Hi gents, just a quickie,

I'm kind of assuming we're all around the same age here (40 ish). Did anyone have a mis-spent youth playing any arcade machines? Does anyone remember Pac-man, Donkey Kong, Space invaders or Track'n'Field? If, like me you do, then you may be interested to know that I've been spending the odd few minutes between family commitments playing with a popular arcade game emulator. It's great fun, and turns your PC into the machine the game was originally played on. I find there is a certain nostalga in retro gaming, as there is with retro watches, ABBA, frozen mini pizzas, or those Findus cheese and ham turnover things I can't remember the name of.

I may well be alone it this, so please do let me know if you have any idea what I'm talking about?

I said this was off subject!!

TheRev.

There was this game, Desert Ambush.  I wasn't interested in just shooting at passing aircraft until I noticed you could get negative points.  It turns out that when you shot down a plane, the pilot would bail out and float slowly to earth; but if you SHOT the parachuting pilot, you lost points.   So, while my wife and toddler son wandered Gold Circle mall, I amused myself by happily shooting down aircraft and then machine gunning the helpless pilots in their parachutes.

Then I discovered how truly twisted the game designer was: I somehow clipped a pilot's parachute and the little figure fell to earth with a long, despairing scream.  WICKED!  So from then on, I sought to shoot down the passing planes, clip the escaping pilots' parachutes, and then nail them yet again before they hit the ground. 

Oh, and does anyone remember Death Race?  You drove a car and racked up points for running over these fleeing little stick figures?  Great way to work out your agressions.

Then a bit later, my then pre-adolescent son introduced me to HIS discovery in Northgate's arcade: Primal Rage.  You could pick your character and fight it out with other predatory dinosaurs, a giant ape, etc.  One of the carnosaurs, when you won, would eat his oponent.  The ape though, would actually urinate on the body of the vanquished.  Loads of fun.

Nah, never liked playing arcade games much.  No sir, childish waste of time.

Hmm, let me see.

The small town where I grew up had 2 arcades with all the latest games machines: Donkey Kong, Asteroids, Galaxians, etc, etc. I always enjoyed the batle tank / submarine shoot-em's myself but I remember kids who spend an entire afternoon clocking up gazillion score ratings on Pacman and Galaxians. Those guys could just play and play and never lose a life.

The thing that sticks in my mind the most was the trick we learned for earning free credits on the machines. It went like this...

(12 year old kid in nylon trousers and plastic soled shoes)

1- walk rapidly across the carpetted floor dragging your feet to build-up a charge of static electricity.

2 - with a 10p coin in hand, walk upto your chosen game and touch the 10p onto the metal coin slot (do not insert coin) observe spark from discharging static.

3 - inspect "credits" showing on machine and repeat steps 1 + 2 until credits = 50

This used to drive the owners crazy as 50% of the time the machines would die from the shock but it really did work (sometimes). The owners tried to stop this by sprinkling water on the carpets but to no avail.

Mis-spent youth? Who? me?

Funny isn't it that we were the first generation to enjoy the whole gaming thing..... and now we are constantly fighting to make sure our kids don't spend too much time on them.....

All of your comments ring true...... in Liverpool there was an arcade with all of those games in it... my favourite was GORF which I would 'clock' time and time again. A difficult game to play but if you could learn a particular quick wrist move (oops) you would basically survive any attack.

The cost was negligible as the arcade was in the centre of town which aloud the Suburban kids like me to meet up with the 'tougher and more whiley City kids) they showed us that John Lewis (UK department store) used a particular type of security tag on their stock that when removed and pushed into the 'coin slot' of an arcade game would rack up credits.

Basically we played these games for years without spending any money.

Other games, well a mate of mine had the original Atari Console and we played 'Defender' for hours on it...... and recently my brother bought me a little one you plug into your TV and you can play all the old school games. Galaxian, Space Invaders, Lunar landing, etc. My kids love the basic ones.

Ayway thanks Rev for the trip down memory lane.......

GORF

Gorf is an arcade game released in 1981 by Midway Mfg., whose name was advertised as an acronym for "Galactic Orbiting Robot Force" . It is a multiple-mission fixed shooter with five distinct modes of play, essentially making it five games in one. It is well-known for its use of synthesized speech, a new feature at the time.

WIKIPEDIA LINK

ATARI DEFENDER

For me it was this one...

www.youtube.com/watch

Big thing that you sat in. Also Defender, Tank commander....

Lots of mispent time when I was at college. You can get emulators now that will run these classics on your PC/Mac.

Martin

"Yes my preciouss, nasty little Hobbitses. Only interested in our ring they are".

So is it just me, or does Golum remind anyone else of a paranoid schizophrenic version of a skinny Yoda, after an ear tuck (and clip)?  His speech is what does it for me.