Getting back into the swing of things around here and as luck would have it this week’s League assignment is a real peach! Submitted by Jason over at Rediscover the 80s (who just started a pretty rad podcast that I totally am way behind in pimping), the topic is all about building a dream arcade in our homes. Though I’m not much of a gamer these days, I did spend a decent amount of time playing the stand-up cabinets at the local pizza joints, mall arcades, Showbiz and Chuck E. Cheese’s, and even in the converted utility closet of the 7-Eleven that was in my neighborhood growing up. That being said, my dream arcade would probably fit in a utility closet now that I think about it…
So what would be in my dream arcade closet? Only four cabinets. Well, three cabinets and one cocktail table unit. First up, the classic (at least for me), Galaga…
This is my go-to game when I’m in the mood for a truly old school arcade experience. It’s also the game I judge most pizza places on. Sure, if a place makes a good NY style pizza, that’s good, but if there are arcade cabinets in the joint and Galaga is missing, so too will be my patronage. For my money (and I will drop a considerable amount of coinage in a Galaga cabinet when I have a belly full of pizza) there no better combination than securing that double spaceship with the taste of sausage and onion in my mouth that was just recently washed down with coke sipped out of a clear red plastic cup. Just a bit of heaven if you ask me.
Plucking some similar pizza place-centric nostalgia heart strings would be securing a Mrs. Pac-Man cocktail sit-down table. Faux wood grain trim would be essential too…
Can’t count the number of times I played a unit that looked just like this while waiting for my personal pan pizza at my local Orlando area Pizza Hut as a kid. Did I mention that the personal pan pizza in question would have invariable been free based on my appetite for reading and the Pizza Hut Book It program…
Now the next cabinet is not an arcade game in the strictest sense, but it did provide an arcade experience, and that’s the Nintendo PlayChoice-10…
This unit was basically a way for Nintendo to “advertise” for the NES system by housing it and 10 games into one arcade cabinet. We had one in my local 7-Eleven when I was growing up and it’s where I spent a good deal of time playing games like Ducktales, Goonies II, and more importantly Lifeforce. I also learned a neat trick where if you could pull both of the joysticks to the right and mash down all the buttons you’d get free timed play on a handful of the games in the cabinet. I used this method to play a shitton of Lifeforce before breaking down and begging my mom for an at-home copy of the game. In other words, mission accomplished Nintendo.
Rounding out my dream arcade would be my favorite arcade game ever, a 6-player X-Men game cabinet…
Not only was this game based on Pryde of the X-Men, my favorite X-Men cartoon of all time (the one-shot failed pilot produced by the wonderful folks over at Sunbow), but it features one of my favorite X-Men characters, the much underrated Dazzler. My four friends during middle and high school were all X-Men nerds like me, so between the five of us we used to rock the crap out of this game at our local arcade/go cart track called Malibu Grand Prix. All of us would beg our parents to go there for birthdays just so that we could spend a couple hours plunking quarters into the above machine. I’m pretty sure we even came close to beating it one or two times. Hands down some of my favorite arcade experiences surrounded time at the joystick playing either Wolverine or Dazzler.
About 10 years ago I ran across a very reasonably priced 6-Player X-Men cabinet, but was plagued with the ultimate nerd conundrum of how to justify a car payment on something so big and loud that would be next to impossible to move without a professional team and a forklift. In the end I passed, but there has always been a part of me that regretted it…
So there you have it. The Branded in the 80s Arcade. Small, sure. But for me, arcade heaven. Pass me a slice of sausage and onion, and don’t worry, I’ve rigged all the cabinets so you don’t need tokens!
If you liked my shenanigans this week, why not check out these other rad League participants…
Pax, Cavalcade of Awesome (and my rad Cult Film Club co-host), lists his top 10 arcade games!
Classick Material, Cold Slither Podcast, goes the extra step and makes a fantasy show about his favorites!
Rich, The Nerd Nook, Moonwalks over to the 7-Eleven to play some Street Fighter II!
Kal, Calvin’s Canadian Cave of Cool, has a bone to pick with Dragon’s Lair!