Day 21: The Arcade

You have to love this carpeting, it adds "atmosphere."

How many of us can recall the glorious days of the arcade?  Not even I can fully remember when these impressive collections of video gaming cabinets were spread across the nation, I just didn't have the opportunity due to the fact that these types of facilities have been relegated to the Chuck E. Cheese's and State Fairs of the world.  Sure I've been able to partake of the arcades in those places, but they retain just a portion of their former glory.

The reason I bring this up is that I recently visited a state fair and had a chance to play some arcade goodness.  I couldn't find any purely retro games like Defender, Asteroids, or Joust.  Not even a 1942 or 1943 was around, but there were still some excellent games.  I want to take a minute and look at the difference between those older games and the newer ones.  Silent Scope was something that caught my eye, and I ended up spending a good while playing with one of my friends.  This is an interesting specimen, there's a screen, of course that shows what you would see from a normal perspective just looking out across the city, but there's also a screen within the scope that shows what you would see from that perspective.  Essentially you use the large screen to find your target and use the scope to take them out.  It's a great game, but it's limited by a ridiculous timer that's there to essentially make you spend as much money as possible.  The timer starts at the beginning of every level and if it runs out during that level you lose and need to insert more quarters.  Every kill gains you some time, but you're always fighting against that damn clock.  The same idea has been applied to such games as Time Crisis.  If you can't beat the clock, you better have fifty fucking dollars in quarters or tokens.  Looking at an earlier, but much better, game reveals that arcades have become much more commercial as they have aged and come to a state of degradation.

That's right, six fucking players.  Booyah.

The Xmen arcade game is arguably the best of its kind.  Where else can you find such side-scrolling, six player, boss-fighting, and super power goodness?  Well, the Xbox Live Arcade is one such spot.  You'll be hard pressed to find this game in any remnant arcade, but you can find it on the Marketplace.  As we continue to lose such gems as the above and gain some of the more commercial games such as Time Crisis and Silent Scope, we are seeing the older arcade games return in full force on various online marketplaces or websites.  Microsoft even created a virtual arcade to be used on the 360 called the Game Room where you can purchase all of the old arcade games, mascots, and memorabilia from the past and place it into your very own, customizable arcade.  If you're an older gamer, or just want to experience that retro arcade for the first time, I highly recommend something like Game Room.

I miss the older game days where you could find The Simpsons, Turtles in Time, and Xmen all in the same location.  Sure, some of these games are being ported, or have been ported, to consoles, but the only way that you can naturally experience them nowadays is if you're lucky enough to find one of those cabinets at a bowling alley or have the ability to use an emulator that you can modify into an arcade cabinet.  

Long story short, I feel like arcade gaming has gone the way of the dinosaurs.  It's a dying organism and the attempts to save it have been lackluster at best, but unfortunately no one really wants to leave their home to play video games.  I realize that this is in large part due to the rise of console and portable gaming, but it saddens me that such a great piece of gaming history is being reduced to nothing.  I propose that we should all experience the arcade, through whatever means we have available, and make a decision to support those local and dying arcades, no matter the form they come in.  Though the commercial aspects of arcades have become something of a nuisance, we should still support these entities as they are the building blocks of video gaming.  So get out there and play Silent Scope, or whatever other crappy, expensive games are out there and save the natural history of video gaming.  You can be an Indiana Jones-esque archaeologist and find old, treasured games like Asteroids, or you can be a futuristic explorer and find such creations as the below.

What the fuck is this abomination supposed to do?