What's the best arcade game story you've ever read or heard?

[Atari-Jess]

Place: A small arcade inside a restaurant I used to visit all the time.

Time: 1997

 

I was with my Dad and I had asked for some quarters to play the mans

arcade machines. The man had instructed me that I was not to plug in the

pinball machine, but could plug in any other.

 

Of course, I plugged in the pinball machine. It sparked and popped for about

five seconds before roaring to life. Only one side of it worked, and the owner

was pissed.

 

"TURN THAT THING OFF!!" he bellowed from across the hall.

 

Perhaps one of my most embarassing moments.

 

I then plugged in a SNES arcade machine and played spiderman and

Ms. Pac-Man on another machine until I had to leave.

 

Since that restaurant was so far away from where I lived, I never found

out what happened to it. It had an astronaut theme to it. Possibly with

a space shuttle.

[Atari-Jess]

the pinball machine that is to say.

[ATARIeric]

i remember as a youth being able to bang on the side i believe of raiders of the lost ark pinball machine and it would "pop" and give you a free credit. also silverball i think was the name of the other

 

 

its been ages so im not sure if i got the games right

 

anyone else experience that ?

[Cobra Commander]

A friend of mine had season passes to SixFlags (he's from Dallas so I asume thats where it was), so he goes there all the time in the summer and he saw a park worker give someone a free game of skeeball with a type of slimjim that looked like a token on a long spoon handle. So he goes home and makes one, goes back to SixFlags and it works. He gets an idea and plays skeeball for a hour or so, gets a but load of tickets and trades in for the biggest stuffed animal they had, and sells it to a dad for his little girl. He told me he would do this alot since it was free to enter the park, and he had nothing better to do in the summer and wanted some money to play video games, and buy weed.

 

My favorite skeeball trick is to find a little kid to run up ramp and drop the balls in the middle hole. This is fun because you teach kids that cheating is fun and they use up all that extra energy they have.

[Christophero Sly]

I witnessed a guy suffer a total meltdown while he was playing Back to the Future pinball. It was back in College. I was with a buddy at the student center playing pinball. A couple of tables down from us was this dude playing Back to the Future. He was obviously over-agitated. He was mumbling to himself and, occasionally, he barked out some random expletive.

 

When he lost his final play, I guess he just couldn't cope and he came utterly undone. He took about three steps back from the game, summoned all his fury, and delivered a series of flat-footed, diving straight kicks to the front of the table, like a rookie ATF agent kicking in the front door of his first crack-house. He kicked that table with maniacal ferocity, as hard as I've ever seen anything kicked in my life. Each kick brought the front end of the table a good 6 inches off the floor.

 

I remember that he was wearing just a thin pair of sneakers, probably low-top All-Stars or Top-Siders. I don't know how, in such rage, the outburst didn't break apart his foot or shatter his shin bone.

[Flack]

This is a true story that really happened to me.

 

When I was 16 years old I worked at Mazzio's, a local pizza chain restaurant. By not being a complete idiot (or at the very least by being SEMI-responsible) I was promoted to "shift manager". Besides working school nights, I also ran the weekend day shift.

 

On the weekends, there was only one employee who came in earlier than I did, a nice lady named Edna who was probably 55 years old or so. She came in around 8 in the morning on the weekends and started making the dough. For those who aren't familiar with the pizza industry, dough must be mixed and then left to "proof" for a couple of hours before it's ready to be used. Edna came in and started making the dough, and I usually came in shortly afterwards, some time between 8 AM and 8:30 AM.

 

One Friday night, our "videogame" guy came by to remove some of our old games and drop off some new ones. It just so happened that I was in charge that Friday night, so after we were all done with our closing duties we all fixed ourselves a beer or two (hey, that's what happens when you leave a 16 year old in charge) and played videogames and pinball into the wee hours of the night. One of the games the guy had dropped off was a "Black Knight" pinball machine. For those who have never been around one, it's an extremely chatty pinball machine which is constantly talking, especially in attract mode.

 

Somehow, between staying up way too late and drinking "one too many", I forgot to lock the front door of the store. This is what happened the following morning.

 

At 8 AM, Edna showed up to Mazzio's to begin her morning dough duties. When she went to unlock the front door she found it was already unlocked. Concerned that the store had been broken into, she slowly pulled the door opened and yelled out, "hello?" to see if anyone was still in the store. There was no answer. Edna began to slowly work her way through the store, still not completely convinced that she was alone.

 

The arcade "nook" was right next to the cash register and entrance to the kitchen. Right as Edna had just begun to relax and was standing directly next to the videogames, the pinball table announced, "I am the Black Knight. Prepare to die!"

 

Edna apparently stopped running somewhere between Eckard's and Homeland. When I pulled up to the restaurant just a few minutes later, there were three or four police cars at the door with lights flashing, and Edna was sitting on the curb with her head in her hands. I couldn't tell if she was laughing or crying, truth be told it was probably a little of both.

[MegaManFan]

Now THAT is a classic video game story! Like Sinistar, except it REALLY HAPPENED. Five out of five stars and two thumbsup: for a really good

[ATARIeric]

that would be a great cartoon for the funnies in the newspaper

[Famicoman]

I heard a story where when Pong came out, kids would make frozen quarters from play-doh molds and use them until they were caught.

 

One of my favorite stories was when one of those "launch the quarters games" where you would launch the quarter to make a slider push more quarters down, and the more that went down the more tickets you'd get broke at a Dave and Buster's. Well I told one of the guys after I played, and got no tickets. He opens the machine, fixes it, and puts the cover back on. Moments later, hundreds of tickets were spewing out everywere. I guess I wasn't the only one to play that, and have it unresponsive.

[Famicoman]

Another story I have is where a Crazy TAxi machine wasn't working, but the people at the desk(this was a bowling alley) didn't come to fix it because they were too "busy". There were only 2 lanes being used. I got pissed, and kicked the machine, and Quarters spewed out of the change return. I then treated my-self to several games of Ms. Pac Man.

[Atariboy]

"I heard a story where when Pong came out, kids would make frozen quarters from play-doh molds and use them until they were caught. "

 

From one of the Atari Anthology interviews with Nolan Bushnell, right?

[+FujiSkunk]

Another of my trips down memory lane...

 

The Wal-Mart I used to hang out at every weekend had some games in the lobby. One was Power Drift, which to this day is one of my favorite racing games. One particular Saturday the game had an "Out of Order" sign on it, but it was powered up and the demo was running just fine. Investigating further, I discovered that the only thing "broken" on the machine was the change door; the lock was missing and the door was hanging wide open!

 

After God-knows-how-many games involving exactly one quarter, I decided to be a good boy and make sure that "Out of Order" sign was exactly where I left it. I think I even turned the machine off, since a broken machine shouldn't be left on, right? The fact that that would keep more people from finding out the secret was of course beside the point.

 

The machine lasted about a month in that condition. I think they finally carted it off instead of fixing it.

[Famicoman]

"I heard a story where when Pong came out, kids would make frozen quarters from play-doh molds and use them until they were caught. "

 

From one of the Atari Anthology interviews with Nolan Bushnell, right?

You know it!

[Famicoman]

Another of my trips down memory lane...

 

The Wal-Mart I used to hang out at every weekend had some games in the lobby.  One was Power Drift, which to this day is one of my favorite racing games.  One particular Saturday the game had an "Out of Order" sign on it, but it was powered up and the demo was running just fine.  Investigating further, I discovered that the only thing "broken" on the machine was the change door; the lock was missing and the door was hanging wide open!

 

After God-knows-how-many games involving exactly one quarter, I decided to be a good boy and make sure that "Out of Order" sign was exactly where I left it.  I think I even turned the machine off, since a broken machine shouldn't be left on, right?  The fact that that would keep more people from finding out the secret was of course beside the point.

 

The machine lasted about a month in that condition.  I think they finally carted it off instead of fixing it.

 

In a way thats cool because free games. That sucks because the machine was taken away.

[ClassicBoy]

I knew this guy that had the high score on a Frogger machine for years and years. The machine was in this little pizza place or something that was going out of business. So, this guy buys the machine and then tries to preserve his high score by keeping the machine plugged in with a massively long extension cord while he tried to get it across the street. Despite weaving the machine in and out of traffic, he wasn't fast enough and a huge truck smashed the Frogger machine to pieces. Luckily the guy jumped out the way and faired better than his beloved Frogger machine.

 

Wait a minute...maybe that was on a TV show... :wink:

[MegaManFan]

Still my favorite episode of Seinfeld ever, although I thought George's solution was to hook up a car battery to it so he could take it out and get it across the street. The Frogger sound effects as he weaved through traffic were priceless.

[NE146]

I got a few arcade stories in a book.. I should scan em... maybe next week

[ClassicBoy]

Still my favorite episode of Seinfeld ever, although I thought George's solution was to hook up a car battery to it so he could take it out and get it across the street.  The Frogger sound effects as he weaved through traffic were priceless.

 

Doh! I knew I'd screw up part of it.

[Famicoman]

Just last night I tricked a starwars pinball machine into taking pennies by putting them into the slot, and hitting the access door. It was fun for a while, until a penny got stuck!

[crc_73]

Still my favorite episode of Seinfeld ever, although I thought George's solution was to hook up a car battery to it so he could take it out and get it across the street.  The Frogger sound effects as he weaved through traffic were priceless.

 

WMV'ed here:

 

http://www.retroblast.com/videos/Seinfeld - The Frogger.wmv

 

If you're into MAME, arcade equipment and games, check out the rest of the guys site - he's got lots of video reviews, and more besides, very cool.

 

http://www.retroblast.com

[crc_73]

Sorry, forum doesn't like spaces - maybe this'll work:

 

http://www.retroblast.com/videos/Seinfeld%...e%20Frogger.wmv

[Syzygy1]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but the Polybius myth is pretty good.

 

I remember on a BBS/newsgroup around the late 80s-early 90s hearing an urban legend about an EDOT (Environmental Discs of Tron) at some pizza place's arcade room. Once, they turned it off, and they heard Sark's voice saying "GREETINGS!" I thought it was cool.

 

Once in the mid 90s, I was with my friends, and we opened up the back of an old (OLD) arcade machine (maybe it was a B&W game?) and a huge swarm of bats flew out. Yes, you read that right. A huge swarm of screeching bats. I was terrified. We all screamed and my reaction was "BATS! BAAAAAAATS! BAYUTS! BAAAAAAAAT!!!" and we got the hell out of there. To this day I am terrified of restoring old arcade machines, and bats. (Chiroptophobia)

 

Also the day me and my friends found out Gauntlet had no ending.

[+Cafeman]

Nothing too great, but a story or two popped into my head. But the Black Knight story was a great one!

 

I-got-free-games-story:

 

Everybody knows that one of the biggest dilemmas for kids in the 80's was finding yourself in an arcade full of machines, but you didn't have very many quarters. That was me and I'd skip lunches , keep dad's change, and every other trick to embezzle some quarters for a trip to one of the arcades. Well, I was at a campground for 2 weeks and there was an ice cream shop with like 8 machines in the back room , and it was cool & dark. One of the games was Nintendo's Popeye. But I was dealt a huge does of frustation and exasperation as I put my last quarter into the slot to play Popeye, but the credit didn't register! I pressed the coin return. NOTHING DANG IT! I jiggled the coin return and everything else that could jiggle , and finally I heard the "CREDIT" sound! but when I looked, I had been give like 7 credits. I jiggled some more , and pretty soon I had over 20 credits. There must have been a wire shorting or something, because now I could play Popeye all day long. So I did, or at least for a few hours. Over the next couple days I got really good at Popeye. I had a copy of either Joystik or Electronic Games which had the recorded "World high scores" and I noticed ... I had beaten the Popeye score. Wow! But later on , after the internet appeared, I checked the *actual* Popeye world high score, and realized I was nowhere close to being the master. Still, for a while I was Popeye King in my own mind.

 

 

Irony:

 

I found a hard-to-find copy of Sega Genesis Batman . IT was winter and my downstairs gameroom was tore up, so I hastily dug out my Genesis and hooked it up to the upstairs flatscreen. The cables were hanging in mid-air, strung from the back of the HDTV to the coffee table and floor where the Genesis was. Well, the boys were watching and the stupid dog got confused by the trap of these Genesis power & AV cables blocking access to her crate, so I got up to adjust things , afraid the dog would damage something. But I got up clumsily , lost my balance, and crashed into the on-the-floor Genesis violently, which caused the dog to dart through the AV /power cables into her crate, the very thing I was trying to prevent!!! The Genesis still worked but something happened and the hard-to-find Batman cart was FRIED, never worked again. If I'd have just left the dog alone...

 

I later found another Batman cart for like $15, and still play it!