gameguy1957
Active member
Set your wayback machine to 1980. I'm at the local skating rink with a friend and his older brother. It's dark, with the only light coming from the reflections off of a disco ball, blacklights in the ceiling, and the glow from a row of video games lining one wall. The blacklight reflects off of the Star Wars mural on the back wall, but we don't venture over there. It's where the older kids go to make out when the lights are down like they are right now. "Another One Bites the Dust", by Queen, is being played on the turntable by the DJ. "Blinded by the Light", by Manfred Mann, is next up on the play list.
We skate some, but also bring plenty of change for the games. The games are mostly black & white video games, pinball machines, and a couple of EM rifle machines. My friend's brother shows up to play one game – an old b&w racing game. He puts on the driving gloves that he brings with him and gets bonus time over and over again. He's good enough to draw a small crowd.
While he's playing we are stuck on a motorcycle game next to the driving game. It's my second favorite game in the place, the racing game is #1.
When his game finally ends we get a chance at it and drop many quarters trying to emulate him.
---
Fast forward to about six or seven years ago. I still love video games, but play is limited to a PS2 since all of the good arcades went away a decade or more earlier. I'm in a local thrift store and see two games – DK Jr. and MK II. Neither are my favorite, but I had never thought of having an arcade machine in the house and figured it would be fun. So I call my wife and ask if I can bring them home. She says yes, as long as they don't get in the way....
I get them fixed and things could have ended there, but I eventually found the old original Luna City Arcade website … thoughts start going through my head about getting more games and I make a list. The racing game and motorcycle game are on the top of the list.
But they continued to elude me for all these years. They would appear occasionally, but on the other side of the country.
So I wait, and watch, and wait some more. By now they've reached a kind of legendary status from the nostalgia associated with them and the long term search to find them.
---
Then I did a search on eBay earlier this week for arcade games locally. Not just one, but both games, locally, from the same guy. I wait nervously all week and watch the last thirty minutes tick down second-by-second.
I ended up winning both.
And now about the games.....
We skate some, but also bring plenty of change for the games. The games are mostly black & white video games, pinball machines, and a couple of EM rifle machines. My friend's brother shows up to play one game – an old b&w racing game. He puts on the driving gloves that he brings with him and gets bonus time over and over again. He's good enough to draw a small crowd.
While he's playing we are stuck on a motorcycle game next to the driving game. It's my second favorite game in the place, the racing game is #1.
When his game finally ends we get a chance at it and drop many quarters trying to emulate him.
---
Fast forward to about six or seven years ago. I still love video games, but play is limited to a PS2 since all of the good arcades went away a decade or more earlier. I'm in a local thrift store and see two games – DK Jr. and MK II. Neither are my favorite, but I had never thought of having an arcade machine in the house and figured it would be fun. So I call my wife and ask if I can bring them home. She says yes, as long as they don't get in the way....
I get them fixed and things could have ended there, but I eventually found the old original Luna City Arcade website … thoughts start going through my head about getting more games and I make a list. The racing game and motorcycle game are on the top of the list.
But they continued to elude me for all these years. They would appear occasionally, but on the other side of the country.
So I wait, and watch, and wait some more. By now they've reached a kind of legendary status from the nostalgia associated with them and the long term search to find them.
---
Then I did a search on eBay earlier this week for arcade games locally. Not just one, but both games, locally, from the same guy. I wait nervously all week and watch the last thirty minutes tick down second-by-second.
I ended up winning both.
And now about the games.....


