All The Retro, Where Did It Go? The Video Game Evolution

I am a child of the 80's, back in the days of Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Tempest, etc. Remember the Coin-Operated games?

Then the Atari came out, and it's "Clone" "Sears Video Arcade" (it has the extra black and white lever, yes a game console that had LEVERS on it....guess the first game consoles were "machines" not systems)

I had the Sears Video Arcade. I got it for Christmas. Prior to that, I would make a B-Line in Sears just to play the displays they had on.....display (sorry, late night and I don't feel like using a Thesaurus). They had two systems at the time...the Nintendo and the Sears Video Arcade, go figure it was in a Sears store.

When I got the system for Christmas, I got the game that came with it, some kind of Target Shooting game and of course "Space Invaders" (notice my over usage of quotes in my post)

Hit game for the Atari in the 80's? PITFALL!

I recall a friend showing me a trick by pausing the game just as the opening and closing mud pit was, well...closing to the point where it looked like a Chevrolet symbol, he'd pause it and express, "Chevo-leeeeeeet" actually, it was more like "Chevo-laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!".

And what the heck was with that gosh awful digitized Tarzan yell, no wonder Pitfall Harry was alone in the Jungle, he'd scare them off as opposed to the "yells" well known function.

Ah, the good ol' days where I would play till my eyeballs fell out or my mom would tell me to go outside to play and get some fresh air.

Then came Atari Age Magazine

Then movies that came out that had some kind of video game mention in it, or a kid (such as the prodigy in Wargames) playing Galaga...and then....TRON. Movies that had kids playing video games in it...and back then....NERDS were pretty much outcasts.....basically, if you considered video games a "hobby", and football wasn't "your thing" there was something wrong with you.

But looking forward to being dropped off at the mall or arcade to play the new "Jungle Hunt" game was all I could think about, I was always trying to figure out what would happen if you got to the end of that game.

Also, there were a lack of women back then that just weren't into that kind of thing either.

Anyhow, fast forward to the future...the mid-90's

Hit Coin-Op game for the 90's:

Here they are in NO particular order!:

Killer Instinct

Mortal Kombat!

Street Fighter Series! (My favorite clip)

Hot CONSOLE game for the 90's (at least for me) I would have to say the Dragon Warrior Series, Megaman and Blaster Master


Man, I played these games all weekend, I didn't even care if they did not have saving point, I had to dedicate a full day to finish a game. (I think Dragon Warrior I could save though).

Anyways, to the point of the blog. (Didn't think I had one, didn't you? LOL)

Well, now that it's 2009, and there's a recession going on. The arcade I used to go to, is still there....the one thing I have noticed was the missing counter where the game room attendant you to be. Guess what, there's no game room attendant!! The place is being run like a laundry mat now. LOL Cutting costs man.

And the game rooms of these days are desolate, probably because of the current game systems out these days. I walked into the place, and the OLD games I used to play back in the 90's are STILL there! The screens faded though, just a relic of how things used to be.

I got nostalgic, and thought back to the days when the arcade would be PACKED on a Fri/Sat nights, us lined up taking turns playing the winner at the current fighting games, it was pretty wild and very social.

Now nothing but tumbleweeds in the place.

It's amazing how things have changed. That things aren't how they used to be. Guess people are staying in playing video games. Am I getting to be one of those old people that are complaining about how better video games were then than they are now? Well, I don't mean graphics and quality-wise, but the social aspect of it, it was cool to hang out at those places with friends and movies always depicted the same thing.

I think there used to be more movies in the 80's that either had some kind of video game theme to it, or at least had some kind of arcade on the set.

Remember "You Can't Do That on Television?" The skit "Blips Arcade" even then, video games mainstreamed into the environment itself.

Anyhow, that's enough nostalgia for now.

Talk to you later!