The first Arcade game created around a rock band, Journey lets you control each of the five members of the popular (primarily in the 1980s) super group, Journey. As lead singer Steve Perry, your job is to start at the top and work your way through a maze of moving turnstiles to a microphone at the bottom of the screen. Once you have the microphone, you must shoot at rows of passing turnstiles. When in the role of lead guitarist Neal Schon, you must navigate a cavern using your jetpack. After grabbing a guitar, your objective is to fly though the cave while dodging rockets.
As keyboardist Jonathan Cain, you work your way down conveyor belts while jumping over piano keys. Once you reach the piano, you fire at vertical rows of circular objects that converge from the edges of the screen inward. When controlling drummer Steve Smith, you jump back and forth between drums, turning them from yellow to blue. After getting behind the drums, you get to shoot at flying infinity symbols.
Let's not forget about bassist Ross Valory. While controlling him you must jump between elevators in an attempt to reach the bass guitar at the top of the playfield. After achieving your goal, your next task is to shoot downward at cannons that are firing record albums.
Your overall goal is to recover the various instruments for each of the band members. Each game within a game has two phases: recovering the instrument and returning it to the Scarab vehicle.
In a special bonus round, you assume the role of Herbie, Journey's tour manager/roadie. Here you must block fans entering any of the three doors on stage. If any one of the fans get past you, all of them rush the stage and steal the instruments once again. During this stage, a cassette loop tape of "Separate Ways" contained in the machine's cabinet plays in the background. Electronic versions of several other Journey songs play throughout the game.
Each of the band members in this game are represented by their own black and white digitized faces positioned atop cartoon bodies. Journey is one of the very first videogames to feature digitized graphics.
~ Brett Alan Weiss, All Game Guide
Roots & Influences
This game is based on the members of the real rock band Journey, who are all Arcade game afficianados. This game was created at the height of their popularity, and the design was most likely influenced by shooters such as Space Invaders and Galaga.
This title was preceded by another featuring the group called Journey Escape for the Atari 2600.
~ Brett Alan Weiss, All Game Guide
Production Credits
Designed by: Marvin Glass and Associates; Created by: Richard & Elaine Ditton (founders of Incredible Technologies)
Journey is an arcade game made by Bally Midway in the 1980s. In 1983, the release of the Frontiers album brought the band Journey to the forefront of 1980s rock music. Bally/Midway decided to ride this wave of popularity and created an arcade game based on the band. The game was intended to be released to coincide with a US tour by the band, and hence a second team of developers (Incredible Technologies) were drafted in over the Christmas period to finish the game.
The featured members of the band are: Steve Perry, Neal Schon, Steve Smith, Jonathan Cain and Ross Valory. Although they have cartoon bodies, the faces of the members are shown as black and white photographs, taken of the band while on tour. The photo technology was originally to be used in another game, which would take photos for the high scores. However, the game in question failed location testing when one player flashed the camera.[1]
The game starts out with the player choosing one of five planets to travel to. Each planet features a minigame starring one of the Journey band members, with the objective of collecting his musical instrument (or, in the case of Steve Perry, a microphone).
Once the instruments are collected Journey performs a concert. During the concert sequence, an edited, looped version of "Separate Ways" is played through a cassette player inside the machine. The nature of these units mean that very few are still in good working order, which could explain why the game is quite scarce at this point, rarely being seen at arcades.
In the "Connect" section of the June 2007 issue of Game Informer magazine, Journey was number 9 on the "Top 10 Worst Licensed Game Ideas (ever)".
The band would also be in a video game for the Atari 2600, titled Journey Escape.
