Giving In To Arcade Nostalgia

Outside Wonderland Arcade

A recent Geekosystem article features a number of really cool pictures from a 1968 American Arcade that the older gamers amongst us might be interested in taking a look at. You’d have to be in your late 40’s to remember attending an arcade similar to the one pictured in the article, but for those of you interested in arcade history it could provide some fascinating insights.

You can really feel the America of the 60s in these pictures and it’s not difficult to visualize the eager kids and teens excitedly hopping about the place keen to get their grubby mitts on what, in those times, was probably the latest in gaming technology!

Arcades have changed dramatically since the place we can see in the Geekosystem pictures, we’ve got all sorts of interactive, virtual technology nowadays. You can get atop a motorbike and actually feel like you’re steering your way into the final of a race. Pick up what feels like a real gun and shoot the zombies right between the eyes, or you can climb inside one of those virtual reality cars and get shaken about to your heart’s content on an alpine ski slope or equally dramatic environment.

But sometimes you just can’t beat the classics – that’s why so many of us have a special place in our hearts for old school games like Tetris, Pac Man and Space Invaders – and let’s face it – it’s not like slot machines have changed much over the years and they are still a massively popular way to spunk your pennies! As for the 80’s children, I doubt there are many amongst you who didn’t spend countless hours of your childhood queuing at the helm of the Streetfighter arcade machine, waiting eagerly for your turn to ‘Hadouken’ the head off an opponent!

Oh, and check out the picture under the title ‘Kissin Kupids’, on the right hand side of the image there appears to be a machine that looks uncannily like the Zoltar machine that transformed 12-year old Josh Baskin into the 30-year-old, giant piano playing Tom Hanks in the hugely successful 1988 movie Big! I wonder if Zoltar is still taking requests…