A short journey with Punk
Arcade in to the early days of
Arcade
Games. Some of the great titles in this article
are available on this site.
Play
classic Arcade Games here.
When I first walked into an arcade the thing I remember most was the
sounds of the electronic machines dinging away and in some cases even
talking some simple speech phrases. The majority of the games in the
Nickelodeon where the old machine style style pinball games with reels
for scores. These pinball games were a blast and probably the closest I
ever came to a truly spiritual analog experience. Some of
the pinball games dated back to the 60's but most were 70's beauties.
What I was not aware of at the time is, that I was playing on the cusp
of the
arcade
games revolution.
Sprinkled about the arcade were the
early classic arcade games such as Space Invaders, Asteroids, Gorf,
Grand Prix and Lunar Lander. Like John the Baptist these vector style
games haled the coming of a new age in entertainment. It would not be
long before the real revolutionaries would arrive.
The next few years delivered the great titles that are still famous
today. I played them all. Defender was one of the
slickest games I had ever seen and the first time I had ever truly
heard sophisticated synthesized sound effects, to say the least, were
super cool.
It was hard to even get close to the Pac Man machine as it was not long
before the game claimed its first junkies. The sound of the Pac Man
eating the energy dot and eating up the pac men reverberated throughout
the arcade.
Tempest was an exercise in depth percpection as you looked down the
portal to shoot the oncoming shapes with what was to become hugely
popular, the track ball.
After overcoming my game addiction to the prophet Asteroids it would
not be long before I was addicted to such titles as Centipede, Missle
Command and what would become my first love affair with a
machine,
Star
Castle. This is was what Arcade Games were all about. A
dollar bill could never be worth as much as it was in those days. At
twenty five cents, a fix was easy.
Before the first wave of game could be fully exhausted, they just kept
showing up. It was a full fledged orgy of gaming bliss when
Donkey
Kong and Frogger made their entry. The modern era of
Arcade Games had
arrived and the sprite had been mastered. Moon Patrol, Zaxxon, Pole
Position, Dig Dug, Qbert, Burgertime and Joust. That was it. NOTHING
WAS BETTER THAN HANGING OUT AT THE ARCADE.
