| Being of the same vintage as the author, I have an arcade story that is somewhat similar. My step-father was a full time employee of the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto, and back then one of the perks was that all family members received a free admission pass for the duration of the fair, which was 20 days. There was an arcade located at the end of midway and being on summer vacation, I would of course go to the CNE every day and play videogames. Specifically one obscure Atari game called Food Fight. I spent a solid two weeks mastering that game, which for those who are unfamiliar has a very high twitch factor and a never-ending wave progression similar to Robotron. For those two weeks I simply could not crack the top five scores on the machine. I spent hours, and my entire allowance, trying again and again to get that high score. Finally, on the second last day of the fair, I did it. I had been playing for at least a solid 30 minutes and although I didn't get a crowd of a dozen, I had a couple of people watching. When I lost my last man and found I had reached the high score, I felt triumphant - like I had really accomplished something amazing and important. I left the machine aglow. Then, on the last day of the fair, I returned to the arcade to bask in my glory, only to discover they'd wiped the high scores the previous night. I was so heartbroken I didn't even play to try and regain my title. I now have a modest collection of videogames and pinball machines, one of which is Food Fight. I'm 30 years older and my reflexes aren't what they used to be, so I will probably never regain that score again, but it's nice to fire it up and return to 1984 occasionally. |