Life in the arcade

I had this thought when I first brought up the Pac Man discussion but didn’t have the time or the space to expand it further since the fact that Kansas has decided to not just encourage ignorance but actually legislate it took precedence over everything. (By the way, one last comment on that front. I was thinking about what I would do if one day one of my kids was in a class where they were teaching intelligent design. I decided that I would do one of two things A) take my kid out of class for that day and take them somewhere more enlightening or B) encourage them to get up and walk out of class in protest once the teacher started rattling on about nonsense. In either case, this would be maybe the only instance where I would want my child to answer questions wrong on a test. Like “Intelligent design is…” “really, really stupid.”)

Anyway, back to a completely less important topic. Thinking about Pac Man and the many hours spent at Haunted Trails made me realize that the children of today are really missing the wonders of the video arcade. I know, I know, there is a subculture around Dance Dance Revolution but the kids I am talking about would never play something like that. Mainly because I am talking about kids like me who were so uncoordinated we couldn’t play Dance Dance Revolution without blowing out a knee. Without the arcade, I think that life has lost one of its most simple pleasures.

Because arcades were the ultimate escape for a thirteen or fourteen year old. You were too young to get into any real trouble but old enough to know that trouble should be gotten into. So that is why you spent your time playing video games, checking out the scene, and basically getting into mischief one quarter at a time. Now kids just sit at home and play online and it can’t be the same. You don’t have that sense of “I could get in serious trouble any moment now” or “I wonder if it is possible to cheat at Skee Ball to get a better prize” by playing World of Warcraft.

Plus, there are some games that cannot be touched by a Playstation. Like tabletop hockey with the USA vs. USSR. Probably some of the most fun that you could have was a hockey war that started with a fight over who got to play as the Russians. There was even a “Boo” button on the one I played, which was used constantly as a taunt. And no matter how good the graphics are on your home system, you could always garner a much bigger thrill by having a crowd surrounding you while you played Dragon’s Lair. And don’t forget about Outrun, where you actually got to sit in a car while you raced. For a while, that was the ultimate in coolness.

So please, encourage the return of the arcade. Because life just isn’t complete until you’ve spent three dollars in quarters just trying to make it through the next level of Virtua Figher.