Back when I was in high school if you wanted to play the best video games you went to the Arcade. Every mall had one. There were also some stand alone arcade stores too.
Sure we had game systems. Atari and Mattel’s Intellivision were around then. These were the much more “advanced” game systems, which had evolved from the original “Pong.” These games were fun, but still had a pong blockiness and just did not hold a candle to the quarter stand-up Arcade games.
The original Arcade machines usually had one joy stick and a button. There were some exceptions such as Joust that I seem to recall had a few buttons. There were also some games like Missle Command and Centipede that had a roller ball. Those odd-ball games weren’t really for me though. I preferred the one button, one joy stick, game action.
My game play centered around the classics like Ms. Pacman, Asteroids, and Berserk. I especially liked Berserk. This was a game where you were a “humanoid” trying to escape robots that shot at you while you made your way through a maze. You also had to be aware of “Evil Otto,” who bounced through the maze and was impervious to your bullets. I specifically remember slipping out of a showing of the original “Clash of the Titans,” (the one with Harry Hamlin, later of L.A. Law), which came out 1981, to play Berserk. Arcade games were everywhere.
A couple of years ago, I watched a documentary called “King of Kong–A Fistful of Quarters,” which is about the quest for the Donkey Kong world record. In Kong, Billy Mitchell, the reigning world champion, is challenged by Steve Wiebe, a kind of sad sack wannabe to the world title. Mitchell, the golden child of classic arcade gaming, held several world titles and was the first to complete a “perfect” Pac-Man score…every dot, every fruit, every ghost. Weibe gains the record and then sees is taken away in what appears to be a vast consipiracy by those who want to keep Mitchell on his throne as “the greatest arcade-video-game player of all time.” Weibe finally prevails after much subterfuge and intrigue.
After watching the movie, I thought about my own Arcade-Video-Game past, and was reminded of a game I was good at. Really good at. Although I never played Donkey Kong, I played a kind of Kong clone, which was the Kangaroo Arcade game. In Kangaroo, you also climb to the top of a number of levels, but instead of jumping barrels, you punch monkeys that are trying to kill you by throwing apples at you. Kangaroo also has its own Ape that occasionally comes out and you also have to box on your way to the top level.
The reason I became really good at this game was because my future brother-in-law, Tim, lost his driver’s license. He was living with my family at the time (long story, kind Mother), but was attending a high school that was across town. When he lost his license, it became my daily task to go pick him up. I would meet him at a stand alone arcade that was within walking distance of his high school. While waiting for me to pick him up, Tim started to play the Kangaroo game and ultimately introduced me to it. We started playing everyday and eventually taught each other various strategies to get our scores high, really high.
On the classic games, you could put your initials on the machine if you were one of the top ten scores that had been achieved on that particular machine. Tim and I had all of the top ten on our Kangaroo machine and eventually just kept pushing out our own scores so that all of the top scores kept getting higher and higher. At the time, I remember looking in magazines that had the world record scores for Kangaroo and other games and our scores were within range of the world record.
So after watching King of Kong, I came up with the idea that I should rededicate myself to achieving the world record on my game, Kangaroo. But how would I go about it? Where could I even find a Kangaroo machine to play, almost 30 years later? The answer…Craigslist.
After a quick Craigslist search, I found a Kangaroo machine for sale within a couple hours of my house. A drive through some windy mountain roads and $200 (what a deal!) lighter in the wallet and I was headed home with my own Kangaroo machine in the back of my trusted Pontiac mini-van. I was truly set!
I called Tim, who now lives in Michigan, and told him about my purchase. Needless to say, he was excited. Tim was ready to jump on the plane to Colorado and join me in my pursuit of the record. Then I got to thinking, if it was this easy to find one Kangaroo machine, maybe I could find another for Tim. I’m truly convinced that to achieve the world record on one of these Arcade games you truly need a wing-man. It helps having input from a partner to get through roadblocks past certain score levels. So, having Tim with his own machine could help me get back on track to the world championship.
Also, Tim had just gone through a rough time (and I had as well). My sister and Tim’s wife had just lost a long and courageous battle with cancer. The last few years had been been brutal and difficult and I thought Tim deserved to have some bit of brightness after the dark times that had just passed. This reminder of our youth and the great times we had certainly seemed to be the answer.
Back to Craigslist. Another Kangaroo machine found. A little closer. A little more expensive ($350–Still…what a deal!!!). But I had one for Tim! The second machine was now loaded in the Pontiac and bursting with excitement, I drove, Kerouac-style, toward Michigan. After a non-stop jaunt, I arrived and delivered the machine to Tim, whose jaw nearly hit the floor when he saw my cargo. We moved it into his house. We were both happy. The world record would soon be ours. No problem.
But then life came back into the picture. The life I now have. The job I now have. The family responsibilities I now have. And all the things you end up having to do as an adult. And the youthful time I had to break world records just doesn’t seem to be there anymore. And the machine sits. And I haven’t broken the world record. But the dreams are still there. The memories are still there. And they are good. And they make me happy. And I haven’t broken the world record…yet.
mtkcastlerock 