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CUT-OUT AND KEEP: AMUSEMENT ARCADE CHECKLIST

31/3/2015

19 Comments

 
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Alas, the glory days of amusement arcades ended decades ago.

However, if you're anything like us - you'll no doubt find it impossible to walk past one of these neon-lit establishments without nipping inside to relive your misspent youth, before blowing ten quid in about thirty seconds (unless you've exchanged all your money for 2 pence pieces, in the hope of getting lucky on the penny falls). 

Digitiser 2000 continues today's loose theme with this essential checklist of things you are guaranteed to stumble over in every arcade. Listen, David - why not cut it out of your screen, and take it on holiday with you this summer? Go on.

THINGS YOU'LL FIND IN EVERY ARCADE:
  • Air hockey table with a broken score indicator stuck at 99 points.
  • Weird horse racing/gambling game with plastic horses that stutter towards the finish line as if they're choking on a French stick.
  • Penny falls being hogged by a pensioner who snarls like a puma whenever you approach.
  • Claw game with old-style five pound note wrapped around a breeze block.
  • Terrible carpet with a pattern that looks like vomit (though it probably is just vomit).
  • Small child trapped inside a pinball table.
  • Unloved bagatelle machine stuck to a pillar.
  • Pneumatic Wild West shooting gallery featuring an animatronic hillbilly that frantically drops his trousers when shot, like he's some frontier pervert.
  • Overweight, middle-aged man in a vest playing Alien 3: The Gun, while his bored daughter has a tantrum on the floor.
  • Weird driving game cabinet that you've never heard of, and it isn't working anyway, and there's a water-bloated corpse inside.
  • 1980s coffee table-style arcade game that's covered in so many cigarette burns you can't tell what it is. Galaxians? Galaga? Zaxxon? Donkey Kong?
  • Stupid, ignorant, idiot child thinking he's playing Daytona USA, even though he's not put any money in.
  • Novelty photo booth that makes your portrait look like it's been hand drawn, sort of, if you squint a bit.
  • Someone having an epileptic fit due to the strobe effect of the flickering, barely working, screen of a vintage Star Wars Arcade unit.
  • Disinterested woman manning a change booth while reading Twilight fan fiction on her phone, as she eats a Peperami.
  • Passion tester machine with a brass grip that's been worn down to a nub by local youths.
  • Basketball game that appears to have credit... yet nobody is playing it.
  • Broken whack-a-mole, with several of the moles replaced by lost espadrilles.
  • Aggrieved twentysomething exchanging 20,000 tokens for a toilet roll tube wrapped in luminous fun fur.
  • A young Tom Hanks feeding money into a fortune-telling booth.
  • A litter bin overflowing with empty milkshake cups, plastic change pots and raw pork.
  • Fruit machine based on Deal or No Deal that has somehow avoided being defaced.
  • Ancient Virtuality machine that's had the headset replaced with a colander and a pair of thick reading glasses with tinfoil taped to the lenses.
  • Fibreglass charity box shaped like a boy wearing a leg brace, that unfortunately still claims to belong to "The Brighton & Hove Spastics Society".
  • Coin-operated electric chair.
  • Coin-operated gallows.
  • Coin-operated lethal injection machine.
  • Coin-operated death row.
  • Unlicensed Finding Nemo kiddie ride being ridden by a ghost.
  • Teenage girl weeping next to a set of scales.
  • Small inter dimensional portal, hidden behind a curtain, that leads to an alternate reality where EVERYONE IS ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
  • Four samurai debating the best way to storm Kumamoto Castle.
  • Mother Nature urinating onto a fresh linen-scented Yankee Candle.
  • Naked soul singer shivering in a bath of iced figs.
  • A statue of Wozniak covered in fairy lights and spume.
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
  • FIND YOUR GAMERTAG
  • TOP 20 VIRTUAL REALITY EXPERIENCES
  • ROMANTIC GAMING GADGETS with The Living Bum
19 Comments
GigerPunk link
31/3/2015 05:25:21 am

You missed out on the smell; generally a combination of BO, dogshit, chips and fresh doughnuts. A heady mix.

Reply
Chris link
31/3/2015 05:52:21 am

My arcade nightmare was in a tiny arcade room at some place I forget. I stuck some money in this cool-looking racing game and....

It was terrible. It was literally the worst game I'd ever played. It was a top-down affair, but the graphics were just ASCII characters (the car probably was a car though) and the entire thing was in black and white. It had a steering wheel, but that made no real sense for the overhead perspective. It also crawled along at the rate of very slow, as if it was stuck in first gear (I *think* there was a gear stick which made no difference to the speed).

Then, with no change remaining, I saw the Bomb Jack cab I'd somehow managed to overlook.

Most dissapointing ten minutes of my life.

Reply
Mr Biffo
31/3/2015 01:13:18 pm

Was it this? http://www.gamesdbase.com/Media/SYSTEM/Arcade/GameOver/big/Night_Driver_-_1976_-_Atari.jpg

Reply
Chris link
31/3/2015 01:23:40 pm

Lord no, nothing that good. It was more like this: http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7992
Even that looks better than I remember this game being, although it may well have been that one.

Chris link
31/3/2015 01:26:42 pm

Lord no, nothing that good. It was more like http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7992
Even that looks better than what I remember.

Chris link
1/4/2015 05:19:50 am

No, nothing that flash. More like Gran Trak 10, although even that looks better than I remember this being.

Chris
4/4/2015 09:48:09 am

No, more like the Atari Trak 10 thing.
(Third or forth attempt at replying. Why do you hate me Digi?)

Gary
31/3/2015 06:50:36 am

You forgot to mention that the said occupied Daytona USA machine has had a broken gearstick since 1996, and the car constantly steers to the right.

Reply
Dan link
31/3/2015 06:57:46 am

This has given me an idea... the Digi2000 arcade! To Kickstarter...

Reply
FEoD link
31/3/2015 08:27:23 am

I think that's the next Digi competition right there...
Whoever gets photos of themselves with as many of the items on that list as possible, wins.

Reply
Mr Biffo
31/3/2015 01:11:46 pm

Hah! Well, that might be too much effort for our dear readers...

Reply
Leigh
31/3/2015 04:44:01 pm

Also these things:

* An attendant fleeing a parade of dead-eyed parents whose pound coins were devoured by a switched-off Sonic the Hedgehog air hockey machine.

* A brand new and excitingly shiny cabinet wasted on an unchanged arcade version of a popular iPhone game for awful idiots.

* An enraged bear whose lips are covered in wax and cress.

Reply
Adam
31/3/2015 05:08:42 pm

I enjoyed the way this list became increasingly angry.

Reply
Bazadonk
1/4/2015 05:36:10 am

Yay Aberystywth!

Reply
Frank Chickens
2/4/2015 04:30:26 am

* People wearing puffy jackets

* A lightgun game where the guy's aiming is slightly off

* A Daytona/Sega Rally machine where half the screen isn't working and the gear stick is broken

* A Track and Field cabinet that has experienced more abuse than someone at Guantanamo Bay

Reply
Frank Chickens
2/4/2015 04:33:04 am

It should read gun's, not guy's aiming. That's auto correct for you.

Reply
Old Red
2/4/2015 01:54:50 pm

You forgot about the 38 year old man in a full Inter Milan kit who always seems to be just about to start a game on the Real Soccer Arcade Machine.

Reply
chris
4/4/2015 09:51:47 am

Let's try again without using the reply button.

No, nothing that flash.

If this doesn't post I'm going to give up.

Reply
Kristofer Van Wagner link
15/3/2021 03:16:56 pm

I appreciate that this post pointed out that coin operated machines are essential for every arcade. The other day my friend mentioned that he would like to own an arcade. I will encourage him to invest in coin operated kiddie ride.

Reply



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