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Arcade Cabinets: Tempest (1981)

Published February 29, 2012 Arcade Cabinets/Coin-Ops , Atari , Video Games 4 Comments

(Images via Game on Grafix, arcarc.xmission.com, T3 Design, Gunaxin, The-Tim, farbish.com, VGChartz, and The Arcade Flyer Archive)

Arcade Zen

Published February 28, 2012 '80s Decor/Design/Fashion , Video Arcades , Video Games 2 Comments

Rad Arcade/Flickr

Were jean shorts really this cool? No, they were not. What the hell were we thinking?

Rad Arcade/Flickr

If you think the symmetry of these lined up Tempests is beautiful…

Rad Arcade/Flickr

… then check out this action.

Rad Arcade/Flickr

I really like this long shot. The best arcades had a labyrinthine quality. They gave us spaces to ourselves.

Rad Arcade/Flickr

I don’t know where this came from, but I like it, and I can’t wait to find out what the other “rules” are.

Daves Portfolio/Flickr

This is one of the most iconic shots in the lot, taken in East Sussex, England, in 1983. I don’t recognize any of the machines behind Defender.

Rad Arcade/Flickr

Damn it! Rule number 1 is cut off!

Rad Arcade/Flickr

Yay!

Neato Coolville/Flickr

From the first issue of the Disney Channel Magazine in 1983. It’s the Disneyland Starcade! No Discs of Tron sightings—yet.

babyfella2007/Flickr

“Now pimpin’ ain’t easy but it’s necessary, so I’m chasin’ bitches like Tom chased Jerry…”

Phillie Casablanca/Flickr

Battlezone sighting. Admit it, that viewer was really unsanitary.

elcaarchives/Flickr

The half shirt! With the short shorts. And Star Castle, remember that game? It was one of my favorites, and I’d totally forgotten about it until now.

Arcade Zen

Published February 25, 2012 '80s Decor/Design/Fashion , Video Arcades , Video Games 4 Comments

All of the photos in this installment are via Rad Arcade’s Vintage Arcade Pictures and Magazine Scans set on Flickr. The set makes up more than half of the Growing Up In Arcades group and is a hugely important cultural document.

Rights reserved by Rad Arcade

(1) Damn, it’s hard out there for a pimp. (2) How awesome is that raised platform in the background? Talk about product placement. That’s Tempest on the left, so this must be at least ’81. I think that’s Turbo on the right, which also came out in ’81. (Click on the pics for a bigger image.)

Rights reserved by Rad Arcade

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are floating in space.

Rights reserved by Rad Arcade

Check out what’s playing on the big screen in the background.

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“Here comes John Travolta. Let me just flash my bell-bottoms…”

Rights reserved by Rad Arcade

“Over here, John!”

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The wall art. Gnarly.

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What a great shot. I knew kids that never skipped school to go to the arcade. I just wasn’t one of them.

Arcade Cabinets: Gyruss (1983)

Published February 25, 2012 Arcade Cabinets/Coin-Ops , Video Games Leave a Comment

(Images via eBay, mamedb.com, Dragon’s Lair Fans, Game on Grafix, Artwork Doctor, Joystix, and The Arcade Flyer Archive)

Arcade Zen

Published February 24, 2012 '80s Decor/Design/Fashion , Video Arcades , Video Games 3 Comments

These pics are all via from a righteous Flickr pool called Growing Up In Arcades: 1979-1989. I’m going through the entire series and posting my faves, adding commentary where I see fit. Here’s the first installment.

AaronCaldwell/Flickr

May 24, 1983. Love the moonscape and the Berzerk marquee, but especially the moonscape. What’s an arcade but a series of trips to other worlds?

AaronCaldwell/Flickr

Homeboy on the left reminds me of the funny fat kid on The Cosby Show (what was his name?). Le Tigre dude is grabbing his balls or something; dude next to him is taking a shit in his pants; and dude next to him (the birthday boy in the previous pic) is sporting a killer E.T. shirt that I would wear today, if I could find one that fit.

David Atkins/Flickr

Another one from 1983. The socks. My God, the socks. And another Le Tigre polo (those were the shit back then). And the cut-off jean shorts. And a green t-shirt tucked into green, elastic banded P.E. shorts. Why not? It’s 1983, and we were there, and it was awesome.

Rad Arcade/Flickr

In the arcade cocoon we were kept warm by the fantasies our quarters bought us.

Rad Arcade/Flickr

Dad watches on, bemused by these newfangled games, but secure in the comfort of his pocket protector.

Rad Arcade/Flickr

Put those dice away, players! No gambling zone.

Rad Arcade/Flickr

Oh my sweet heaven. A Space Port.

Games, Imagination, and Reality: The Power of Early Video Game Art

Published February 6, 2012 Video Games 8 Comments

LeftyLimbo made a good point on my Intellivision post about the box art on all these old games being so much more awesome than the actual game play. There’s nothing new about the importance of cover art in marketing, especially when marketing to kids (think of fantasy and sci-fi pulps, comics, RPG modules, toys, etc.), but I thought it would be interesting to make a comparison. Above is the cover of Asteroids for the Atari 2600 and a screenshot of the game:

Now here’s the cover to Halo 2 and a screenshot.

The in-game graphics have caught up to the box art, have surpassed the box art, even. There’s no longer a need to use the imagination to fill in the gaps left by all those 8-bit games. It’s all about emulating reality now, or rather emulating the perception of a reality in which we’re protected by magic armor and moving at hyperspeed.

I’m not saying the old games are superior (we would have literally died of ecstasy if we’d seen and played Halo 2 in ’82, even ’90), though many of them are much more challenging as games. You can’t save your progress in Donkey Kong or Super Zaxxon. When your little men are gone, that’s it; you start from scratch. That’s why the high score meant so much.

The gaming industry, now and then, is in the escape business. It does what it has to do to get us to put more coins in the escape machines. The difference is that the escape is much more pervasive today. The time I spent in the arcades or on my Atari 800 simply doesn’t compare with the hours kids and adults today spend on World of Warcraft and StarCraft.

Another thing: adults didn’t used to play, at least not the way they play now. Parents would occasionally indulge, but they were usually embarrassed; they had “something more important to do.” I’m not sure that any activity post-internet is more important than keeping and staying entertained. Escapism in moderation is a good thing, but gamers tend to have a different idea of moderation than non-gamers and dabblers.