Admit it: You've always wanted to be a lumberjack, to rough it around the woods of the Pacific Northwest, clear-cutting nature's majesty, putting on women's clothing, and hanging around in bars. But you're only 13, you're stuck in Cleveland, and your parents want you to be a lawyer. It's so! Un! Fair!
Luckily for you, Midway heard your quiet late-night crying and whipped up a Tapper conversion that should carry you though your long day's journey into night.
Gameplay: Use your joystick to run your lumberjack around the logging camp and chop down trees as fast as they spring up from the ground. You have two buttons, so you can chop left, or chop right—you can almost feel Mister Miyagi as you play.
You have a limited amount of time to cut down your quota of trees. If you succeed, the grouchy foreman will give you a hearty handshake and some bonus points, then go right back to his shack to glower at you during the next level.
To help you worry less about the clock and the foreman's inevitable wrath, you also have to worry about tripping over fallen trees. And keep your eyes open for the angry bear that throws beehives at you several times on each level. When you lose three lumberjacks, the eco-terrorists have won.
Could be mistaken for: The Lumberjack Games on ESPN; a sick, sick joke at an Earth First retirement party
Kids today might not like it because: The complex father-and-son subtext between the player and the foreman who doesn't love him unconditionally may hit a little close to home, especially for recovering Little Leaguers.
Kids today might like it because: The bonus level, where you try to stay atop a spinning log, uh, lumberjack-style, is really fun, and so is the two-player version, where you try to drop trees on your friends for fun and profit.
Enduring contribution to gaming history: Timber ran on the same hardware as Domino Man and Tapper, and featured similar graphics and sound. In 1984, fans of one could insert coins with confidence when they saw the others.