Classical Gamer

For a long time now I’ve been into the Classic Gaming trend, with my ultimate goal to have an arcade machine of my own. I have wanted this since I first saw Ricky Schroeder in the T.V. show Silver Spoons with an arcade in his house. My dream cabinet would probably be the vector classic Star Wars, made by Atari, which was my favorite arcade game of all time. I would settle for almost anything, though.

I thought I was getting close, too, when I discovered the multi-arcade machine emulator called MAME, and was able to play a bunch of my favorite arcade games on my P.C. That was fun, but not quite the same. I still wanted to be able to insert a coin and feel the authentic joystick in my hands and I destroyed some Tie-Fighters, while Ben Kenobi told me to “Let go”.

Right before my daughter was born I discovered the wonderful web site called ArcadeControls.com, which is the site you go to when you want to built your own arcade machine. These guys have all done it, and they can show you how. The icing on the cake was when I found ArcadeDepot.com, a site where you can order a build your own arcade kit. Pretty cool stuff. Unfortunately, this all costs money.

Just before my daughter was born, all those retro controllers that plug into the T.V. and play games were released. Figuring I could afford the $20 investment, I bought the Ms. Pac-Man one from Jakks, which also included Mappy (a pretty excellent, yet underrated game), Galaga, Pole Position, and Xevious. A little idea in the back of my mind was that I could take the controller, modify it a little, and stick it in a custom cabinet which would be like the arcade. Unfortunately, the controller wasn’t as responsive as I would’ve liked,especially for Ms.Pac Man, so it pretty much has been gathering dust.

That is until this past week, when my 14 month old daughter discovered the controller. We don’t let her watch a lot of television, and unfortunately I don’t get to play many video games lately, so I wasn’t sure how my little one would react to twenty year old games. Let’s just say she’s a fan already, and I couldn’t be prouder.

Her favorite by far is Pole Position. She loves the sounds the cars make as they race around the track. If you can imagine, my 14 month old will walk over to the T.V., make a little “Vroom Vroom” sound, grab the controller, turn on the television, and look at us like, “So, are you gonna play, or what?” I give her a month before she finds the on/off switch, the TV/Video button, and I am obsolete.

Do you know how they have those Baby Einstein videos, which are like crack to these kids? Well, I propose they come out with Baby Bushnell games, to get the kids hooked on the classics at a young age. That would at least give us dads an excuse to play all our old games. Then maybe I can finally get my arcade machine.