Interesing thread this.. I'm 22 and missed out on a lot of the late 70's/early 80's games. I do remember playing Space Invaders when I was about 4, I could barely reach the controls but I was amazed by the brilliant artwork on the machine and the frenetic sounds made by the Invaders as they got faster and faster. I also remember playing asteroids at an early age, but it wasn't until the mid 80's that I got hooked on video games- Kung Fu Master and 1942 were my favs at the time, god knows how much money I spent on those two games.

The next era began in about 1987, when Double Dragon came out. I couldn't believe how good the graphics and sound were, and it was fun beating the crap out of your mate.. I think it was also the first simultaneous two player game I played. The wave of late 80's Data East games like Bad Dudes and Robocop blew me away.. but I was beginning to notice a trend, all these games had endings- I could finish the games relatively easily and in a short amount of time, unlike when I used to spend hours on one credit playing Gyruss.

I like Capcom games, but Final Fight and SF2 basically killed off any advances in the video gaming genre. After '91 all you saw in the arcades were mindless Neo Geo fighters, hence my dislike for the system. True, not all Neo Geo games are fighters and there's been some innovative titles such as Windjammers and Puzzle Bobble, but for the most part I've never been interested. I was a bit surprised when I first heard that MAME was going to support Neo Geo, after all MAME is an acronym for Multi Arcade Machine Emulator and quite a few Neo Geo games are console only games, so the MAME name is a bit incongruous. Nevertheless, its good to see such advancements in emulation, being able to play a Neo Geo game with sound was but a dream a year ago.

With all the games MAME supports, it's fun trying out games that I've never even heard of, all those old B&W games like M79 Ambush and Safari make for some good challenges. Sometimes I wonder though.. when I'm playing some obscure game from 1977 while the Playstation is sitting there gathering dust.. it's becoming a sign of the times that we increasingly look back to old favourites with the population of emulation and the various Classic Arcade Compilations, rather than play some whizz bang 3D eye candy game with zilch playabilty.

Welp, thats more than enough nostalgia for one evening.. as BBH put it- Viva La MARP!

-- JSW (jwilson@sv.net.au), November 09, 1998

Answers

More history...

This is very interesting... I'm 23, and never played Space Invaders (except on my old Atari 2600). The oldest game I played would probably be Galaxian, and sometimes I would play Donkey Kong, or Galaga. But when I was in my teens, an arcade parlour opened nearby. I would play games every day after school. But I was really hooked on Bubble Bobble and Street Fighter II (btw, it was released in 1991). I would spend an hour and a half playing Bubble Bobble, racking up 5-6 million point scores (Highest score - 9,999,990, the highest possible). I also enjoyed some Neo Geo games, including Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, and Blue's Journey (although I don't normally like platform games). I also like pinball games - even though they were so damn infuriating! One particular pinball game I liked was Secret Service (Data East - 1987) probably because I got better at it, winning extra credits much of the time!

-- Barry Rodewald (bsr@hn.pl.net), November 09, 1998.

Super Dith World

Hi, I'm 29 and my era was probably from around '78 to '88. The first games I remember playing were Gunfight, Boot Hill, M-79 Ambush, Sea Wolf, Depth Charge and Guided Missle.

I was totally hooked from about the age of 8. Then a year later I came across Space Invaders, Carnival, Galaxian and then Pac-man, my fave game of all time. Pac-man was just so playable and although it looked simple it was a very strategic game, only truly appreciated by those who had spent the time to fully understand it. Donkey Kong was the next big hit, again massive playability, this was followed by a series of hit games which relied on strategic gameplay with an impeccable level of progression in difficulty. Well I never looked back, I was totally addicted to games like Scramble, Ms.Pac-man, Donkey Kong Jr, Mr.Do! Bombjack, Paperboy and Star Force.

When I was 11, my school project was about Pac-man and my creative writing exam was a fictional piece based on Stargate and Defender. I used to go to the arcades after school during the week, there used to be a group of people who would meet there, we were so into it, it was like nothing else in life mattered. We would work together on games, playing doubles and sharing tips to help everyone, appreciate and enjoy the games more.

It wasn't until my teens that I started to master a few games and be able to play them infinitely. Starting with games like Track & Field, Commando and Terra Cresta, I soon began to master almost every game as it arrived in our local arcade. Some of them were Jap imports which I've never seen since, my fave from the mid 80s was "Hot Rockin' for You" from Konami, if anyone knows anything about this game then please let me know.

Then it happened, game manufacturers started adding endings to their games! Even worse, some games allowed you to continue by adding credits, where's the challenge in that? That's when I started to loose interest, I started writing my own games and I have worked in the games industry since. It's still pretty exciting and there is a lot of influence in my work from the classic era, but I wish I had been a coin-op games designer 20 years ago.

MAME is the best piece of software I have ever come across. Not only does it bring back all those memories of the games I loved, I now have the rest of my life to master all the classic games I used to see in the arcades but never had time to play. To make things even better there is a group of expert players online. MAME emulates the hardware but it's you guys here at MARP who emulate the community of players in my local arcade 15 years ago.

Dith, England.

-- Dith (dith@europress.co.uk), November 10, 1998.

I guess, when it comes to videogames, I come fro ma different perspective. I am now 44, which makes me around 30 when I first really noticed the arcade games. I never played the b/w games, except for the occasional game of pong.

When the games like Donkey Kong, Dig Dug, pacman, Ms pacman, etc, came out, I and my friends had Commodore 64's, and played many of the 64 versions of the games, so we didn't visit the arcades as much. Games I *DID* love in the arcade though, were Donkey Kong Jr, (Never was ported to the 84(, and Mario Bros. I hope that more of the Mario Bros series are someday emulated with mame.

It is so cool to use mame, because to be honest, I much prefer the arcade versions. Really brings back the memories. My 2 1/2 old daughter really loves them also, with Donkey Kong being her favorite. (She always ends up on the high score. :)

-- g. lambert (tesla@cyberverse.com), February 03, 1999.

I might as well jump on the band wagon. :) rolling up on 31, I have to say my addiction started when I first put a quarter in Cosmic Gurillas. Then jumped over to Speed Buggy, and then this game (can't remember the name) it was b/w and you controlled a mototcycle and all you did was do jumps over ramps! Between these 3 simple games back in 79' in a small little pizza parlor in Woodhaven, Queens NY was all it took... Shortly after, (80') I moved to Boca Raton Fl. at the age of 12. Scouring the neighborhood for any video game I can find to play I went into a Cumberland Farms store (7-11 basically) and what cought my eye was this game in the corner called "Galaga" This game is what gave me the incentive to cut lawns and search for money back bottles so I would have enought dough to play and master this game. I did just that for about 6 months, untill just 5 stores down in the same mall, a laundry mat put in about 4 games (pleides, moon cresta, donkey kong, and defender) I bounced back and forth between the convienent store and this laundry mat spending my hard earned money I got from bottles and cutting lawns. About 6 more months went by, and right next door to the laundry mat (actually joined the two store fronts) went in a arcade called "Game Fever"! They had about 30 games! I was in heaven like no other! This was really where it began. My skills increased dramatically, allready getting 4M on galaga 1 year later at 13. Getting 7M+ on Defender around the same time just 6 months playing it! and managed to find a robotron 2 stores down in a bar which I don't know how the hell I snuck in, but I did and played to I reached my all-time high of 10M! at age 14. I found a way to various locations within a 5 mile radious on my bike playing to master a new game as I found one. Stargate and Joust were another 2 to be added to my list and as time progressed by 86' the year I gradutated and bought my first car! I got sucked down to this arcade I was told about which was the largest in the world. My god it was! They had about 500 games in this gigantic building with the whole center of the room lines and lines of table top games! Around the wall was the stand ups and the popular ones like donkey kong pacman galaga, space invaders and burgertime there were multiple machines of each one! I was now beyond heaven! I did this for a while before changing the pace as I began getting older, I got turned on to the club scene. That's when I spend more time on the home systems and then went to clubs at night! After about 5 years, I got sick of it and got back into going to the arcade on a daily basis. Grand Prix had moved closer to my house and had doubled in size. Since then (about 23) I've been going there just about every weekend and sometimes during the week up untill today! Mastering not only many more video games, but learning to master pinball which I've accomplished today. Grand Prix has grown to over 1,200 games now and I still can't believe I'm playing some of the older games as much now as I did in the 80's and comparing scores on a game like Galaga from day 1, untill now having 18 years invested on this one and a whole lot of money back bottles! I can honestly say, I'm happy with my 20+M!... :) and thanks again to mame and marp, I'm getting better every day on on all the others. :^)

Regards, Steve Krogman

-- stephen krogman (skrogman@concentric.net), February 03, 1999.

Ok, I am next to hop on the arcade band wagon..."WHEW", that was sure a nice climb to the top of the wagon. Anyway, I am now 34 and thus watched the popularity of video games grown and grow. The first "arcade" I visited really was not an arcade at all. There was no such thing at the time or at least not in my area. Mostly the "arcade" was a small niches in a shopping mall or in the basement of a department store. Most of the games were all black and white and were either driving or shooting games of some sort. What I mean by shooting games, I mean either the game used a gun that pointed at a large screen, or was of the boat/tank battle games where you looked through a periscope. Sea Wolf was perhaps the first game I ever played. I remember it clearly because my father had to hold me up to the periscope so I can play. Sometimes he got lucky and found a milk crate for me to stand on. My parents never let me play long either. I guess I would say the biggest change to happen in video games was the space genre with the release of Space Invaders. This game got noticed and not only by me. Up to this time, if there was a game in a store or pizza parlar it was usually one or two pinball machines. Space Invaders first made it's appearance at a local movie theatre that decided to "Add" an arcade in it's waiting room. They had three pinball machines and two Space Invader machines to start. Little did I know that this machine was ALREADY a big hit. I played a couple of games on it and I sucked...I did keep at it, but change did run out and I never completed more than 5 or 6 waves. But it did catch my interest. Space Invaders began popping up all over the place. By the time Star Wars Empire Strikes Back was released, another game made an appearance at the movie theater, Asteroids. This game I sucked at as well, but it appeared more interesting than space invaders, and the vector graphics were really hot, new and cool. I didn't go to the movies much in the following years. But now the mall had a full true to life "Arcade". My mom tried to keep me out of there as much as she could. So I didn't play too many games from this period. I did go to a Karate school and they had a Defender in the workout room for a long time. I got fairly good at this game being that it was the only game there. One of the younger classmates recommending adding to our game lineup, keeping defender and adding Pac-Man. I never heard of the game at time, but I went along and said OK. GREAT MOVE!!! Pac-Man was a hit. I liked to play it, but everyone crowded around it and I rarely got a chance to play...that is how I got good at Defender :), since few people continued to play it. Sadly around the time I left the school, they were pulling Defender out to replace it with a Ms. Pac Man. I never got to play Ms Pac Man until I found out the local amusement park was replacing it's Antique Carousel with a full blown arcade (which later I realized was a bad move). At was about 1984 and video games were at it's peak! This room had over 100 games and about 30 pinball machines, I was in heaven! They had all the hits. Frogger, Tempest, Dig Dug, Star Wars, both Pac-Mans, and an old classic Space Invaders and Asteroids. Now THIS was an arcade. I put more time in on Ms. Pac Man than regular Pac-Man. I like the change of screens and the better cut scenes. Two years later I began to work for the park and initially wanted to work for the games, but they had an opening with rides...I found that more enjoyable :). Around this time, games were winding down a bit from Pac-Man Fever. Fighting games slowly began filling the arcade like Punch Out and other games. I began to slowly loose interest in video games, except the classics. But I began to turn my attention to the pinball machines. Up until this point I was never good at them and hated them. But playing them more and more I began to get good at them and stuck with a few. I worked for the park for two more years and got fairly decent at pinball machines, especially Pin-Bot. I still stuffed quarters in the Ms.Pac Man machines, but noticed that all the other classics were disappearing. They long disappeared from the pizza parlors and other small shops. The funny thing though was that all these smaller places seemed to have an arkanoid machine. I didn't like that game too much at first. Content with pinball machines up until the late 90's, I got word that Williams will be no longer producing machines as of the millenium. That did put a big damper on my feelings toward the gaming industry. By now the local pubs and arcades have nothing but driving, Jurassic Park type shooting games, and those darn fighting games. Pinball machines are few. Only the amusement park has a good share of machines left. But I began to loose interest in arcades in general. They were no longer for me. I was now in my 30's and the games catered to the younger crowd. Most of them don't even want to be bothered with pinball machines. No wonder why the major manufacturers decided to stop making them. About around this time last year something special came along to rekindle my interest in arcade games....MAME! Ahhhhh! What a relief it is to see that someone has stepped up to the plate and found a way to play old classic arcade games on a home computer. Moreover, I saw what people were doing creating this big game cabinets (or converting existing game cabinets) to MAME cabinets that can play more than one or two games. A year before this I was planning to make a small game room in my basement with a couple pinball machines and pachinko machines. I did want a video game, but there were cost and space prohibitive. I know I only could have one...but which one out of all those classics! There was JAMMA which I learned alot about and could have a switch box to switch about 5 or so games, but many of the old classic games could not be used on the new JAMMA system. (I still had to yet learn about JAMMA adapters). But around this time I came across MAME. This was my answer. Now I can put all my classics in one cabinet! Dream come true!

That is my arcade story. I hope to have my game room finished by 2005. I should have two pinball machines, two MAME cabinets (one upright, one cocktail). One Bartop game, two pachinko machines, and one slot machine. Of course there will be a nice 1958 Seeburg jukebox pumping out the tunes while every one plays games. Personal arcade dream come true! YES!! Now I can play all my classics. Thank the maker for MAME!

Geo

-- Jukingeo (jukingeo@optonline.net), March 08, 2003.

Here are some thoughts about early arcades in the DC area. Around 1977 or '78 I remember playing Space Wars and a Depthcharge type game that made a yee-ow-yee-ow sound when the PT boat went past. The Space Wars was in a Mariott Hotel on the Arlington side of Key Bridge (connects to D.C.) and they had a game room with about ten games in it. On the other side of the bridge is Georgetown and the bars there had the Depthcharge-type game and other crude black and white games. At George Washington University around 1979? I remember playing Battlezone but the cost was high - fifty cents. Earlier than all that I recall playing Deathrace (Exidy) at Ocean City , Md., where there were huge game rooms filled with the old games. Down in Crystal City in Arlington (about 1980) there was a game room with Lunar Lander. I remember playing an early cocktail Pacman in a ski- lodge in Vermont. In college I played Missile Command , Asteroids and (of all things) Targ! I wonder if anyone likes that or was it kind of a dog, in most people's view. Oh yea, I really liked Star Castle! (1981?) I guess its kinda funny that the memories of these early arcade encounters have persisted so long - I guess that the sound and feel of it - the stuff that made it fun - also is the stuff that makes the memory stick.

-- Karvak Brenow (ksbyron@yahoo.com), March 12, 2003.