December 06, 2003
He's Hooked, He's Hooked, His Brain is Cooked
Ah, yes, video games. I used to play those a little. (Stop snickering, Schmuck.) Truth be told, I practically lived in the arcade for a couple of years.
How many quarters did I plunk down into the belly of a video monster? You know those little old ladies that feed the slot machines in Vegas? Amateurs.
To make a combo shot and explain both how nerdy I am was am and just how... um, actually that's it... I tell of the time a couple of friends and I spent the entire night hopped up on Mountain Dew, going around to every Asteroids game in the city of Bangor in order to get the top score and proudly leaving as my initials: WHY.
When I became gainfully employed ("You want fries with that?"), the closing crew used to head to Friendly's (which replaced the unfortunately-named Sambo's) for coffee, but not without stopping at a convenience store to play Robotron or Joust for a bit. Remember when convenience stores and restaurants had arcade games to encourage young loiterers? Good times.
This flood of "gosh I really didn't need to know that" brought to you by Michele and her Video Hall of Fame, Category 1: Coin-Op Games. Go make a nomination or vote or something. See the History of Arcade Games or the Killer List of Video Games for reference.
I'm going to go see if I have any Mountain Dew and Skittles in the house.
UPDATE: Ooh, I found an even better arcade history site at The Dot Eaters!
UPDATE 2: They have sound samples, too! w00t! Chicken! Fight Like a Robot
UPDATE 3: Time to vote! She's split the games up into categories. So, the first poll is for the older, vector graphics games--Asteroids, Tempest, Defender, Battlezone and Tron.
Tapper, the only game that matters.
http://www.tripletsandus.com/80s/80s_games/tapper.htm
Oh, don't get me started. I looked at the list people were nominating over there, and I had to bite my tongue not to write a post reviewing every arcade game I ever played.... Eww. Now I have Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson in my head... "Of all the games I've loved before..."
Tapper, Frogger, Centipede, Missile Command, QBert, Defender, Galaxan, Zaxxon, Dig Dug, Space Invaders, Battlezone, Marble Madness, Star Trek, Space Wars, yes even Pacman and the Ms...
I was HUGE Tempest fan. That was by far my favorite - I could play it all night long.
I actually own a standup Crazy Climber arcade unit. I love that game. "GO FOR IT!"
One of the bad side effects of now having a car is that I can no longer justify sending my laundry out for someone else to wash, dry, fluff, and fold. I have to go to the laundromat and do it all myself. The good thing is that we found this super cool laundromat that has video games. Most are modern, but there's a very nice Ms. PacMan/Galaga machine. And it's only a quarter per play!
Hey, I remember driving all over Bangor to play every freaking kind of video game we could find. Yes, good times indeed, *sniff*. I miss those days.
Yes, I too remember those days of late-nite prowling around town, in the mad search for Asteroids. It was a proud moment for me, the first time I "rolled" an Asteroids machine (scoring enough points to make the counter start over-I forget how many that was), at the Nite Owl on State Street, near the hospital. Someone recently ran an arcade at the Airport Mall that had a bunch of the old machines. It was pretty cool. Closed recently, dammit... Sigh
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