the anti experience of Ed

The recent launch of CrankysArcade’s Blog about arcade games at IGN.com had me thinking about the last few times I’ve been out to a video arcade! Growing up there were places out in suburban Seattle that I went to several times a year; one was called “Zones” I think, the other was the “Fun Plex.” The late, lamented Wizards of the Coast center here in the U District (which I’ll rant about later) also had a great arcade, featuring a very rare game in particular.

Sadly, these places are gone. They disappeared at a time where home consoles were just beginning to replicate the experience of playing an arcade game in the comfort of your own home. I’d estimate that this occurred somewhere around the Super NES / Genesis time to the early days of the Playstation and Sega Saturn. Certainly, the first amazingly great port of Street Fighter II certainly couldn’t have helped the plight of struggling arcade owners.

The big draw for me, even in the post 16 bit world, was to play games that couldn’t be replicated at home due to peripheral requirements, such as Galaxy Force II, which featured a spinning cockpit, or those great multiplayer beat ‘em ups with friends, in particular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Mercs (which I still fire up on my XBox once in awhile).

But I digress. Since moving back to the Seattle area in 2004, I’ve visited several arcades. Let’s go over two of them in this post:

Oof. The ambiance is not the best, but it is the Fun Forest and it is Seattle Center - you know, basically a somewhat strange and aging amusement park in a chronically underachieving wasteland of potential. Of interest to gamers, there’s at least one working Dance Dance Revolution machine, and an aging but functional six person X-Men: the Arcade Game cabinet. Admittedly, I was bored and early before an opera once and went inside for a few games of X-Men. That was a great, great game.

Funtasia

I recently visited this place for my girlfriend’s friend’s bachelorette party. Just to get this off my chest, the mini golf course is awful, both in design and upkeep. The par set for each hole was nonsensical, there were loose bricks from the course just laying around, and the many of the holes themselves aren’t even marked clearly. However, the go karts and batting cakes looked fun. The Lazer Tag also looked fun (I didn’t partake), but the scoring system seemed to be needlessly complex and I ran into a half naked man in the bathroom attempting to mop off the sweat he accumulated during a heated session of the game with paper towels. The snack bar was disgustingly delicious; I ordered a hot dog from the rotating sausage machine and the girl basically said “you don’t want that,” so I settled for an order of nachos. there’s something about fake cheese product being squeezed out of a heated foil bag by tongs that gets my mouth watering.

Oops, I’m digressing.

The arcade itself was surprisingly decent, mainly because it was charmingly out of date. There were at least two Dance Dance Revolution machines. There was a working Silent Scope, which in the process of enthusiastically dumping a few quarters into and playing I managed to alienate at least one member of our party (was it the happy gunning down of snipers in the crotch?). The real finds at this arcade are a working Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cabinet and a working Simpsons arcade game cabinet. Fantastic. After seeing the movie and enjoying some of the 7-11 merch that my girlfriend brought me one day, it was great to be able to replay another game that will probably never see a console release due to licensing issues… ever.

(if you have to ask, I played Marge)