Game over, man!
The Curmudgeon remembers a time (not too long ago) when he would walk into one of those dim, smokey arcade halls with a pocketfull of money and come out, blinking into the sunlight, about an hour and a half later full of nervous, twitchy excitement after pumping coin into a number of games.
Nowadays? The Curmudgeon walks in, looks around and walks back out.
And why is that? Simple - the games The Curmudgeon used to play are long gone. Now, I'm not talking some purist jargon here about Galaga or Pacman (hey, I'm not that old). I'm talking about REAL arcade games - games that, if you were good at them, you could spend a solid half hour or more working up a sweat playing them. Games like Streetfighter II, Mortal Kombat, Final Fight, Metal Slug, WWF Wrestlefest - big flashy graphics sure, but they packed in depth, character and (admittedly basic) plot that kept you playing and, more importantly, talking during the bus ride home.
You don't see games like that anymore. Nowadays it's these novelty mini-ride things that dominate the space allocated in arcade halls. You always got the odd one here and there (the "Hang On" bike, for example) but nowadays these things are the norm; I walked into an arcade recently and saw a giant pair of ski's, one of those stupid dance mat things and several other large "£ a throw" abominations, where you put your money in, play for about a minute and then you're done. Where's the fun in that?
The days of the classic coin-op are long gone, replaced by dull, soul-less gimmick rides for "the family" to enjoy. Today's generation are missing out on some awesome money-wasting. For shame.
3 comments:
See, the thing with Pacman and Galaga etc aren't the fact they're bad games. In pure gameplay terms, they're probably the greatest games ever made.
But in terms of character and a desire to go forward and see what happens next, then it's the more recent arcade games that do it for me. The only thing Pacman has going for it is getting a high score (I think.. is there an ending?) but the best games, for me, have end of level guardians and endings with dialogue etc.
I remember watching a guy play Double Dragon, and he was shit hot at it, and I was absolutley HOOKED watching him play, desperate for him to get further than I could so I could see what happens next.
I don't have any problem with Area-51 type games (shooting games, right?) I just usually suck at them.
That Hulk pinball game is something else. It looks like the 2nd Hulk up is taking the 3rd one up the ass, whilst the fourth one takes a dump on his head.
I think I've been looking at "adult art" too much.
The Mame thing has always been an interest of mine, but The Dream is to get an actual arcade unit and have those Mame boards for the games. I think that's what they're called anyway.
One way of playing old arcade games at home is to invest in those (many) arcade compilation deals for the PS2. There's a load of them out there, and they have something like 40 arcade perfect (as they should be, really) ports of old games, and they're usually only about £20 each. Boasting the likes of Ghouls and Ghosts, Final Fight, Streetfighter II (before it became a dizzying, baffling epilepsy magnet), New Zealand Story, Rampage etc - it's never going to be the same as standing in a smokey hall surrounded by miscreants, but it's still pretty damn cool.
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