Anyone Else Miss Arcades?

I used to love going to the arcade when I was a kid. I still have found memories of heading over to the “Jolly Time” at the mall while my mom would shop or playing at the Putt-Putt during their Saturday 50 arcade tokens for $5 days. Yeah, these places were dark, almost seedy, and often smoky (back before they banned smoking in malls around here), but they were awesome. Arcades were the first experience that I had with multiplayer gaming on a larger scale than playing NES Contra with my next door neighbor.

 

I remember trying to beat Golden Axe, Final Fight, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Double Dragon with a friend of mine and watching grown men try to pummel each other in Pit Fighter. I remember cursing Dragon’s Lair when Dirk refused to move the direction I told him to go. I always had a blast in the cockpit based games like Space Harrier, After Burner, and Galaxy Force. I still remember getting into the cockpit of Hard Drivin’ and thinking “Man, this is just like driving a real car”. Yeah, the graphics were shit, but the sense of freedom was unreal at the time. I played Space Harrier so much that I could probably still work my way through the Fantasy Zone with my eyes closed.

 

My nostalgia for arcades lies in the late 80’s during my early teen years. I remember as I went through high school and college seeing arcades slowly disappear from the landscape. Now they’re almost nonexistent. Yeah, you can find a couple machines in a Chuck-E-Cheese or some other pizza parlor, but those games are usually ten years old. I think the most recent game that I’ve seen anywhere in the last five years is Hydro Thunder (1998 baby!). I think once the Playstation hit, home consoles finally had caught up with the power advantage arcade games had, so people stopped going to them. It’s kind of like what we’re seeing with the movie industry (in comes cheap DVDs, widescreen TVs, and inexpensive stereo equipment out goes the desire to spend $20 on a pair of movie tickets).

 

I have a daughter who is three years old, and it saddens me in a little way that she’ll never get to experience the often deplorable, seedy, and beer soaked world of dimly lit public arcades. At least the internet has given us the ability to reconnect with other game players through services like Xbox Live. When she’s old enough, she’ll get to experience the fun of a social gaming service like Xbox Live – Friend Codes be damned.