Journey

Manufacturer: Bally Midway
Year: 1983
Type: Videogame

Class: Wide Release
Genre: Platform
Monitor:

Orientation: Vertical
Type: Raster: Standard Resolution
CRT: Color

Conversion Class: Midway MCR III
Number of Simultaneous Players: 1
Maximum number of Players: 2
Gameplay: Alternating
Control Panel Layout: Single Player
Controls:

Joystick: 8-way
Buttons: 1 [Blast]

Sound: Unamplified Stereo (requires two-channel amp)

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Journey Description

You must recover the instruments for the five members of the rock band Journey. Characters have black and white digitized faces. Plays many Journey songs, including a tape of Separate Ways. Bonus round: you (the roadie) must push fans away from the concert stage.

Cabinet Information

The front of the machine, including the marquee, monitor glass, and control panel overlay, look like the Journey "Frontiers" album (the head of a blue space alien). The side art is the same.

Game Introduction

The musicians have Sixteen-style black and white photograph faces connected to cartoon bodies.

The game opens with all members: Steve Perry, Neal Schon, Steve Smith, Jonathan Cain and Ross Valory jumping into their Journey "Scarab vehicle", which flies into the forehead of the big blue face wearing a space helmet. The player then gets to choose one of five planets to travel to. Each one features a game starring one of the Journey members in which he has to travel past obstacles to collect his musical instrument.

Once they collect their instruments, the board changes and the rock musician uses his instrument to shoot his way back to the Scarab vehicle.After the player has makes it past the first five planets, Journey performs in a live concert before a captive audience, while the player controls "Herbie" the roadie, who tries to keep crazy "groupoids" from attacking the famous rock combo.

Game Play

There are five separate games -- one for each band member -- plus a bonus round game. Each game has two phases: Recovering the musical instrument, and returning to the Scarab vehicle.

The games are as follows:

Steve Perry: Steve starts at the top of the screen and must make his way through a maze of moving turnstiles to his microphone at the bottom of the screen. Once he has the microphone, he uses the fire button to shoot at rows of passing turnstiles (similar to Galaga).
Neal Schon: Neal must navigate a cavern using his jet pack. Once he grabs his guitar, he must fly across the cave towards the exit while dodging rockets (similar to Scramble).
Steve Smith: Steve must jump back and forth between drums, turning them from yellow to blue. He then climbs behind his drum set and shoots bullets at flying infinity symbols (similar to Galaxian).
Jonathan Cain: Jonathan must make his way down conveyer belts, jumping piano keys (by pushing the joystick up). Once he is behind his piano, he shoots at vertical rows of circular objects that converge from the edges of the screen inward. Each object must be shot twice before it is destroyed (similar to Donkey Kong and Mega Mania).
Ross Valory: Ross jumps between elevators in an attempt to reach his bass at the top of the screen. Once he has reached there, he fires downward at cannons that are firing deadly LP albums.

Bonus Round (Concert/Herbie Herbert): Herbie, Journey's tour manager, must block the doorways and prevent the fans from entering any of the three doors on stage. If a fan gets past Herbie, everyone rushes the stage and steals the instruments again. During this scene, the machine plays a cassette loop tape of "Separate Ways."

VAPS Arcade Census

There are 6,993 members of the Video Arcade Preservation Society / Vintage Arcade Preservation Society, 4,022 whom participate in our arcade census project of games owned, wanted, or for sale. Census data currently includes 65,217 machines (3,798 unique titles).

Common - There are 42 known instances of this machine owned by Journey collectors who are members. Of these, 37 of them are original dedicated machines, and 5 of them are only circuit boards which a collector could put into a generic case if desired.

For Sale - There are 6 VAPS members with Journey machines for sale. VAPS members are totally independent of VAPS and the International Arcade Museum, and we are unable to recommend, endorce, or guarantee any person or company selling games or game parts.

Wanted - Popular - There are 13 VAPS members currently looking for Journey.

This game ranks a 25 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census ownership records.

This game ranks a 32 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often wanted, 1=least common) in popularity based on census want list records.

Rarity is NOT necessarily an indication of value. [More Information]

Technical

Wiring harness is almost identical to TRON (except for joystick/wheel). I believe all MCR boardsets have the exact same POWER, VIDEO, AUDIO, COINDOOR pinouts. This wiring type should be referred to as MCRII/III.

Trivia

The game was designed by Marvin Glass & Associates. It was the first arcade game that was created around a rock band (the band members were big video game fans themselves during that era) and the first to use digitized graphics (black/white).

Most of the game's sounds and music is generated by two AY-3-8910 chips. During the bonus round, a cassette player inside the machine plays a loop tape of Separate Ways (Worlds Apart). Electronic Journey songs include: Chain Reaction, Do not Stop Believin', Lights, Still They Ride, Stone In Love and Wheel In The Sky.

Originally, this game was not to have the band Journey in it. It would have a digital camera (created by Ralph Baer, the creator of the Magnavox Odyssey home console systems) that would take a picture of the player's face and put it on the character. After some people used unmentionable parts of their body as character heads during tests, this was dropped.

Foto-Finder™ (books)

The Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games, Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256): Page: 152-153; Color photo;
Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games, Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256): Page: 152; Color photo; Price guide:

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TODAY'S PICKS FOR:
Journey

1. Journey Coin-op Arcade Manual
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$6.99

2. Multi-Arcade: Michael Jackson Moonwalker, KISS, Journey
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3. 1983 BALLY MIDWAY JOURNEY POSTER
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eBay Stores (Fixed Price):
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4. Bally / Midway JOURNEY Arcade Flyer KEY CHAIN
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