This is a series about my own memories of arcade games and playing emulated versions at home, be it through MAME or official releases. Games I write about are ones that I specifically remember playing in an actual arcade, not games I’ve discovered through MAME.
Tetris is ubiquitous. It surrounds us like oxygen, permeating every digital device we have. Got a gaming console? A PC? A phone? A credit card reader? Then you probably have Tetris.
Note: After this, I have only one entry left in the Chasing Ghosts series, as the premise (arcade games with specific childhood memories) will have run dry. Hit me up on Twitter if you have suggestions for what I should write about next.
Take a journey back into the mid 90s arcade scene with me.
What was popular? Street Fighter. Mortal Kombat. NBA Jam. Daytona USA.
All fantastic games, mind you, but it’s a far cry from the cutesy characters of the 80s. Pac-Man and Frogger were long gone, either a distant memory or a distant walk to the back end of the arcade. These games were in your face, with announcers screaming “FINISH HIM! BRAZIL! BOOMSHAKALAKA!”
In the early summer of 1996, I was obsessed with getting a Sega Saturn.
Like, I couldn’t eat, sleep or breathe without thinking of this system from the same folks who brought me Sonic the Hedgehog and a sorely underrated X-Men game on the Genesis. More than likely I was being brainwashed by the good people at Sega Visions magazine, who made no mention of the Sega’s blunders in debuting the Saturn in the United States. They just made sure I knew all about this fantastic machine and the amazing games it could play.
3D!
Ask any game-playing person in the early 90s what technological advancement they wanted to see in video games, and chances are, they would answer, “3D graphics.”
By sheer logic alone, I should have never been a fan of Marvel’s X-Men.
College was a time of exploration.
No, I never did any illegal drugs and never got blackout drunk at a party, but when I wasn’t learning how to become a journalist, I was entering a whole new world of gaming. Read More
The following is part of a series about my past experiences with arcade games and running them in MAME. I will only write about games I remember playing in an actual arcade, not games I only discovered through MAME.
The following is part of a series about my past experiences with arcade games and running them in MAME. I will only write about games I remember playing in an actual arcade, not games I only discovered through MAME.
The following is part of a series about my past experiences with arcade games and running them in MAME. I will only write about games I remember playing in an actual arcade, not games I only discovered through MAME. Read More
A brief note of apology for the delay in this article. The PC inside of my MAME cabinet kept becoming unresponsive and impossible to play. None of the buttons worked, and it kept making a ridiculous clicking noise, to the point where I thought the hard drive was dying and had to keep the PC turned off. Turns out, one the pushbutton wires had gotten loose, and the shift button was being held down, which turned on filter keys and made it not work. In short, if you have PC troubles in a MAME cabinet, make sure all your wires are secure. And you’ll save yourself a month of nonsense.
The following is part of a series about my past experiences with arcade games and running them in MAME. I will only write about games I remember playing in an actual arcade, not games I only discovered through MAME.
The following is part of a series about my past experiences with arcade games and running them in MAME. I will only write about games I remember playing in an actual arcade, not games I only discovered through MAME.
The following is a series about my past experiences with arcade games and running them in MAME. I will only write about games I remember playing in an actual arcade, not games I only discovered through MAME.