Sweating With the Oldies: Midway Arcade Origins
/So what if I remember every one of these games when they were the newest cabinets in the arcade? These are games that shaped my generation. They molded us and made us the strange elders you know today. These games made possible your games. So sit back, watch, and *deal*.
I spent the majority of my Gauntlet playing at the arcade in the Sandcastle at Blackpool Pleasure Beach in the mid-late 80's, along with Paperboy (suspiciously not on on this game disc, I might add). Marble Madness, however, was a game I worshipped from afar until a trip to the South of France in 1988 with my Scout troop (28th Wigan!). The cafeteria most immediately accessible to the campsite we stayed at actually had a Marble Madness cabinet, complete with roller-ball.
Root Beer Tapper (known simply as 'Tapper' in the UK, because the Brits don't give a fuck whether you think he's pumping beer out of those taps or not) was a game I had never played until I did so via the Midway Arcade Treasures compilation on the original Xbox. That compilation is essentially the same thing we have here in Midway Arcade Origins except, again, no Paperboy.
Anyway, here's a brief walkthrough tour of the new(ish) Midway Arcade Origins.
Now the below section is completely irrelevant to the subject of Midway Arcade Origins, but I flew off on a tangent of wild, untamed consciousness and, in the end, thought it was good enough to dodge my recycle bin.
But listen, my sweet summer child. Those whom you consider to be 'old folks' -- i.e. my people -- are considerably cooler and more interesting than the old folks WE had back when we were your age. Our old folks gave us gramophone music and unspoken guilt for not experiencing World War II first hand. They shook their fists at our loud music, and complained about us at church.
We don't complain about you in church. We just laugh at the trifling dilemmas you believe are tearing cracks through your universe. We laugh because we also remember our own trifling bullshit from days gone by.
So count yourself lucky, emo kid with no muscle-mass. The next time you see a 40 year old out in the wild, don't shy away from them, or deride them even. Just realize that, whether you like it or not, you'll be stood in those same shoes before you can blink. Realizing that, incredibly, you are not unique and you are getting old just like every other human on the planet.
My lawn.... get off it.
