Grew up in arcades in the 70s. I remember football with the trackball. I remember when Space Invaders, Asteroids, Pac-Man and Donkey Kong all hit. There was a mall with a great arcade within walking distance, and an even closer pizza parlor that had a DK machine, a DK Jr. machine and a Pac-Man cocktail cabinet just on the corner.
There were also a couple of mini-golf scenes in my area (Haunted Trails, Putt-Putt) that were constantly getting in really cool games before anyone else, such as Jungle King (before they changed the character from a Tarzan clone into a great white hunter), Reactor, Ghosts n Goblins, Zaxxon, Xevious, Q-bert and Mr. Do. So in my area, there was a thriving arcade scene that kept my interest level high.
I remember how massive Tron was in arcades, and how misunderstood the movie was by so many of those same people playing it.
I didn't own a home console of my own until later in the 2600's life cycle because my folks didn't have a ton of cash back then. But they eventually broke down and bought me one due to my incessant begging. They got me the console and Maze Craze and gave me their portable TV/Radio combo. I had to play Maze Craze on a screen no bigger than a desktop calendar in black and white. Eventually, I got a 9" black and white as a hand me down when my older sister got a color tv or her own. I don't know that I EVER got to play my own 2600 on a color tv, but I had the biggest game library of anyone I knew and brought my games over to their houses frequently.
Never owned an Intellivision because I only really liked the first Dungeons and Dragons game for it.
Never owned a Colecovision because I couldn't convince my folks to drop cash on it after how long I begged for a 2600. I don't see it as any great loss.
never owned an Oddysey 2 even though I DESPERATELY wanted one for Quest For The Rings. I still lament never being able to play that game.
In the mid/late eighties, I got into the massive Commodore 64 scene, and I will tell you that computer was one of the best gaming consoles I ever owned. I remember all the 'hacking' parties I attended where we all brought our rigs and traded games with one another. I had nearly 1000 games for my C-64 at the end of it all, and more than a few of them were damn good. This was when I really got into RPGs, due to Ultima. I started to drift away from the console scene around this time. To be honest, I'd love to find a SIMPLE emulator that runs those games now, as most of my hardware for the C-64 doesn't work anymore and those discs are all probably rotted out.
I'd pretty much stopped going to arcades altogether, and my 2600 was so outdated due to my C-64 being such a good game machine. Then Ninja Gaiden came out for the NES. That was the game that absolutley convinced me I had to own a console again, so I took my tax return as soon as I got it and bought the NES and Ninja Gaiden. My interest in consoles has remained high ever since, and the Commodore scene sort of withered away at around the same time.
I even returned to the arcade scene when Street Fighter II came out, but we all know what's happened to arcades since those glorious days.
Good times.
Good thread.
