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

[MegaManFan]

Throwing out a topic at random because I feel like it, but I have a feeling there's got to be some doozies out there. The best one I've read so far is a fake, but to this day I still get a laugh out of it. The story more or less goes that a Sinistar was buried in a graveyard with a car battery still attached as a power supply, and the poor caretaker was scared half to death when a voice wafted up out of the ground taunting him: "Beware... I live. RUN COWARD RUN!" I know there have got to be better REAL arcade stories though, and I'd love to hear a few.

[maibock]

I believe that Sinistar story was from GameSpy, a humor piece. I agree, was a pretty entertaining read.

[cobracon]

The best one I ever heard is that the game Berzerk claimed to lifes. It gave the players heart attacks. Check it out on KLOV. Seems it killed healthy teens at that. So sad:(

[Tempest]

The best one I ever heard is that the game Berzerk claimed to lifes. It gave the players heart attacks. Check it out on KLOV. Seems it killed healthy teens at that. So sad:(

 

Yeah that one has to take the cake. I just don't know how you could get that into Berzerk. Yes it's fast paced, but it's not like Robotron or anything. Then again after playing DDR this afternoon I though I was going to have a heart attack... I wonder if DDR has claimed a life yet?

 

Tempest

[keilbaca]

The best one I ever heard is that the game Berzerk claimed to lifes. It gave the players heart attacks. Check it out on KLOV. Seems it killed healthy teens at that. So sad:(

 

Yeah that one has to take the cake. I just don't know how you could get that into Berzerk. Yes it's fast paced, but it's not like Robotron or anything. Then again after playing DDR this afternoon I though I was going to have a heart attack... I wonder if DDR has claimed a life yet?

 

Tempest

 

I'm sure it has, I played till my legs gave out, that was interesting trying to get up afterwards, with japanese people looking at you funny. There were NO arcades around where I grew up, so the best arcade story I can come up with was I had a good crowd around me playing ddr, and some japanese people clapped when i finished. It was a 9 foot song and I C'ed it, but it was most likely THE hardest 9 foot in the game. The song: Healing vision: Angelic mix.

[HermChase]

Actually, I think Cartoon Heroes is the hardest 9 footer. Never tried/passed either, though.

 

I've known a few people who have passed out playing DDR. One just played too much in a row, the other was determined to pass Exotic Ethnic.

 

I think I read an article sometime of someone who had to be rushed to the hospital because of some blood disorder while playing or something.

 

 

I don't know which is worse, the fact that Beserk killed two people, or the fact that some people flocked to the arcades to play the game that killed someone.

 

--------

Chase Hermsen

[cobracon]

The best one I ever heard is that the game Berzerk claimed to lifes. It gave the players heart attacks. Check it out on KLOV. Seems it killed healthy teens at that. So sad:(

 

Yeah that one has to take the cake. I just don't know how you could get that into Berzerk. Yes it's fast paced, but it's not like Robotron or anything. Then again after playing DDR this afternoon I though I was going to have a heart attack... I wonder if DDR has claimed a life yet?

 

Tempest

 

Well in 1980 this game was king. The more you play the madder you get. Plus it was the first game that had a voice. "KILL THE HUMANOID" lol

[sidcrowe]

I remember reading in one of those game mags a story about a guy who drilled a hole in a quarter and tied a fishing line to it, and "fished" for free games by jiggling the quarter at the point where the credit is registered.

 

Total baloney, of course

[Flack]

I can't seem to find it on the web now, but I remember a story floating around the newsgroups a few years ago. Basically it was a take off of the old (fake) Snopes story about the guys moving something up to a second story window, except in this version it was a Donkey Kong cabinet (or Star Wars cabinet, or Tron cabinet or whatever game was popular at the time cabinet).

 

The gist of the story was two guys were moving an arcade game outside a house up to the 2nd floor with a pully. I don't remember the details but one guy tied the rope to himself or something to anchor the game. Once they get the game hoisted up, the pulley breaks, sending the game crashing to the ground and then shooting the other guy way up into the air. I remember it being funny but not all the details, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't true.

[MegaManFan]

I saw that same story in the Darwin Awards, except instead of a video game it was two construction workers hoisting a beam.

[tiggerthehun]

I remember reading in one of those game mags a story about a guy who drilled a hole in a quarter and tied a fishing line to it, and "fished" for free games by jiggling the quarter at the point where the credit is registered.

 

Total baloney, of course    

 

Yes, I can attest to that, as I watched a local "hood" try that very same thing at the local gas station. No luck...

[MegaManFan]

What's more odd is when you unintentionally get a free game WITHOUT trying. I remember vividly as a youth being at a Showbiz Pizza in Des Moines (before they all became Chuck E. Cheese, eww) and going up to the Ladybug with a pocket full of tokens. Since they were trying to discourage people from putting actual quarters in their machines, the coin slots were grooved and so were the tokens, so they'd only fit in one way. I was so anxious to play I just jammed that sucker in, and realizing my mistake I grabbed as hard as I could and pulled it away. Without the token ever going all the way in the slot, I got TWO credits. BONUS!

[crc_73]

I remember reading in one of those game mags a story about a guy who drilled a hole in a quarter and tied a fishing line to it, and "fished" for free games by jiggling the quarter at the point where the credit is registered.

 

Total baloney, of course    

 

Yes, I can attest to that, as I watched a local "hood" try that very same thing at the local gas station. No luck...

 

I can remember getting free credits on some machines, but not by using coins with holes drilled through them. We used to use a length (maybe about 10 cm long) of plastic piping (with a small diameter, maybe only about 2-3mm). We could stick the plastic in, and with a bit of skill, find the trigger, and rack up some credits.

 

Mind you, it only worked on older machines. With later machines, the coin mechanism became more complicated, and I think the triggers were much deeper down, and through angles, with non-return gates, so it would be nearly impossible to get past the mechanism.

[Flack]

Speaking of old memories ...

 

I live near a water park named White Water. I haven't been there in years, but I remember when I was a kid going there. Along with all the water rides, they had a small (15 or so) arcade.

 

I remember standing in the arcade, playing Battlezone. Everytime your forearms would touch the metal control panel, you would get a warm tingling sensation, not unlike sticking your tongue on a 9 volt battery. It probably didn't help the fact that we were all soaking wet ...

[Cassidy Nolen]

I've heard of some doozys (not so much playing but moving/etc).

 

Videotopia bought a mint in crate Environmental Discs of Tron and was moving it. Apparently, something happened and the crate fell off of the semi, smashing it and the contents onto the ground. Not much was salvageable as I heard from Jeff.

 

One time I recall lowering a wearhouse worth of machines from the second story of a warehouse. There were no stairs/elevators, etc in the building, so you used the roof colums (uprights) to rope off to, and 'slid' the games down the inside wall. No kidding.

 

We had a two hook system that mounted on the hand grips on the backs of the games. It was about halfway through the move, and a MINT Ms. Pac was next to go down. 15 feet or so down, the rope went soft, and the next sound was BOOM! The back had pulled off the machine and the whole thing smashed to the ground. Nasty. Nothing survived but the control panel and coin door.

 

Do bizarre finds inside of machines count? Found a "gentlemans" mag, a hash pipe, MANY critters and nests and other various things inside of them!

 

Cassidy

I dont have too many player stories though.

[AncillaryDrone]

I read a story somewhere about a guy who worked in an arcade who died and came back to beat the high score on an old Pole Position II machine.

[+FujiSkunk]

Back in the early '80s, there were two arcades I would visit the most. One was the Gold Mine in a mall about a 30 minute drive away, and the other was a place called the Stingray (if I'm remembering correctly) closer to where I lived. I preferred going to the mall, because the Stingray only had one of each game. You know: How dare they not have three Defender machines!!

 

The Stingray got a Centipede machine as soon as it was available. To this day I still remember the line for that machine being so long that it was nearly out the front door. I don't think I've seen a line that long in an arcade since, not even when my college rec area picked up a big-screen Mortal Kombat.

[+FujiSkunk]

Oh, and another story regarding that same Centipede machine. They had the extra-life score set at 12,000. I once actually finished a game with 11,999.

 

Needless to say, I wasn't happy.

[ATARIeric]

im sure we all will agree that when walking around the arcade without anymore money and finding a machine that still had credits in it was the ultimate blessing!

[+FujiSkunk]

im sure we all will agree that when walking around the arcade without anymore money and finding a machine that still had credits in it was the ultimate blessing!

 

For a while the Gold Mine at the mall had Asteroids and Missile Command set to offer two credits per quarter. I always hung around just in case somebody didn't know this. Not everyone did.

[ATARIeric]

im sure we all will agree that when walking around the arcade without anymore money and finding a machine that still had credits in it was the ultimate blessing!

 

For a while the Gold Mine at the mall had Asteroids and Missile Command set to offer two credits per quarter. I always hung around just in case somebody didn't know this. Not everyone did.

 

 

WOW! we could of played doubles for hrs

[MegaManFan]

I remember an arcade at the Linn-Marr Mini-Golf in Ames with a Shinobi machine that gave you a RIDICULOUS amount of credits - like four or five per quarter. Needless to say I could plunk a couple in and stay for an hour or more if I liked, but playing that much Shinobi got old so usually I'd leave the free credits and walk away to play Addams Pinball, that is if there weren't already a bunch on it from whoever was there before me.

[Dr Galaga]

I remember reading in one of those game mags a story about a guy who drilled a hole in a quarter and tied a fishing line to it, and "fished" for free games by jiggling the quarter at the point where the credit is registered.

Total baloney, of course    

This is why Atari changed the design of the coin door during Asteroids production. The first doors you put the quarter flat against the door like in this picture: http://www.arcadeflyers.com/?page=flyerdb&...r&id=74&image=1

 

My favorite story...well, they say a picture is worth a thousand words so here: http://multigame.com/furniture.jpg

[Lost Monkey]

When I was about 15-16 my friends and I discovered that the local arcade's (who used tokens) machines would accept 5 cent washers from the hardware store next to the mall... we got away with it for a couple of weeks until everybody that walked into the place was on the "look-out" for whoever was using the washers...

 

 

In around 1980, I was at the (then) Toronto airport waiting for a delayed flight from Europe. To pass the time, I was hanging out watching this guy playing Asteroids... he was so good at it, he was playing literally for more than an hour on the same credit... he would build up lives and then take a break and talk to his buddies...

 

Anyway, he was at a really high score (obviously after more than an hour!).. when a janitor came along and bumped the plug - resetting the machine!

[yuppicide]

Not really a great story, but I guess I'll tell it.

 

This deli near me that my Mom worked at used to have 4 or 5 video games in it.. mostly they'd get bootleg copied ones. I remember one point they had a bootleg Pac-Man and it was broken somehow. You'd press up and it'd go "wokka wokka" and you'd press left and it would make a different sound. Well, I was doing it and my friend yelled fire. I had no idea what he meant because there was no fire button. Turns out the wall outlet was sparking and caught my pantleg on fire. I was scared of video games for awhile after that.

 

I've always had fond memories of those bootleg games.. there was (at one point or another) a River Patrol copy, an original Omni, a copy of Popeye, a Donkey Kong hack, the Pac-Man copy, etc. The owner of the store was so stingy. He sold most of the games to another deli because the town started issuing monthly fees just to have video games. He kept the Popeye copy in his basement and once put it on free play for me. Oh boy! Needless to say I go bored real quick and went home.