era but it is by far not the worst. As with anything in life it has it's good points and it's bad points. The game's use of digitized graphics was innovative, paving the way for future successes from Midway with Pit Fighter and the first three Mortal Kombat games. The game is also innovative for using a commercially successful band and it's music as the centerpiece of a coin-op game (not counting the KISS pinball game from the late 70's) with faithful interpretations of the music in midi style format and the use of the band's likeness through the aforementioned digitized graphics. The cassette player within the cabinet was also innovative for it's time, unfortunately the cassette and the player would often fall victim to the same issues many household cassette players had at the time that left a big hole in the overall audio quality of the game. Another downside to the game was the over emphasis on the band's graphics and under emphasis on some of the stages graphics, almost giving the game a too-much-too-soon-too-fast look and feel at times. That being said this game is not for everybody, newer generations of gamers may not find this game to their liking when compared to modern games. Even some modern fans of the genre may not find this to their liking, but to Journey fans and old school coin-op fans this game still has appeal and the original coin-op cabinet is considered a collectors item among both groups. I do not know the actual value myself but I would hazard a guess that one with a functioning cassette player is worth more. With technology always advancing the day may come when the audio can be accurately be emulated in it's entirety and make the game complete. As for me, this game brings back some fond memories of when I was a kid wandering around the arcade with pockets full of quarters, waiting to see what worlds the next game I played would take me to 

MoeDiggy372 : Great review. Got me psyched to play at least... Brought back fond arcade memories this guy. Now let's drop some quarters!

Ferdinand Marcos : Thank you! It was my first attempt at a review. I hope to do more down the road.

This is your first review? Amazing! This is much better than my first review. I can't wait to see more reviews from you.

LunarDarkness2 : Thank you very much and I do plan on doing more eventually.