Ode To Joysticks

You know what I dearly miss? Arcades. And I don’t mean ones with “Dance Dance Revolution” and others in that same category…No, I miss the large, colorful Arcade Machines, looking at the art painted on the cabinets, the soft glow coming from the screen, the familiar sounds of games such as “X-Men”, “Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles” “Street Fighter II”, “Mortal Kombat”, “Altered Beast”, “Pacman”, “Donkey Kong”, “Kung Fu”, “Frogger” “Golden Axe”, “Cadash”…climbing into the mechanical metal car/spaceships and just sitting in them, even if you didn’t have any money to play the games…I miss crowding around a skilled player and watching as he/she gets to the Shadow Boss in “Double Dragon” and feeling the suspense and tension and excitement from the spectators…or, actually BEING that person that everyone crowds around…and people say that Videogames don’t encourage socializing…fuck that. That was our safe haven as nerdy children. We were all comrades in battle…not giving a shit that we were giving away our allowances/birthday money/etc. etc. for the sake of a game. It wasn’t just about ‘playing a game’. It was the atmosphere, the friendships and alliances, experiencing the evolution of gaming as a ‘team’, really.

I just don’t feel that anymore, playing on MMORPG’s or any source of Online Gaming…sometimes you’ll find a fun group or whatever, but it pales in comparison, and lacks the magic of the ‘old days’…

~An Ode to Joysticks, by Zora The Geek