Arcade Machines

When I was growing up in the 80s, every mall had to have a video game with all of the last arcade machines. The arcade games came in all shapes and sizes and were always buzzing, beeping and trying to draw in new players with quarters at the ready. Most games were twenty five cents, some of the high demand games went for fifty cents. It was really not until about 1990 that I remember seeing some demanding a dollars worth of quarters to get your game started.

Almost every vacation spot had to have those games, now they're considered vintage arcade machines I suppose, but every hotel that could find an extra room for an arcade was immediately higher up in my esteem as we traveled. I don't think I spent as much on the old arcade games as some kids did, but it always seemed like the coins went like water in a good arcade. There was Battlezone the game where you get to play as a tank commander trying to get the other tank before they get you. There was Asteroids where you had to avoid getting creamed by a floating asteroid and break them up into smaller harmless debris. Space Invaders where you have a cannon to prevent hordes of invading aliens, Pac man where your little yellow man ate his way through a maze avoiding ghosts (and eating them if the time was right.)

Probably my favorite Classic Arcade game was Star Wars. By todays standards the graphics leave a lot to be desired. It was a vector game, which essentially means they used lines on the screen to construct the objects in the game. It may have been primitive in graphics but it delivered many solid hours of challenging game play. I remember very well the two different cabinet designs for that game that I ran across. One was the upright which was the same as many other video game cabinets of the time. The REALLY cool Star Wars was the cockpit design though where you could sit down in the cockpit as though you were flying the X-wing. The control stick in that game was a good flight yoke style controller. I can't begin to add up how much money I likely spent on that video game.

Some of those machines have become rarer these days and with newer home gaming systems becoming more and more common it seems as though the days of the video arcade full of coin operated gaming machines is slowly coming to a close. There was a neat sort of community feel to some arcades. You could compare your high scores with some of the others there. Maybe you'd see some familiar faces or meet someone else that liked the same games you did. Who knows maybe they could even teach you a few tricks about the games too. It's kind of sad to see that era ending, but I will probably always be a fan of some of those classic game machines. What many of these games lacked in dazzling graphics they made up for in solid gameplay design.

Even though the days of the mall arcade may be gone many people today opt to make their own game room in their homes. There are a number of companies that sell classic video games in many cases these are original equipment restored to the working condition that you remember from years ago. In other cases these may be new machine hardware of popular games using emulation where it is possible to run many different games on the same piece of hardware. This last option can save room tremendously, but in some ways doesn't live up to the nostalgic feeling of playing on the original hardware.

MAME is a popular project aimed at providing an emulation platform for many of this video machines of yesteryear. In fact, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of older game titles that are currently playable with MAME. There are licensing issues with using MAME to play your favorite video games though. Just like any other software, companies own the rights to distribute the software that made these games work and while some companies have not raised issue with the use of these ROM images to play the older titles, other companies have exercised their rights to protect what is, essentially, their property. So, if you ever go looking to download ROM images for your favorite games you need to understand the legal issues related to it and the MAME developers are not allowed to distribute game ROMS with their software.

MAME has been used as a platform however for many vendors to sell full licensed copies of some of the older classic titles. So, for many people they can have that flavor of the old mall video arcade in their own basement or family room. Like this other hubpage says "I miss the arcade".

How much might it cost you to relive your arcade memories? Well, places like http://www.vintagearcade.net/ have vintage arcade machines starting from just under $500. Other places like http://www.moneymachines.com/ sell everything from arcade machines and pinball machines to coin changers and supplies. Here the older machines can be found from $400 and up depending on the title. It isn't cheap I suppose, but think how many quarters you might save having your own! In retrospect I may have put enough coins in over the years to have bought some titles outright by now.

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zapwizard/ / CC BY-SA 2.0)