Page 6 - Old School Gamer Magazine Issue #42 FREE Edition

Ryan Burger OSG Publisher
My Memories of arcade machines start a list past my home video game history. My memory takes me back to Showbiz Pizza in West Des Moines, Iowa in 1983 for my 11th birthday. It was a small birthday party since we had just moved there that week from Ohio and I didn’t know anyone but my brother and sister, and I had fun. I don’t remember having an official party, but I remember being there for that event. After that event, or possibly before it (maybe in Cincinnati, Ohio but for sure at the Pizza Hut in Urbandale, Iowa) I played a cocktail arcade game that dad gave me quarters to play while we waited for the pizza.
As to the arcades of my high school years, it was all about the Fun Factory at Valley West Mall, Laser X at the Merle Hay Mall, and
Aladdin’s Castle at Southridge. While arcade games were in a ton of other locations, my favorite place, without a doubt, was Fun Factory.
I can well remember playing the X-Men Six Player 2 Screen version, Narc, Xybots, Galaga, Gauntlet,
and more. A close second would
be Val Lanes bowling alley, where
I worked for part of high school, spending most of my time playing 1943 - The Battle of Midway.
From 1993, I can also distinctly remember playing Mortal Kombat in Campustown at Iowa State University.
Jarrod Kailef OSG Associate Editor
My first experiences with an arcade were in the early 80s, when on the weekends my dad would take my brother and I to Starland or Replay II, back in Massachusetts. These were very different places! Going to
Starland first meant a visit to McDonalds, which was a bit of a treat since we normally never ate that kind of thing. Starland had
a go-kart track, batting cages,
mini golf, and a two-story tall golf driving range, but I really didn’t care about any of that stuff. I really just wanted to go into the arcade! The arcade itself had a concrete floor, smelled like an automotive garage, and the games were often in various states of disrepair, but I loved that place anyway, and have really fond memories of going there.
The real gem was when we would get to go to Replay II, though. This was a super clean, well maintained arcade that was right next to a pizza joint called Frank's Pizza. It could just be nostalgia speaking, but that was the best pizza ever made! Then we would go next door and play
at Replay II where the machines were always clean and pristine and in perfect working order. The employees who worked there even wore clean white dress shirts and black ties as a uniform! My dad would focus on playing pinball
or sometimes Ms. Pac Man, and I would pretty much play everything, although Space Ace was probably my favorite game of my childhood despite it eating my money at a prodigious rate. I eventually got really good at Space Ace though, when my dad got a large bonus and my family went on a two-week vacation to a hotel that had a tiny little arcade where the games were set on free play... And they had a Space Ace machine! I basically spent the entire vacation playing it over and over again, except when my parents forced me to do boring things like... you know, eat, and
ARCADE MEMORIES ONCE UPON A TIME...
by THE OSG STAFF AND FRIENDS
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