This is probably one of the few timely blogs that I am going to do. But recently, my family and I finally moved out of our hell hole of an apartment and moved into a new house. Well, not so new. It was built in 1952, but you know what I mean. And this happens to be the third time that we have moved since we have gotten together to form our family. And I swear, our life has been like Asteroids. Everywhere and out of control. But now, well, we seem to be a little better. Except our garage looks like a bad construction of a Pac-Man maze. Video game puns, I know, where the heck am I going with this.
When I was trying to do the packing at the beginning of this adventure, I realized how much I really sucked at stacking boxes. I was reminded of the times that I used to go to one of my all time favorite arcades called Nickelodeon. No, not the slime tv channel, but an actual arcade. It was another one of those favorite arcades because it was right next to a movie theater and also one of my all time favorite stores, Best Buy. At the time it was an awesome store.
But anyway, it was a time that I was really shocked to see something that was in the arcade that pretty much originally was created for the computers. A game so easy and yet at the same time can be the most challenging game to anyone. And if I am not mistaken, this is was one if game that has been pretty much ported to ALMOST all video game systems created out there. I am speaking of course about Tetris.
Seeing all the original elements in a video game that wasn’t even made for the arcade made it something special. I just remember playing it so many times on the PC, Mac and even the Commodore 64. Tetris was such a unique game. Yeah, I’m dropping the classics. No pun intended. But the thing is, you could finally play as a two player game in the arcade. It was really cool to see who knew the drop patterns the best. I knew them better. But like the computer version, the Russian music that made the made the game popular was even louder and stronger in the arcade. That darn ear worm.
There really isn’t much to this memory as there is really nothing much to the game. But the question is, what drives us to play the most simplistic games out there like Tetris, Space Invaders, Pole Position and even Pong? Maybe it is the mentality that we can do something and do something well. I mean for me, I can’t get that far in Tetris, but I still play it to play it. I guess it is almost like eating. Sometimes to eat because you are hungry. Sometimes you eat because you have to. Sometimes you eat because you are bored. Well I must be bored, because chalk it up, I have played that game hundreds of times. And sometimes you just aren’t in the mood to play something that requires a major amount of thought.
Now, if you will excuse me, it has been about two weeks since I have seen the cats. I think accidentally packed them and stacked their boxes in the garage. Might have labeled the box junk. We’ll never know. But until then…..
Keep Calm and Insert Coin
Brad has been a die hard arcade fan ever since he can remember. From the first time he played Space Invaders, to the first time he played Pacman, Brad has always had a love for video games. Hanging out at either the Great American Fun Factory in the mall, or spending the night in front of the glowing games at the local roller rink, he was always thinking about when he can spend the next quarter. He also worked at Babbages, which is now GameStop, for over six years. Mostly because they had a really sweet checkout policy on new products and great discounts. But since he had the Atari 2600, he has never looked back and owned some of the greatest home machines, NES, SNES, GENESIS, Turbo Graphix 16, GameBoy, Game Gear, Lynx, Playsation 1,2,3,4 and Vita, XBOX, Gamecube, and N64...just to name a few. Brad is also a reviewer for Mobile Beat Magazine as well as a freelance videographer, part time disc jockey, performing artist and photographer. But has a true love is for video games and Star Wars, as he is a member of the 501st Central Garrison. His ultimate dream is to own a fully working pinball machine and arcade machine. Difficult to say which one, but a Star Wars one would be nice start.
