In Journey the members of the band Journey have had their instruments stolen by aliens.  The player has to navigate each band member through a stage full of obstacles to retrieve their instrument.  Once all the instruments are retrieved the band plays on stage while the player controls a bouncer fighting an uphill battle against fans rushing the stage.  Eventually a fan will get through, the instruments are stolen again, and the stages repeat at a higher level of difficulty.

I expected this game to be lame when I first tried it, but it was actually pretty fun.  The character sprites each have a black and white cutout of a band member’s head, which sounds cheesy but works surprisingly well.  The background music for each stage is a digitized version of one of Journey’s songs, except the concert stage, when a looped tape inside the machine plays Journey’s song “Separate Ways”.

Journey was released in 1983 by Bally/Midway.

I know somebody out there just groaned and said, “Journey? Really?”  Yes, really.  I like Journey.  If you don’t that’s fine, you don’t have to watch.

Yahbittiyayhah was my name for a small wind-up toy I had when I was little.  It was a wind-up dune buggy which would drive a little way, then a lever on the bottom would lower and flip the car, making it roll and go off in another direction.  I loved it.

The Giza Plateau in Egypt is home to the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure, and the Great Sphinx.

I’ve had an interest in Egyptology since I was in the first grade.  My family went to an exhibition of ancient Egyptian artifacts, and became absolutely fascinated by that ancient culture.  It’s a fascination which has never completely gone away.  Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like it will be safe to visit anytime soon.