The lights and sounds of a video game arcade are things that will always put a smile on my face.
I was in Salt Lake City over the weekend and had a chance to stop off at the Nickel Mania arcade in Murray, Utah. The arcade itself is located on State Street, but is pretty much housed within a nondescript, single-story building with large windows. A small sign with an image of a friendly-looking coin waving a people, along with an LED sign displaying the names of the various arcade machines inside, are all the advertising a person sees as they drive by.
I was born in the tail-end of 1983, so I missed out on a majority of the older arcade releases that people born a decade before got to experience. I grew up during two of the major renaissances occurring in the video game industry, the reintroduction of home game console, a feat accomplished single-handedly by Nintendo, and the resurgence of arcade games during the mid 1990s as a result of fighting games like “Street Fighter II” and “Mortal Kombat,” as well as over-the-top sports games like “NBA Jam.”
Admittedly, a majority of the best games, like “Pacman,” “Dig-Dig” and “Pole Position” are widely available on a variety of different devices. However, there’s a certain thrill to being hunched over in front of a flickering cathode-ray-tube screen, maneuvering a that large yellow dot around a maze while dodging ghosts and munching on fruit, with a little joystick the fits perfectly in the palm of the hand.
One of the main reasons I enjoy playing coin-operated arcade games is the feeling of legitimacy the arcade version of a game has compared to other versions. The perfect example of this is “Donkey Kong,” the game that established Nintendo as an early games company. I’ve played a lot of “Donkey Kong” and its sequel “Donkey Kong Jr.” on the Nintendo Entertainment System, the bulky, gray and black system that I’m sure is still resting undisturbed in some our readers’ basements. Donkey Kong is a simple game really. Navigate Mario through a construction site, dodging barrels, springboards and living fires to save his girlfriend from a huge and angry ape. Stage one-barrels, stage two-elevators and springboards, stage three-fires and rivets. Complete that and you do it all over again from the first stage, albeit a little faster.
It wasn’t until much later (my mid 20s) that I had a chance to play the arcade version and frankly, was blown away. There are a lot of small touches that didn’t cross over into Nintendo’s home version. The arcade game is harder because it’s designed to eat quarters of course, but there are other things as well. For example, barrels that will set fire to the oil drum at the bottom of the screen are colored blue and have a tiny skull and crossbones on them. Animations at the start showing Donkey Kong climbing a series of ladders and ruining the construction site, as well as him grabbing Pauline and climbing higher once Mario reaches the top of the screen are absent from the home game as well. The biggest difference is how the game is played, using a somewhat unorthodox method in its stage order. In Nintendo’s home version, three stages are looped endlessly, getting faster and faster after each set. The arcade version starts with the barrel stage, then goes directly to the final stage. The second set introduces the springboard and elevator stage, mimicking the Nintendo Entertainment System’s looping set. However, make it through that and an entirely new stage not included on Nintendo’s home version is brought into the rotation. The stage is often referred to as the concrete factory or pie factory (due to the concrete piles’ resemblance to unbaked pies) and the first time I played it, I felt like I was seven years old again, exploring a secret I hadn’t known about for 20 years.
One final thing attracting me to the arcade is how they’re almost a step back in time. Arcades more or less died in the U.S. due to a combination of home games offering similar experiences to what was offered in the arcades, as well as the public perception of an arcade being a dingy, poorly lit space frequented by delinquent youth. Another factor contributing to their decline was the cost of the machines themselves, which for smaller areas killed the market. Many arcade games tried to differentiate themselves from home games through the inclusion of expensive and difficult to replicate control systems involving toy guns, replica racing wheels and other unique means. This also comes with a higher cost that is difficult to recoup. Many of those games, even of bought used, cost in the low to mid $10,000s. Even compilations of multiple older games contained on a single cabinet can cost thousands. That’s a lot of quarters, and doesn’t factor in required maintenance and replacement part costs.
Despite all that, I do think the arcade experience is one of a kind and is something I value whenever I have a chance. Nothing can replace the feeling of posting an impressive score on “Pac-Land” or being watched as you shoot down wave after endless wave of Japanese fighter planes in “1943.” Hearing the chaotic symphony of electronic music and sound effects from a dozen or more different cabinets is intoxicating in its own way. It’s also inescapable to feel the rush of playing a game as it was originally meant to be played, not emulated on a modern game console.
Those are the reasons I’ll walk up to a cabinet, drop a coin or two, and happily stare into the past with a smile.
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