It had been several months since I went to an arcade. The last time I went to an arcade was April 11, 2003. I only know that because that’s what it says on the back of my Buster Ball ticket coupon thing (I’m going for the world record in tickets accumulated, or their Police Trainer machine).
Whoops, I digressed again.
Right, so I went to this arcade…thing and I noticed that not a lot has changed since I went 2 months ago or the time I went 2 years ago. The only thing that changed were the games, and even some of those were oldsters.
One of the things that must have completely passed me by was that our arcades have somehow metamorphosed into some sort of sort of interactive gym. In this particular arcade we had DDR, some kind of perpetual climbing wall, pool, some skiing game, and Final Furlong. I never really thought about it before, but going to a modern arcade is more cost effective than going to some fitness center. I mad a few rounds and got some gaming in. I nearly killed myself on the DDR machine. Now, I know that only about a dozen people read this site, so I’m not that much of a celebrity, but as soon as I stepped on the DDR platform, no less than 24 people materialized around the machine to watch me kill myself and anyone foolish enough to get within 3 feet of me. SSB Master decides to pick, according to the ‘expert’ that walked up behind me, the toughest song in the game. After losing as well as I could, and believe me, I lost very well, I decided to move on to Time Crisis 3, and quickly decided to move on since that one only takes first born children as payment. I’ll play it once it gets a bit cheaper.
Ms. Pac Man is definitely showing her age, although she’s still good for a little quick fun. It still amazes me that this machine is in nearly every arcade in the country, (I’m counting the ‘new’ ones that are packed in with the huge screen and Galaga) and that they all still work.
One of the fun things that I had forgotten about was the kid who’s parent had dropped him off, probably with less than $5, and left him at the arcade for 4 or 5 hours. Since he blew all his money on a machine that gave out prizes (without winning any, of course) he decided to glom on to me every time I got near the machine that took all his lunch money from last week.
So what’s the moral of this story? Never play Uncle Fester’s Electric Chair if you value your hands.