The Video Game Critic's

The appeal may be lost on some people, but for many who grew up in the "golden age" of arcade games, owning a vintage video game arcade machine is the ultimate. These machines used to be everywhere in the early 80's: the mall, bowling alleys, the local 7-11, sub shops, and even many restaurants. Although I dropped my share of quarters into them, I also spent a lot of time watching other players. I always noticed and admired the machines' colorful marquees and distinct artwork.
Twenty years later, these refurbished machines are actually affordable to own and really add character to any club room or finished basement. Depending on their condition, these machines usually range from a few hundred bucks to $3000 for a Dragon's Lair. Most refurbished machines fall in the $1000-$2000 range, with shipping running an extra $250 or so. The games tend to weigh in at around 300 lbs, but their saucer-shaped metal feet make them easy to slide around. I was able to transport one of mine down a set of stairs with the help of just one friend. If you're in the market, I purchased two of mine from Quarter Arcade in Pennsylvania, which I highly recommend. All of their machines are in tip-top shape. Tell them the Video Game Critic sent you.
On this page I rate the three arcade games I own and share some of the experiences I've had with them. I've reviewed them in the order I've aquired them. Part of the reason I purchased these three is that they all have unconventional controls, which make them hard to duplicate on a console or computer.
Centipede (1980) Gameplay: A+Cabinet: B+
My first arcade machine was Centipede, an all-time favorite of many people. Although perfectly emulated versions are readily available via arcade game compilations or the Internet, no controller could ever substitute for that mini-track ball. It allows for both lightning fast movement and precision control, both vital for a "twich" game like this. Not only do you have to deal with a Centipede that splits when shot, but there's an unpredictable spider can pounce on you at any time. Depending on his proximity, the spider is worth 300, 600, or 900 points. Dive-bombing fleas aren't hard to shoot for 200 points, but there's little room for error. Since they tend to accelerate towards the bottom of the screen, one slightly-off shot could mean instant death. Then there's the scorpion - the biggest prize in the whole game. At 1000 points, you'd be a fool not to take a shot at him whenever he enters the screen. Another reason to kill him is because he poisons mushrooms, and centipedes that touch those tainted 'shrooms will make a bee-line for the bottom of the screen. Centipede is incredibly additive and like every aspect of the game is perfectly balanced and tuned. It's also exceptionally hard, and game sessions rarely last for more than a few minutes.
This is one arcade game that strongly appeals to women, perhaps because it was designed by a woman. My wife doesn't like video games in general, but Centipede won her over in a big way. She played it non-stop the first week we got it, and she still plays it a few times a week. Needless to say, she has owned the top three screens (each over 60K) for some time now. For the record, her top score is 81,357, and that's in HARD mode!
The Centipede cabinet is very attractive with a monstrous centipede looming on each side. The screen is situated vertically. The control panel has one mini trak-ball, one fire button (which can be held down for constant fire), and two player-select buttons. It's cool how the red player select buttons flash when you drop a quarter or two in. Since this is an older machine, changes to the options must be done via dip-switches accessible from the back door of the cabinet. These switches let you adjust the difficulty (normal and hard), bonuses (every 12000 points recommended), lives per game (3 recommended), and of course, cost per game. You can also set it up in "free play" mode so you never need to insert any quarters. Like most Atari arcade games, the three top scores are retained when the machine is powered off.
In my experience, this is a very reliable, well-constructed machine. Everybody seems to love it, so it's great for when you have people over.
Tapper (1983) Gameplay: C+Cabinet: A
I got a great deal on this Tapper from a local guy who repairs arcade games for a living. What's really great about this machine is that it's one of the original Budweiser themed Tappers. In 1983, many parents made a stink about their kids playing a game with alcoholic beverages in it. As a result, Tapper machines were relegated to bars, and many were retro-fitted as "Root Beer Tapper" machines. Talk about lame! Being an ardent beer drinker myself, I feel grateful to have salvaged one of the original versions. The game stars a mustached bartender who must tend to four rows of bars. Patrons approach from the left of each bar, and you need to slide glasses of beer to them to keep them at bay. Empty glasses are slowly slid back to the bartender, who must catch them before they fall off the end of the bar. There's a lot of funny little animations, like patrons that belch when they finish their beer. The first stage takes place in a normal bar, the second takes place at an outdoor sporting event (with kegs!), the next takes place in punk rock bar, and the final stage is set in an intergalactic space bar. Your bartender zips from one bar to the next, and can also run down the length each bar to grab empty glasses and snag tips. The controls include a joystick and two realistic, Budweiser-labeled beer "taps" used to pour beers. Between normal stages there's a cool bonus stage that plays like a shell game with shaken beer cans. Tapper's gameplay is fun and original but it does have a few flaws. For one thing, the patrons tend to overlap with each other, making it hard to see how many there are. Next, you can milk the easy first stage for quite a while in order to inflate your score. The game can run pretty long if you're good at it. Finally, the last stage is so hard to reach that I've never even seen it, and the guy I bought the game from has only seen it once!
I enjoy playing Tapper, but my favorite aspect of this game is the cabinet. The fake-wood sides, old-fashioned arwork, brass foot rail, and drink holders make it look classy and unique. The marquee looks like it's made of stained glass. The back and bottom edges of this machine were ragged when I bought it, but I've since covered them with a brown trim, and now the machine looks brand new. Tapper doesn't have any play options, so you can't set it to free play or adjust the difficulty. In my experience, Tapper is not constructed as well as my Atari machine. It takes a few seconds to "warm up" when you turn it on, and the speakers sometimes make faint "pop" noises when in the attract mode.
Tapper is a game that's enjoyed by many of my beer drinking friends. While not as addictive as a game like Centipede, it has a lot of character and a terrific sense of humor. Since it's a real collector's items, it's easy for me to overlook its flaws.
Crystal Castles (1983) Gameplay: B-Cabinet: A
Most people have never even heard of this game, but I was a big fan of Crystal Castles back in the early 80's. Although the gameplay is basically derived from Pac-Man, I have always found Crystal Castle's psuedo-3D graphics very appealing. Gameplay involves controlling a gay-looking bear named Bentley using a large trak-ball. Each stage is an elaborate, multi-tiered "castle" with many pathways and open areas covered with gems. There are even a few "elevators". You can't actually enter any of the structures, but sometimes they have doorways that transport you to a different part of the screen. I don't know how many unique stages there are, but I love the imaginative designs and attractive color combinations. Your enemies include gem-eating "standing" centipede-like creatures, walking trees, skeletons, balls, a swarm of bees, and a witch on a broom. Bentley can defeat the centipedes for big points if he catches them in the act of eating a gem. He can also leap over his pursuers, but this is a tricky maneuver best left for emergency situations. A magic hat will make you invincible for a few seconds, and grabbing a honey pot awards you with bonus points. Some stages contain secret portals that let you skip to advanced stages of the game. My only issue with the gameplay is that the "swarm" becomes too hard to avoid in the later stages, behaving like a heat-seeking missile.
Crystal Castles is fast and fun, but it takes a while to get used to the sensitive trak-ball control. In terms of graphics, the scenery is pure eye candy, but Atari should have came up with a more appealing main character. The harmonized music is well orchestrated but somewhat annoying. Crystal Castles has one of the most attractive cabinets I've ever seen. The color scheme and artwork is terrific, especially in the black front section. The speakers under the marquee are tilted out in an unusual manner, and they look very distinctive. Best of all, the red trak-ball actually glows! It's not noticeable when you're playing, but it's awesome for display purposes. There are two jump buttons, which also double as player select buttons.
Since Crystal Castles was a "second generation" Atari machine, it has a convenient option menu that appears on the screen when you hit a test switch. From here, you can set the coin value, difficulty, starting lives, and extra lives. You can even view a detailed "accounting" screen that lets you know how many games have been played and provides a break-down of the scores. There's a free-play mode, but it has an unwanted side effect. In the normal "attract" mode, the machine cycles through the instruction screen, high score screen, and game demo. However, in free play mode it just stays on a single static screen. This doesn't look good and could potentially lead to monitor burn-in if left on for days on end. For that reason I usually keep this game in "quarter" mode. Also, despite the fact that the game records the top 300 or so high scores, only the top three are saved when it's powered off! I was hoping it would have saved the whole bank.
Although I still think the game is fun, I haven't seen many other people take much of an interest in it. I'd only recommend this machine to fans of the game.
Maintenance TipsDespite being somewhat expensive and taking up a lot of room, I have never regretted purchasing my three arcade games. However, I have come to learn that there are a few maintenance issues that come with owning machines that are over 20 years old. They do attract dust which can damage the machine, so you need to keep them clean. One time my Crystal Castles machine started acting funny (garbled video, reset scores), but I was able to fix this by removing the circuit board and "reseating" (firmly pushing in) each of the chips. Another time I had serious problems with static electricity, but was able to resolve this by purchasing round rubber "feet" which are designed for pinball tables. It's nice to have the owner's manual, which provides schematics, diagnostic information, and maintenance instructions. In general however, these machines are very reliable and built like tanks. They are designed to take a beating, so when you have kids around you don't need to worry about them pulling on the joysticks or pounding the buttons. I would however recommend powering the machines off when not in use, since they tend to suck up a lot of electricity.

Types of games

Field games (sports)Association football is a popular sport worldwide.Association football is a popular sport worldwide.Main article: SportsSports are arguably the most popular type of game.[citation needed] Many sports require special equipment and dedicated playing fields, leading to the involvement of a community much larger than the group of players. A city or town may set aside such resources for the benefit of the young, as in Little League.Popular sports may have spectators who are entertained just by watching games. A community will often align itself with a local sports team that supposedly represents it (even if the team or most of its players only recently moved in); they often align themselves against their opponents or have traditional rivalries. The concept of fandom began with sports fans.Stanley Fish cited[citation needed] the balls and strikes of baseball as a clear example of social construction, the operation of rules on the game's tools. While the strike zone target is governed by the rules of the game, it epitomizes the category of things that exist only because people have agreed to treat them as real. No pitch is a ball or a strike until it has been labeled as such by an appropriate authority, the plate umpire, whose judgment on this matter cannot be challenged within the current game.Certain competitive sports, such as racing and gymnastics, are not games by definitions such as Crawford’s (see above, despite the inclusion of many in the Olympic Games) because competitors do not interact with their opponents.[edit] Video gameMain article: Video gameA video game is a computer- or microprocessor-controlled game. Computers can create virtual tools to be used in a game, such as cards or dice.A computer or video game uses one or more input devices, typically a button/joystick combination (on arcade games); a keyboard, mouse and/or trackball (computer games); or a controller or a motion sensitive tool. (console games). More esoteric devices such as paddle controllers have also been used for input. In computer games, the evolution of user interfaces from simple keyboard to mouse, joystick or joypad has profoundly changed the nature of game development.[citation needed]It has been suggested that any game can be emulated as a computer game.[citation needed] Because computer games are simulations, every conceviable tool, environment or rule can be created.[dubious — see talk page] Whether or not the computer emulation possesses the same gameplay as the original game is an open question.[citation needed]In more open-ended computer simulations, aka sandbox-style games, notably those designed by Will Wright, the player may be free to do whatever they like within the confines of the virtual universe. Due to the lack of goals or opposition, it is disputed whether these programs are games or toys. (Crawford specifically mentions Wright’s SimCity as an example of a toy.[2])[edit] Board gamesParcheesi is a board game originating in India.Parcheesi is a board game originating in India.Main article: Board gameBoard games use as a central tool a board on which the players' status, resources, and progress are tracked using physical tokens. Most also involve dice and/or cards. Most games that simulate war are board games, and the board may be a map on which the players' tokens move.[edit] Card gamesMain article: Card gameCard games use as a central tool a deck of cards. The cards may be a standard Anglo-American (52-card) deck of playing cards (such as Go Fish or Crazy Eights, or a deck specific to the individual game (such as Set). Uno and Rook are examples of games that were originally played with a standard deck and have since been commercialized with customized decks.[edit] Role playing gamesMain article: Role playing gameRole-playing games, often abbreviated as RPGs, are a type of game in which the participants assume the roles of characters and collaboratively create stories and world setting. Examples of computer roleplaying games are RuneScape, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Final Fantasy, Fable: The Lost Chapters, Elder Scrolls, and Anarchy Online. Pen-and-paper roleplaying games include, for example, Dungeons & Dragons and GURPS.[edit] Single-player gamesSingle-player games are unique in respect to the type of challenges a player faces. Unlike a game with multiple players competing with or against each other to reach the game's goal, a one-player game is a battle solely against an element of the environment (an artificial opponent), against one's own skills, against time or against chance. Playing with a yo-yo or playing tennis against a wall is not generally recognised as playing a game due to the lack of any formidable opposition. This is not true, though, for a single-player computer game where the computer provides opposition.Lawn gamesMain article: Lawn gameLawn games are outdoor games that can be played on a lawn. Many games that are traditionally played on a pitch are marketed as "lawn games" for home use in a front or back yard. Common lawn games include Horseshoes, Croquet, Bocce and Stake.

Arcade game

The first popular "arcade games" were early amusement park midway games such as shooting galleries, ball toss games, and the earliest coin-operated machines, such as those which claim to tell a person their fortune or played mechanical music. Although none of these were coin-operated games themselves, the old midways of 1920s-era amusement parks (such as Coney Island in New York) provided the inspiration and atmosphere of later arcade games.In the 1930s, the earliest coin-operated pinball machines were made. These early amusement devices were distinct from their later electronic cousins in that they were made of wood, did not have plungers or lit-up bonus surfaces on the playing field, and used mechanical instead of electronic scoring readouts. By around 1977, most pinball machines in production switched to using solid state electronics for both operation and scoring.History of…Video gamesConsole gamesFirst generationSecond generationVideo game crash of 1983Third generationFourth generationFifth generationSixth generationSeventh generationArcade gamesGolden Age of Arcade GamesIn 1972, Atari was formed by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Atari essentially created the coin-operated video game industry with the game PONG, the smash hit electronic ping pong video game. PONG proved to be popular, but imitators helped keep Atari from dominating the fledging coin-operated videogame market. Nonetheless, video game arcades sprang up in shopping malls and small, "corner arcades" appeared in restaurants, grocery stores, bars and movie theaters all over the United States and other countries during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Games such as Space Invaders (1978), Galaxian (1979), Pac-Man (1980), Battlezone (1980), and Donkey Kong (1981) were especially popular.By the late-1980s, the arcade video game craze was beginning to fade due to the reputation of arcades as being seedy, unsafe places as well as the advances in home video game console technology. The last gasp of the youth arcade subculture, as it once was, may have been the advent of two-player fighting games such as Street Fighter II (1991) by Capcom, Mortal Kombat (1992) by Midway Games, Fatal Fury (1992), and King of Fighters (1994-2005) by SNK.By 1996, 32-bit home video game consoles and computers with 3D accelerator cards had reached technological parity with arcade equipment — arcade games had always been based on commodity technology, but their advantage over previous generations of home system was in their ability to customize and use the latest graphics and sound chips, much as PC games of today do. Declines in arcade sales volume meant that this approach was no longer cost-effective. The arcades also lost their status as the forefront of new game releases. Given the choice between playing a game at an arcade three or four times (perhaps 15 minutes of play for a typical arcade game), and renting, at about the same price, the exact same game — for a video game console — the console was the clear winner. Fighting games were the most attractive feature for arcades, since they offered the prospect of face-to-face competition and tournaments, which correspondingly led players to practice more (and spend more money in the arcade), but they couldn't support the business all by themselves.Recent 20th anniversary arcade machine, combining two video gamesRecent 20th anniversary arcade machine, combining two video gamesTo stay in business, the arcades themselves were reinvented as "fun centers" such as Chuck E. Cheese's, with arcade games being supplemented by a variety of other attractions, most notably the redemption game. Many old video game arcades have long since closed and classic coin-operated games have become largely the province of dedicated hobbyists.Today's arcades have found a niche in games that use special controllers largely inaccessible to home users. An alternative interpretation (one which includes fighting games, which continue to thrive and require no special controller) is that the arcade game is now a more socially-oriented hangout, with games that focus on an individual's performance, rather than the game's content, as the primary form of novelty. Examples of today's popular genres are rhythm games such as Dance Dance Revolution (1998) and DrumMania (1999), and rail shooters such as House of the Dead (1998) and Time Crisis. However, with the increase of Internet cafes opening (which also provide gaming services), the need for video arcades and such arcade games are reduced, and many have been shut down or merged with the cafes as a result.TechnologyVirtually all modern arcade games (other than the very traditional midway-type games at county fairs) make extensive use of solid state electronics and integrated circuits. Coin-operated arcade video games generally use custom per-game hardware with multiple CPUs, highly specialized sound and graphics chips and/or boards, and the latest in computer graphics display technology. Sometimes, arcade games are controllable via more immersing and realistic means than either PC or console games, and feature specialized ambiance or control accessories, including fully enclosed dynamic cabinets with force feedback controls, dedicated lightguns, rear-projection displays, reproductions of car or plane cockpits and even motorcycle or horse-shaped controllers, or even highly dedicated controllers such as dancing mats and fishing rods. These accessories are usually what set modern arcade games apart from PC or console games, as they are usually too bulky, expensive and specialized to be used with typical home PCs and consoles.