I hated Ricky Stratten. His smug little smile. That giant house. Super hot Wilma, err, I mean Kate Summers coming by all the time. Train running through his house. And of course, all those video game machines.
Oh how I wanted a Pac Man in my house! Thank God Silver Spoons was cancelled, for more reasons than one. But that dream, that goal, of owning my own arcade machine never left me.
I remember going to the mall as a kid in the 80's and begging my mom to let me spend an hour in the Gold Mine, the local arcade. Faux wooden beams supporting a paper mache (or something) cave opening, made you think you were going down into some dwarven mines. It was so dark in there, with some sparkly stuff on the carpet that you could only see under black light.
Upright machines stacked right next to one another on both sides of the entrance. As you progress further down, you find your way into some bigger sit down or cockpit machines (we had a vector Star Wars sit down). Then the back area, which was full of pinball. The noises. The lights. The creepy operator with his belt of quarter dispensers, like a crazy arcade batman. Oddly enough, I don't remember the smells, but that could just be because I had allergies.
At any rate, over time the Gold Mine changed, and not for the better. It lasted a long time, and was eventually replaced by a new arcade in the 90's called Tilt (different location in the same mall). Tilt was where I learned to play Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, so it wasn't all bad. But eventually that closed as well.
College at Georgia Tech had some cool games in the pool and bowling area, but they were generally always newer games. I missed Galaga. I missed Ms Pacman.
One more anecdote, right before graduating college, I bought a Defender cabinet that someone had converted to Gauntlet II (4 player PCB, 2 player control panel). It was painted black. Clear plexiglass marquee with a hand drawn Gauntlet II logo. Plain red overlay. Ugly. But I knew it was Defender simply by the shape. I loved that game too. So I bought it for $70. I mean, it still played a cool game, and my roommate and I enjoyed it immensely.
Eventually I got a job, got married, moved into my own house, had a kid, then another kid. Woo hoo, adult progress. The entire time, my parents always bugged me, "When are you gonna get this arcade machine out of our garage?"
Finally, I did. I took it to work, where I turned it into a MAME machine, mainly because the guys at work had been talking about buying an arcade machine, and I said I had one. Great fun was had by all, but every time I walked by I saw the original Defender artwork bleeding through the black paint. And I wondered, "Should I restore it?"
So the other day the wife and I were in the basement, and she says to me, "Why don't you bring that arcade machine home and restore it for a project to do?" What?! Did I hear that right? She's okay with it? Turns out, yes, she was!
But I couldn't do that until the weekend was over. I got the idea to post some stuff on Craigslist that's been in my basement for years that I didn't feel I needed any more. I posted an old Neo Geo game machine. SOLD. I posted up some transformers I had collected but didn't need (except for keeping maybe one or 5). SOLD. I had a spare Canon EF-S lens I wasn't gonna use. SOLD! Man, if I keep this up, I can make a house payment!
So I took some of that money, and decided to buy an additional working arcade machine. My reasoning was that if all I did was spend time restoring that Defender, I needed something as a reminder of why I was doing it in the first place.
So I bought a working Ms Pacman. I've talked with and plan to meet some of the guys in the Atlanta area that also collect arcade machines. From a simple decision less than a week ago, it's snowballed into this, my new addiction.
Shall we play a game?
