Page 37 - OSG Presents Classic Gamer Magazine #8

Maloney. She was thin, with Pac-Man, the dark period several cool bumps, a few of
curly grey hair and a smile to officially ended. which made nice, natural
melt your heart. My parents ramps, so you could catch
would always chat with her Maloney’s was within bike some air on your Huffy. The
while I was racking up the riding distance of my house. open forest on either side of
high scores… or trying to. On It was a little over two miles Maloney’s Road featured a
occasion, she would give me away, and was easily few interesting abandoned
a free quarter or some 10¢ accessible through a dirt road artifacts -- beat up school
bubble gum balls. connecting the rear street of lockers, a miniature train
my neighborhood to Crain engine from a kiddie ride at a
After testing the waters with Highway (a.k.a. Route 301), nearby amusement park, and
Missile Command and the the “main drag." Folks in the a full size 1950s Ford pickup.
“mini” Ms. Pac-Man, the neighborhood informally
route operator rotated in referred to it as Maloney’s Maloney’s kept the arcade
other machines, but never Road, which was just as games until 1986, when, just
exceeded two at a time due to much fun to ride on your bike like the games at Kay Cee,
space limitations. Over the as it was playing the games they were removed and
years, Maloney’s became the once you got there. It had replaced with something
home to some rare titles,
including Stratovox, Space
Encounters, and a cabaret
Omega Race. Common titles
like Frogger, Galaxian,
Popeye, Pac-Man, Asteroids,
Centipede, and Berzerk were
featured as well. In fact, that
particular Berzerk became
one of the very first
conversions I ever noticed, as
it was upgraded onsite into
Frenzy, Stern’s 1982 sequel.

However, for a few months in
what I believe was 1983, the
Frogger machine was
replaced with Merit Riviera
Video Poker. They still had
the aforementioned Frenzy,
but I was terribly
disappointed in the “Frogger
for Riviera” swap, as
obviously, video card games
held no interest for me at all.
As far as I was concerned,
Maloney’s only had one
game, Frenzy, during that
time. I referred to this as
Maloney’s “dark period.”
Once both machines were
replaced with Popeye and

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