Ah yes, the Journey arcade game from 1983—proof that someone at Bally Midway stared into the heart of rock ‘n’ roll and said, “What if we turned Steve Perry into a pixelated superhero with a jetpack?” In this fever dream of corporate synergy and neon bravado, you control the actual members of Journey—each represented by hilariously realistic digitized faces slapped onto cartoon bodies—on a mission to recover their stolen instruments across five mini-games. It’s like Mega Man, if Mega Man’s enemies were groupies and his powers were “bass solo.”
Each band member gets their own personal level, from dodging barriers with a flying drum set to platforming on conveyor belts while trying not to look like a floating head on a stick figure’s body. Once all instruments are recovered, the game climaxes with a full-blown concert scene—complete with pixelated fans losing their minds while Journey rocks out. Oh, and it plays real samples of “Separate Ways” on 1980s arcade sound hardware, which sounds like a fax machine trying its best to sing. It’s baffling, bold, and beautiful—a perfect time capsule of when arcade cabinets, classic rock, and utter chaos collided in a haze of synth and denim.
