I grew up in the era of the arcade cabinet. Over the years, I can only imagine how many quarters I've plunked into those glowing orange coin slots - cursing any time the mechanism was broken and my precious currency was lost, a bitter sacrifice to the gods of gaming. My brother used to take me to a nearby arcade in Emeryville, which had about 50 games: classic cabinets, skee ball and other skill games where playing netted us valuable tickets to exchange for cheap prizes, and newer, more high-tech games with unusual cabinets like sit-down racing games or a skateboarding game controlled by actually standing on a board and moving your legs. I've played hundreds of arcade games. The feeling of joysticks and cabinet buttons is a kind of sixth sense for me. So when I looked at all that was available on the Internet Arcade, I knew picking a game to write about would require some consideration.
I started my journey by loading up some eye-catching titles, mostly games I knew from my youth like Wonder Boy and Star Trek. Then I saw it: Alien Syndrome. I know this game well, it being especially memorable because I know what the original arcade cabinet looked like.
It's beautiful, isn't it?
My brother - the one who used to take me to the arcade - owns an Alien Syndrome cabinet, complete with the 3D alien on top. We threw at after-party for my wedding at his house, and he set up it up in his den to be played. Like most of my favorite arcade games, Alien Syndrome has cooperative multiplayer and character upgrades which can be picked up during the game. The graphics are surprisingly good for 1987, and the sound effects work well with the theme. Great! I found my game.
Once more into the breach, dear friends!
The game loaded quickly, and ran very smoothly. Overall everything worked very nicely. The animations look good and there is a bit of monster variety and some cool upgrades (obviously the fireball gun is the best. Obviously.) This was familiar territory. I've put a good bit of time into this game in the past, so there weren't any major surprises there.
My biggest issue had to do with the controls. While my intuitive sense was correct about how to use the controls themselves. playing arcade games on a keyboard is pretty different from using the classic cabinet controls, and I've never been very good at playing action games on a keyboard. For starters, the controls are flipped, and using the right hand for movement and the left for actions was wonky since controls are usually the opposite. I'm sure there is some way to alter this, but the emulator doesn't offer much in the way of customization - or at the very least, if it does, I didn't find it. So I fumbled through the first few minutes, dying frequently to threats that I would easily avoid with the proper control scheme. The keyboard's lack of diagonal controls also makes things difficult, since you have to press two directions to aim at diagonals. So I kept dying.
I'm now more familiar with this screen than I care to admit.
Maybe there is a way to fix the controls. Ideally, I'd love to use an XBox 360 controller, which I use for most PC gaming these days. Regardless, the Internet Arcade is doing a fine job of preserving these games that deserve to be remembered. I've said for years that any video game that has ever existed should be accessible today. I hate when content is removed from websites or when rare games become cost-prohibitive to people who just love to play. I understand collecting physical games and cases for collection's sake, but the game data itself should, I believe, be available, if even for a nominal fee. Okay, back to the topic at hand.
So I think it is cool to have these games available online, absolutely. But having grown up in arcades, I also feel that something was lost when home gaming took over the market. Don't get me wrong, I love PC and console gaming, and I understand that the cost of proprietary machines is no longer financially competitive with the kinds of technologies that are available to consumers, and that the cost of retail space in the Bay Area today makes large spaces dedicated to relatively cheap gaming a difficult venture to undertake, but arcades were interesting social places. One thing that kept going through my head while playing Alien Syndrome was, "this is a two-player game. If I was playing in the arcade, someone would probably sidle over, pop in a quarter and kill some aliens with me!" Instead I was sitting at my desk, and the only 'player two' in sight was my cat, who would probably be good at killing aliens but not so much at manipulating the game controls.
He prefers tabletop games, anyways.
Arcades were personal and tactile. My brother imparted in me great wisdom that seems to be lost in the age of online gaming: "Don't talk shit, or someone will kick your ass, for real." So I played nice. Again, I did and so do prefer co-op games, but I never got out of line after a thorough whupping in Street Fighter 2 or Mortal Kombat Whatever Number. The feeling of playing is very different, as well. We moved around and stood up at cabinets, we made choices based on what was popular based on the gathered crowds and what games looked cool when others played and what was innovative, like the skateboarding game I mentioned above, or the Jurassic Park game with the bench that moved and rumbled like an Jeep seat, or the Terminator game with the dual machine guns mounted on the front of the machine. Arcade controls were awesome, at least at the time. The sounds of the arcade were a magical cacophony of blips and beeps and 'ooohs' and 'ahhhs.' It was symphonic and artistic and social in ways that concerts, movies, and plays rarely are.
Comparing those experiences to playing alone, sitting down at a keyboard in an otherwise quiet house, the modern gaming situation seems lonely by comparison. I'm not arguing that video games today are antisocial, however. Most video games are just differently social and a bit more static in terms of experience. Graphics and other innovations today are amazing, but most often I find myself just using the mouse and keyboard or a controller, and playing far away from my fellow players. I think part of the reason why Guitar Hero and Rock Band took off was that they captured that tactile and social feeling of the arcade in our living rooms better than a lot of other games do today. Otherwise, physical gaming locations are not as readily available or else not as obviously demarcated today as they were when arcades were common. Games are still highly social experiences, I just miss some of the trappings of the arcades of yore. Nostalgia is likely a major factor in this, of course.
That being said, I challenge you to watch this video, and then NOT want to be playing in an arcade right now:
~Jamieson
