Do you remember the days of arcade gaming? The legends of our gaming culture?
Do you remember the days you visited every corner cafe or games arcade in search of the latest games. The ones that swallowed all your coke empties refund money? Well I do. I remember the days of Wonder Boy, Bubble Bobble, Golden Axe, Shinobi, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat.
These were the games that shaped me into the gaming fanatic I am today. They hardly look like anything worth looking at in todays next gen era, but they are nothing short of classic. Only an older generation of gamers will understand what I am talking about. These will be the ones that have been gaming for a very very long time.
Nothing really takes you back to your gaming younger years like seeing those games again. Me and my brother were masters of our block back in the day. The chosen ones to beat. We would rip out your spine with the smoothest and swiftest of controller moves. It felt effortless... and it was. Hours upon hours were spent mastering each game. Fatalities, timing of jumps and secret levels were stored in our minds better than our weekly chore schedule.
Those moves are still stored firmly in this old dude's mind to this day. Sub Zero's fatality: (Close) Forward, Down, Forward, High Punch and boom, you're spineless. Or the Power Up of an Arcade Bubble Bobble machine: LEFT JUMP LEFT 1P LEFT BUBBLE LEFT 1P (at the title screen)
Finding secrets and power up levels were done on these arcade machines way before finding the secret sewers in Mario on the 64 bit machines. You need to remember, that there was no internet those days, so only a handful of gaming legends knew these codes. They were myths and urban legends to some, but not to us.
I recall a certain December holiday. when I was about 6 or 7, I blew all my holiday money (3weeks worth) in one day at Denison's Arcade at the Natal South Coast. Needless to say, my dad handed my ass to me back then, but the memories remain.
Finsihing a game with 20c coins were a masterful art. Repetition and a high learning curve was crucial to get the most out of the very first coin dropped into the machine. As the levels progressed in a certain game, your coin stash had to be almost endless as the end levels were hectic and consumed more coins than a contestant at a hot dog eating contest.
Multiplayer back then was restricted to player 1 and 2 and loud shouting of instructions were the order of the day. Superb communication were crucial for tactical positioning of any two player game and your other half had to be skilled or you would be pretty pissed off if you didn't manage to complete a level due to his/her lack of ablities.
Yes, we are all living in the age where gaming is out of this world and just when we think things can't get better, they do, but nothing can ever replace those younger years of gaming for me. Me and my boet still to this day jam Bubble Bobble if we see it anywhere in a corner cafe or games arcade.
Arcades used to be fantastic. I think that PC's and Consoles killed them though. Nowadays the games are old and crappy, and might actually be the same ones that were there 15 years ago, but the games on PC and console are so much better nowadays that there's no point making new arcade games. And they are horribly expensive.
Hey Matt. Yeah, I think your local gaming arcade has turned more into a kiddie hang out place and the games are almost the same ones we played as kids...which is a while back to say the least. There is no point in visiting those places, but I can't resist to sometimes drop a token into a machine of a game you played like 20 years back and can't find anywhere else. It has a sort of nostalgic feel to it and takes you back to your younger years in a way. The beginning of it all......
Kiddie arcade yes. The one in Kolonade gives me the feeling of a drug den for grade 1 kids. That said, there is still the pull to walk through in the hope of seeing one of the classic arcade games and throwing a coin into the whackamole machine...
Ya, that's exactly it. They are kiddies arcades, and most of the games are at least 20 years old. But I'll admit that I have been to a couple just for the nostalgia of the thing.
The sad thing is that most of them nowadays are very small, and they only have a few machines, and only half of them tend to work. Although there's quite a nice one at Monti Casino
The 1up Days
