A few months back The Bride and I attended a birthday party for two friends, at a place in the Philadelphia/Fishtown area called
Barcade. Barcade is exactly what it sounds like, a bar/arcade. It has a couple dozen old school arcade games, and an assortment of local and obtuse brews, all for a quarter - the games, not the beers, that is.
I was stunned to how close to an arcade of the good old days this place was, what with the variety of games and their placement around the bar area. They even had
high scores posted. They had a bar menu, but no
fries. But it's all good, they carded me, the first time that's happened in years, so I was very happy.
When I looked around at the selection of games, at first I had little interest, then as I walked around, and got a closer look my memory kicked in… I realized I had done time, serious time, with all of them at one point or another in my younger years. Among the games at Barcade:
OutRun,
Gauntlet,
Ms. Pac-Man,
Mr. Do!,
Golden Axe,
Track & Field,
Frogger,
BurgerTime,
Centipede,
Double Dragon,
Punch-Out!!,
Tetris, and
Robotron 2084, just to name a few. A full list can be found
here.
Spy Hunter,
Rampage,
Tempest,
Dig Dug,
Paper Boy,
Space Invaders,
Galaxian,
Joust. I knew them all intimately. And yet I was no longer capable of playing them. The muscles and reflexes honed to each particular set of skills for each game had deteriorated over the years of disuse. Man, playing videogames sure wasn't like riding a bike, you can't just get back on. In other words, I was old.
Lead photo by John Donges.
I was stunned to how close to an arcade of the good old days this place was, what with the variety of games and their placement around the bar area. They even had high scores posted. They had a bar menu, but no fries. But it's all good, they carded me, the first time that's happened in years, so I was very happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment