You can build your own arcade but....

OregonPacman

New member
Joined
Jun 25, 2004
Messages
7,746
Reaction score
63
Location
Tilden, NE
Can you recapture that childlike arcade innocence? Its great to have games and all but I can remember going into an arcade for the first time and exploring, thinking things like "Wow! They have that game here." I wish I could get that feeling from my own games. I guess the only way would be to go into a real arcade that I haven't been to before. Either that, or find a way to be 8 years old again.
 
It's easy!

I just invite over some drug dealers and a couple of punks, and an pissed off older dude to work the coin changer to hang out in my room. Makes it feel just like my old arcade...:D
 
It's easy!

I just invite over some drug dealers and a couple of punks, and an pissed off older dude to work the coin changer to hang out in my room. Makes it feel just like my old arcade...:D

Yea, thats more like I remember it. ;)

Don't forget to coat everything with a dingy brownish-yellow coat of whatever that shit is that comes from nonstop cigarette smoke. It might also be fun to have someone randomly break the controls on a game so you don't know until you play it.

Some artsy high score initials like FUK, DIK and *** will help, too. Haha
 
I think that feeling comes with the hobby, at least for some of us. When we were kids we dreamed of having our own arcades. Finding new or different games was exciting, because it was out of our control. We had to budget our money, deciding if we REALLY wanted to play the cool driving game or get more time out of something else. Now that we have our own arcades, we can just coin up. My arcade days were loaded with "Insert Coin to Continue" quarter-eaters.

A major portion of the social element of arcades is gone. The Guns 'n' Roses pin was ALWAYS being played, and so I almost never got to play. We had to wait in line, and hopefully challenge the incumbent on the machine. There are no more big kids, no more lines, and no more being angry that the damn machine ate our quarter.

Even at newer establishments, such as barcades, the feel is gone. The vibe is different. Hard Drivin' will never be new and exciting again. Teleporting into the path of an asteroid will never bother us the same way.

In the end, there are certain things we will never recapture about our youth. The world is not new anymore. But we do have new things to be excited about. Even if we don't get all of the feel from our collections, we still get an entirely new dimension of excitement from arcade gaming. We can make our own arcades. There's no more, "Why are they wasting space with THIS game?" No longer do we need to be disappointed when the one game we wanted to play had a line out the door, or an "out of order" sign. We can make the game room what we want it to be.

The most important thing we can do is to share. Share in the excitement of a grail found. Share in helping somebody fix a game. Share our knowledge, and our love, for this hobby. Some day our children and our childrens' children will wonder why we went somewhere to play games. Or why we used our hands.
 
actually, our good friends 7 year old daughter is a moon patrol addict now that and gladiators pinball. she even had a few cracks at phoenix too!

and the sound of all three going together was awesome. cant wait to get em all going in attract mode and lotsa people playing at the same time.

its not the punks or the grumps remember, everyone respected your turn when you put your 20cents down on the machine, its the soounhds and the ames themselves!

so yeah, trying to recapture that sound myself. thats why i gotta have a SI, Defender, donkey kong and pacman at least, galaxians would be nice too.
 
I've found that I now get the biggest rush from fixing the game and bringing it back to a fully working, nice game. I personally get more out of this hobby with learning how to fix a game rather than playing the games.

That being said, I still get the arcade rush when all the games are on and I can hear donkey Kong, pac man and other sounds coming from the arcade room. I also get that new game feeling you describe from finding and getting a new score from CL or wherever.

The nostalgia is there, it just arrives at different times and from different events.
 
I get a good feeling when I watch my sons friends play the games and see how happy they are. Also when they come over and see them for the first time the look on there faces is great and to hear my son tell them about the games. I have overheard them talk about how they like the game on the arcade better then on the xbox.
 
After just starting to really collect (was at one game for about 8 years, now in the past 1.5 months I've added 4 more) I had my first moment to step back and really see how awesome this hobby can be.

After hearing my wife, friends and family saying 'you're going where to get what?!' I finally had a good chunk of them over yesterday. To see my mom and dad battling over ms pacman and my wife get nervous as the 'thump, thump' of SI increased was just surreal. It made it worth it to bring everyone together and get a brief glimpse into days gone by where these weren't just big boxes stored away in garages and basements but rather a source of bonding for me, my family and friends.

It may not be the same rush as before but it's just one more reason my savings account is going to continue to suffer...
 
I've found that I now get the biggest rush from fixing the game and bringing it back to a fully working, nice game. I personally get more out of this hobby with learning how to fix a game rather than playing the games.

+1

That's why I got into the hobby. To learn something new that I've never done before. I spend far more time working on the games than playing them. That being said... I'm going to go play donkey kong now.
 
Back
Top Bottom