Pocketful of Tokens

When I was a kid, I lived in the arcade.  I would sneak away from compulsory Wednesday night catechism classes and hit up W.C Franks, an arcade and hot dog joint across the parking lot from church.  Right around the corner was the Odyssey arcade, always the sketchy one because the pool tables in the back made it a hot spot for high school hoodlums.  If I wasn’t there, you could find me at Aladdin’s Castle in the Foothills Mall or the arcade in the basement of the C.S.U. student center.

 I pissed my pants in the mall one time because I was on the highest level I’d ever reached on Elevator Action and I had to go to the bathroom since somewhere around the 2^nd level.  I finally tore myself away with a couple lives left on my token and further than I’d ever gotten on the game.  Aladdin’s Castle occupied the spot at the extreme end of the strip mall and the bathrooms were located in the center of the mall.  I didn’t walk fast enough because before I could get to the bathrooms, I pissed my pants right there in front of everybody who happened to be hanging out between the Movie Theater and Montgomery Wards.  It sucked man.  I still had a few tokens left but spent the rest of the time in the bathroom trying to dry my jeans with the automatic hand dryer before my sister came to pick me up.

Besides pissing my pants in the mall and cutting up my finger pretty bad in the ball launch of a pinball machine at Shakey’s Pizza, being a kid during the Golden Age of Video Arcade Games was pretty awesome.  I converted nearly 100% of my limited cash funds into tokens and contributed to the $8 billion dollars in quarters ($18.5 billion in 2011 dollars) the arcade industry made during its peak in 1982.

 The early 90’s and the release of 4^th and 5^th generation game consoles for the home featuring 16, 32 and 64 bit technology killed the arcade.  Now we have bullshit places like Dave & Busters and GameWorks trying to pass themselves off as arcades.  They cater to families and the corporate office “Friday afternoon, time to blow off some steam” set.  They feature expensive sports simulators and Dance Dance Revolution style games.  They are clean and bright and safe.  Fuck that.  I guess if enjoying a beer with some Potato Skins and Spinach Dip while impressing co-workers with your DDR skills is the only thing that keeps you from going home and slashing your wrists after a hard week in the cubicle, that’s cool.  But arcades used to be dark and maze like.  It was where you would find the kids that skipped school that day, where fights between rival cliques would be scheduled to happen after the Jr. High School dance.  It’s where a lot of kids smoked their first cigarette, hit their first joint or experienced their first beer buzz.  Idle hands really will do the devil’s work, but not before they mash some buttons and perform some finishing moves or ride around on an ostrich jousting evil knights over a lake of fire.

 Two Arcade Games You Might Have Missed

1. Elevator Action (1983 – Taito) 
 

This is the one that ended in me pissing myself in the middle of a busy strip mall.  You’re a secret agent that must travel up and down tall buildings using elevators and escalators, retrieving secret documents and then escaping after safely making it all the way back down to the basement and your getaway car.  The whole time you are dodging bullets from enemy agents.  This game was deceptively hard and it was nearly impossible to complete all 30 levels.  I was on level 20-something when I hastily left only to piss my pants in a crowded mall.  I guess it wouldn’t have been so bad except that I was way past the age of it being okay to piss your pants.

2.  Tapper (1983 – Bally Midway)

I have described this game to just about everybody that’s ever engaged me in a discussion concerning arcade games and nobody seems to remember playing it.  You’re a bartender and angry, thirsty patrons are advancing towards you along 4 different bars, demanding to be served the alcohol that will drown their sorrows and make that average chick look like a fucking goddess.  You move up and down the bars pulling on the tap handle to slide cold pints of dipsomania at the steadily advancing barflies.  When you serve them a drink it pushes them back a bit and stops their advance until they’re done knocking it back.  The drunks increase in speed and volume as the level continues.  Pretty soon it starts to look like the fucking douchebag parade at Lustre Pearls on a Saturday night.  Except you don’t get to be an asshole bartender that ignores everybody at the bar who doesn’t have tits or isn't a drunk frat boy about to date rape the chick slumped over by the greasy food trailer parked next to the patio.  In Tapper, you lose a life if a thirsty customer makes it to the end of the bar before you can get them a drink.  You’ll lose a life if you send a pint off the end of the bar or don’t collect an empty mug being sent back.  The game gets hard pretty fast as the thirsty customers and empty glasses start piling up quicker than it takes Ben Sanderson to get wasted and lose his wedding ring to a whore.   It seems crazy to me that I played this game in the arcade when I was a kid.  I guess Tapper taught me to be an efficient enabler or at the very least developed a thirst for alcohol that has remained with me all of my life.  

You can’t imagine how excited I was when I discovered Pinballz.  This old school arcade nestled in the shadow of Highway 183 in North Austin is the real deal.  The 13,000 square foot facility houses over 80 pinball machines and a great collection of new and classic arcade games.  Most of the machines only require a couple of tokens and are well maintained.  The upper room is dark and lit only by the back glass and flashing playfields of the pinball machines.  You can grab some basic refreshments at Mikki’s Replay Café or you can bring your own beer.

Pinball has always been cool as shit.  Incorporating badass artwork and sound based on unique themes.  It requires a billiards like understanding of trajectory and it’s a physical game that has serious pinball wizards slam tilting their hips into machines more than the even the most active Dance Dance Revolution performers.

Top 3 Pinball Machines of all Time

1. Twilight Zone (1993 – Bally Midway)
 

 

Based on the popular television show, the objectives and targets are all based on specific episodes from the heyday of the series. It’s got 5 possible multiball modes, you can Battle the Power on a secondary playfield using Magna Flips and it’s got Rod Serling’s voice saying shit like “Dance with the devil at your own risk, in the Twilight Zone”.  It also features an actual “Powerball” that can be put into play; a ceramic pinball that's 20% lighter than the steel pinballs.  It’s super fast and not affected by the game’s magnets.

2. Attack From Mars (1995 – Bally Midway)

Before everybody went crazy over zombies and vampires, aliens were still the shit.  Attack From Mars was fun and funny with great artwork, a wide-open playfield and easy to understand objectives.  The concept has the player traveling around the world to save humanity from aliens.  

 The Martians are hilarious and each country has audio that plays heavily upon cultural stereotypes.  There’s a ton of shit to light up like the Big-O-Beam, Tractor Beam and the Atomic Blaster.  The coolest feature of the game is Strobe Light Multiball.  In this mode the entire playing field goes completely dark and then is lit only by a single strobe light for the entire duration of the multiball.  The 1999 follow up, Revenge From Mars relied heavily on incorporating the new screen technology with the physical targets.  It was fun, but never measured up to the original.

3.  Black Knight 2000 (1989 – Williams)

This is my new favorite machine.  It is the first machine to loom into view when you walk into Pinballz.  Black Knight 2000 is the 1989 follow up to the original Black Knight released in 1980.  The original Black Knight was the first machine to feature a split-level playfield.  It also introduced Magna-Save, a strong magnet activated by the player when lit that saves the ball from draining in the outlanes.  Black Knight was also the first machine to use faceted inserts (transparent inlaid plastic windows) in the playfield design.  This game is super fast with a tricky u-turn tunnel, 3-bank drop-targets and 3 multiball modes.  The artwork is truly badass and the music is sweet with a chorus of damsels urging you on while the Black Knight himself taunts you from his hellish steed.