drawing a crowd to watch you

[Les Manley]

were any of you good enough at any 1 game that you drew a crowd just to watch ya play??

only game i was truly any good at to do this was pacman. i knew most of the patterns. even broke 1,000,000 in points 2 times.

now.....i've forgot all the patterns and can't break 100,000 on slow pac.....speedy pac is a bit better at around 300,000....lol

I could draw a crowd on fighting games like MK2 and 3 or KI. It was fun owning people and putting on a show for the crowd.

Most recently I drew a crowd during a pinball tournament before the International IFPA Tourney in Cokato, MN. I was playing one of the ranked players who flew in from out of town for the IFPA Tourney to get to the semi finals in this tourney on Attack From Mars. I was on ball 3 and losing, but came back and scored over 10 billion on ball 3 alone to win. It was best 2 out of 3 and Attack was my second win. It took about 15 minutes just to play ball 3 and a bunch of people came over to watch when they saw what I was doing. People were congratulating and just amazed. That was a fun experience.

 

[Fly]

I used to easily draw crowds when I played

Track & Field(my button pressing is noisy)

Punch-Out!(played for hours)

Excitebike(all track records and played for hours)

Return of the Jedi(cracked 2 mil on easy settings)

Street FighterII, C.E., Hyper Fighting(Beating all commers for hours w/ E.Honda)

There were a few more I could play for hours and never draw crowds. Time Pilot, Life Force, Haileys Comet.

To be honest, I only liked having the crowds while playing Street Fighter. It was Me vs Them.

Hec

 

[Mindl3ss]

I almost forgot...we had a Gauntlet game in my dorm in college. I would put a quarter in that and play it as long as I wanted and leave it with a ton of men and pots for whomever was there. I would have at least 5-6 people watching regularly and one cute girl would comment "you are still playing the same game?" until I finally said "I was hoping you would give me a reason no to." Unfortunately, she didn't.

I'm picturing a guy dressed all 90's cool in a leather jacket or something with dark sunglasses, and the girl comes up, and he says it in a very cheesy manor... and then he hands the game off to the youngest kid in the audience... you know, the small fry

As for me... I'll admit, I suck at most games. Doesen't mean I still don't enjoy them, a lot... Whenever I would be playing my Game Boy or something there would be a kid looking over my shoulder asking what I was playing.

 

[tophatne1]

When I was at Ground Control in the fall of 2008 a few people and an employee or two gathered around me while I was playing Punch-Out.

I have spent the 4 straight summers before that playing the game at the Jersey Shore so by that point I could get through the first run through pretty quickly. Once the game starts over again in harder mode I get crushed.

I was weird to have a crowd for a bit though. That never happened to me BITD since I was 10 years old and not really that great at any game.

 

[Ghaleon]

Mortal Kombat II.. I am doing a little bragging here but I was good at it. After people got tired of dropping quarters in and loosing to me they would stand around and watch me take on the computer. I got to the point where I could run completely through the single player mode on one credit and roll the machine. I would even open Jade up with all low kicks and whip her ass too. It was pretty awesome to have folks watching me work my way up the tree.. Unfortunetly I have lost most of those skills. I used to know all the fatalities and such without even thinking. I have the machine now and I can still roll through single player but it takes a few more credits. I don't really have anyone to play against so I'd hate to see how my skills are against a good player now.. Oh well, I guess that's why those are called the glory days.

Dunno where Peebles, OH is but we just had a UMK3 tournament at a regional event called PowerUp in Cincy this past weekend. I'm not as good enough to beat the national UMK3/MKII guys 2/3 in tournament but I can hang with them in both -- you should definitely get back into MK, it has a small but dedicated scene these days. ECT2 (New Jersey major) had some national names in both games and it was great to get out there and play them.

I've having UMK3 at our Cleveland tournament on June 26 -- I also have an MKII board -- and we're having a national tourney in UMK3 at Season's Beatings 5 in Columbus this October. You should definitely try to make it out!

To contribute to the topic -- DDR is funny because even if you're no good at it people are always watching. I used to play in a Subway (the restaurant) at Ohio State back when I sucked, that was pretty funny.

UMK3 was a great crowd pleaser as well because it's so loud, fast and crazy on a showcase cabinet. And once you beat all your comp and they let you play arcade mode, putting on the final fatality demonstration used to get people really hype.

 

[josie]

I can draw a crowd while doing DDR now...

They are usually either on the floor rolling with fits of laughter, or just open mouthed stunned that someone can actually be that bad at it!!

 

[jawhn]

BITD I was unbeatable on Karate Champ, used to sit on the game all day and whup on any comer's, the game was in the post exchange on Ft. Lee VA.
I'm not nearly as good on the newer fighting games but Karate Champ was the grandaddy of them all imo.

Same here. Could play for-ev-er, and anyone that threw a quarter in to try and unseat me left very bummed out.

I could even kick the computer's ass for many, many levels, which isn't nearly as easy.

 

[Mindl3ss]

I can draw a crowd while doing DDR now...

They are usually either on the floor rolling with fits of laughter, or just open mouthed stunned that someone can actually be that bad at it!!

I think DDR is one of those machines that will grow a crowd no matter what... It's just entertaining to watch

 

[hindered]

I'd never tried DDR in a mall setting and I wanted to just for the heck of it. No one was around so I went up to it and started out. Not 2 minutes in and a dozen people are circled around me trying to see if I have any moves. Of course I didn't, so I left for someone else to finish the game.

I still get big crowds watching me play DDR. The funniest was in Chinatown in Toronto. I think they all gathered around to make fun of the fat white guy and then their jaws dropped when I cranked out Max 300 and others on Expert.

 

[tobyocc]

I rocked yie ar kung fu. I could get to Blues on one guy and get a ton of perfects along the way to earn more guys. Blues was damn hard and the other kids would cheer me on. I beat him a hand full of time but thats about it.

Journey was another on I could play for a long time on. People gathered because the one I played was so loud so people always stopped to rock out!!!!!!!!

 

[mikehawk]

When MK2 first came out there was an arcade accross the street from school. Everyone was lining up to play it. I was the MK2 king. I was smoking kids left and right with kitana. 15 years late i still MK2 king. Competition is scarce though. I bought a MK2 a few months ago and the guy i bought it from claimed he was good. We played a 8 games and i beat all 8 and only lost 1 round total. I even managed to get $40 bucks knocked off the price by beating him

 

[Tycoonbrad]

My best friend worked at Fun Factory in the Oak Park Mall in Overland Park, KS. In the early-mid 80's I would go there to play games for free. I got so good at Robotron I could turn it over. Crowds would gather because the game was put in a high traffic area and they had a satellite monitor above it.

Robotron911,

I remember Fun Factory. I use to go in there all the time when my family would drive up from Lawrence. They would drop me off at the arcade and they would shop. Of course, I had to make 8 quarters last a long time.

Did you ever got to the arcade in the basement of Metcalf South? It was next to Clint's Comics. They had a ton of games too.

 

[xxstatic]

Same here. Could play for-ev-er, and anyone that threw a quarter in to try and unseat me left very bummed out.

I could even kick the computer's ass for many, many levels, which isn't nearly as easy.

I think it was a first for me the feeling in an arcade that it felt better to kick a live opponents ass vs just playing the computer and racking up point's competing on scores mostly, weren't many head to head type of games on the home consoles at the time yet that drew my attention (until NHL 94 Sega Genesis ) the computer is tough but having that line of quarters on the machine and not digging any out of my own pocket that feeling was PRICELESS......literally....at least after the first quarter

 

[IvanTT]

were any of you good enough at any 1 game that you drew a crowd just to watch ya play??

Yes Gladiator back in '86. It was kind sureal to turn around and have a bunch of folks eyeballin' ya' when you didn't know they were there.

 

[Timbo]

I never got "really good" at any game except Pac Man, for which I had the Ken Uston book and memorized all the patterns, around age 12. I could play "forever" and got big crowds, mesmerized at the solid row of blue keys down underneath, and they kept on coming, 5K, gulp, 5K, gulp, ghosts wouldn't turn and I kept on playing.. I don't think most onlookers knew I had a pattern either, so i must have seemed doubly impressive.

Those were the days.

 

[bradd]

ms pac man. i rode lots of greyhoud buses around and would always have a crowd of black kids around me when i played (he old school!)

 

[MasterFygar]

Virtual On, to some extent. Same they aren't in the wild much these days, I'm five times better than I was then @_@

 

[MrDoots]

Golden Tee (original)

I worked at a summer job where it was set on free play. There was occasionally a lot of down time to practice GT. I knew every shot on every hole, the right club to use, how the wind affected ball travel and how to read the greens. I would beat everyone by 16-17 strokes. I loved that game.

 

[wfdgame]

lmao

I had a huge crowd gather round me when I was playing Star Wars, but then when the siezure stopped everybody pretty much went back to their business.

heheheheh good one!