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Hi gamers! I did a search for this topic, but couldn't find a blog in regards to it, so this could be the first of its kind at the time of this writing 
This is in regards to the glory, golden age of arcade gaming (roughly late 1970s [especially once Space Invaders was released in 1978] until probably 1982/1983), where there were many arcades across the lands of all shapes, sizes, and wonderful sounds and sights to be beheld of coin operated video games and pinball machines. I've lived in Houston, Texas for all of my life (so far) and there were plenty of these to go around here. Plenty to reminisce over, obviously, as each location has a story to tell, if not many.
I'm going to briefly go over just a few local ones that I frequented, then get down to business in regards to why this blog is really here, and not just for old gaming fart's sighing over the long gone past sake.
*Jason's Game Room--this one was different, due to being run by two ex-cops! Unfortunately they probably lost it all, as I don't think they were even open for a year (I was able to nail down the year they were around due to remembering seeing Beastmaster at the dollar theatre just a few doors down at one point after going to this game room once, which was released in 1982). If I remember correctly, the first part of this arcade was all pool tables and/or pinball machines (I got out of pinball for a while, I hate to say, so I'm not going to remember that), then in the back were the video games. They had the Pac-Man flop of Professor Pac-Man, I remember my mom saying of how funny Mouse Trap was when you turned yourself into a barking dog and took out the cats, but unfortunately I never played Warrior, a rare machine 
*Games 'r Us--not a huge game room, but it wasn't far, and they had some, uh, *unique* games, lets put it that way: several of the ones that were there upon first opening for business had generic marquees that read they were presented by some company (like, say, "Fun, Inc. presents Scramble", which they didn't distribute Scramble, Stern did!). Made me wonder about the legality of those. They also had Meteorites real briefly, a raster Asteroids clone that Atari sued over but lost eventually. Space Fever was a flat-out Space Invaders rip-off, but it had three games to choose from (which I want one some day). One day the guy there said that he wanted to go get something to eat and if he could just lock up me and a friend of mine in there (no, don't take that out of context, he was a nice guy. And who the hell wouldn't want to be in a game room to themselves?). It would be a while later before my mom would pick us up so we agreed. Too bad we were out of money, but it was still cool!
*Quiptar's--ok, so the heck with the medium- and small-sized arcades (respectively), how about the biggest and best? Quiptar's had pretty much everything, including the 15 minute fad of the laser disc games (Bega's Battle, Interstellar, Cobra Command, Astron Belt and Dragon's Lair, the latter of which a friend of mine was practically rich by having a paper route, so he didn't have a problem spending 50 cents per game until he learned it all and beat it), vector games (Gravitar and Star Trek), a mix between big hits (Tron, Q*Bert) and the not so big (Lost Tomb, The Pit), plus they even had unique displays for games, such as when Reactor was released and they had a monitor several feet above the machine proclaiming "New game", so everyone gathered around could still watch it from further away. This great place also gave you a whopping 12 tokens for a dollar, so you couldn't beat that, and they must've had 80-100 games.
Those are just a few of the many examples I could go on about, as I grew up in the fourth largest city in my country, having tons of game rooms, as the local Memorial City Mall (where the mighty Quiptar's used to be, among several others) once had seven game rooms all at once, I do believe (if not seven, it was six, and that counts the very small one the theatre in the mall had, which is also long gone).
However, I'm going to leave that there as it is, and get onto business from here: as I was thinking about past game rooms, I lamented a few months ago (at the time of this writing) on my forums the bummer of a thought of with all the tons of arcades all over the world back in the day -- whether they were small, huge, or somewhere in between -- they closed decades ago, yet there is pretty much no record of them ever existing anywhere for the most part; even if you look around the internet you can't find anything about them. If we're lucky, maybe someone mentioned one in a blog somewhere, or for the absolutely huge ones (100 or more games) and/or chains, we'd get a tiny bit of a Wikipedia article on, but that's it. Other than that and with JammaJup on here listing arcades in two counties in the U. K., which, even though he got in several dozen, that's still not a worldwide catalog of game rooms or anything. People started these up, bought games, brought joy to many, and went under with the video game crash of 1983-1984 (for the most part), disappearing like they never existed in the first place.
[img width=590 height=423]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v467/darrylb/miscellaneous/Pinballs_zps91993344.jpg[/img]
Ok, not from an arcade, but an unpublished photo from a gaming expo I attended once. This is from this page, as giving a link to a wiki makes it legal, so hah on you.
I couldn't even find a wiki for such a thing, so I came up with my own
http://arcadepreservation.wikia.com/wiki/
So, now's your chance to create a history of these places. One thing I want to let everyone know immediately/vow to people, though, is that this is NOT like the horror stories I've heard about Wikipedia, where someone spent hours writing an article about a game, they included references, then the article was deleted within a few hours. This site pretty much runs on the honor/memory (or not!) system; it's just whatever you can bring to the table. If the site gets enough people eventually, perhaps other games will chime in and edit articles and add info to them that you may have forgotten or weren't there to see for yourself.
For those new to wikis, on the front page (or you can click on the link) is a link to the How to write an article page, which explains as to how you can just look at pretty much any page that's currently on the wiki to see what kind of format I'm looking for: the first time an arcade's name is mentioned in the article, it's to be in bold, game titles are to be italicized, etc. It explains everything, although a quick summary in the intro sums it up pretty much, as it may come across sounding more complicated than it actually is, but then, you can just open up editing from a page like this,
http://arcadepreservation...m/wiki/Town_and_Country_6
copy and paste everything from it onto a new page and change info as needed (/take out the Background if you don't think it needs one, name of arcade, games, categories at the bottom, etc.). Plus it also has a generic placeholder graphic in the infobox for an arcade that could have closed down decades ago that you probably won't have any pictures of, unfortunately, but at least that's all done already. Also, check out the bonus stuff on that page, as I do have many placeholder graphics for various U. S. chains that can be used in the infobox, and perhaps others can add even more.
And for those that just want to jump right in, first do a search for a game room you want to write about to make sure a page isn't already there (which it won't be!), using the search field at top right (the magnifying glass) if you don't have an account and/or you're using the default Wikia skin, or type up the name of the game room in the search box at left if you're using the MonoBook skin and hit enter. A direct match won't happen with the Wikia skin, or the name will come up in red if using the MonoBook skin. Then you'll click on the Contribute button at the top right and click on Add a page to do just that as you type in the name of your game room, or click on the name in red if using MonoBook and you'll be ready to preserve an arcade!
If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask, although I'm not a coder or anything (at some point I'll have a formatted infobox that you won't have to copy and paste -- with just fields to put in -- as that's all I have for now), but I'll still help out where I can. It'd be great if people could add arcades long gone (or even ones that are still around/brand new nowadays) that will never be back.
Or in a way, they WILL be back, via this wiki "Game over" my ass!
Links
*http://arcadepreservation.wikia.com/wiki/
Full page entries with partial game lists (sadly, no photos though Who went around taking pictures of arcades back then?) for:
*Games 'r Us
*Jason's Game Room
*Quiptar's
Episode 27 discussion thread: http://www.rfgeneration.c...rum/index.php?topic=14794
In this episode Bil and Duke are back to chat about difficulty in games. What makes a difficult game good? Where do some difficult games go wrong? Does difficulty make a game better? We'll tackle it all, and toss in our usual tangents to boot.
Get the show at http://www.collectorcast.com
Follow the Collectorcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Collectorcast
Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Collectorcast
On Stitcher (enter Promo Code RFGeneration): http://www.stitcher.com/RFGeneration
On iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/u...collectorcast/id524246060
On YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/DukeTogo74
Show Notes
Music: Rod-Land: Yousei Monogatari (Famicom)
Topic: 35:44
Outro: 2:08:21
[img width=610 height=343]http://i1340.photobucket.com/albums/o736/Fleach/ethancartreviewbanner_zps7d469f42.jpg[/img]
There's something eerily wrong in Red Creek Valley and it's your job to piece things together in this atmospheric "weird fiction" detective game.
Continue reading Review: The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
HEY NOW!
And that's it for this year's Not-So-Secret Santa! Thanks for participating, and have yourselves a wonderful holiday season!
'Late
[img width=700 height=393]http://i.imgur.com/dZaJxC8.jpg[/img]
"Whenever I think of asphalt, I think of Maureen. That's the last sensation I had before I blacked out, the thick smell of asphalt."
Tim Schafer, who was already known for his work on Monkey Island, proved that he was up to the challenge of leading his own project with Full Throttle. Please, I beg of you, play this game.
Continue reading Dust Off Your DOSBox and Play Full Throttle
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Posted on Nov 14th 2014 at 10:05:07 AM by ( admen) Posted under game, play |
Online Poker Games Are More Economical
Poker Online game provide you a lot of relaxation after a hard days work. In the present world, where most of the people have access to a computer, poker games are liked by most people and are easy to play, enjoy and have fun. Becoming a pro in these online poker games is very easy if we follow some simple tips and tricks that will make you a professional in playing these games.
It is very important to decide on the site in which one likes to play poker as there are different websites available on the internet that provide poker online games. Select the most authenticated and secure website while playing poker so that if you are playing one that is for real money you will not have your personal information unsecured. These online games are very easy to play and are substantially more economical when compared to playing traditional poker amongst friends or playing at the casinos.
Different online games are provided by internet websites which have a wide selection of poker games. Even though the price structure of these online poker sites is similar to the rate of brick and mortar operations of casinos, other substantial costs and expenses related to playing poker in casinos and live rooms can be reduced by playing poker online games.
Learn about the trusted poker websites and get to know about which ones provide the best in reliability, trust and security before choosing a site to play on.
Venture Over to Some Top Online Poker Websites
Some of the top websites are Pokerstars, Eversetpoker, Paradeisepoker, Liveaction Poker and Truepoker. Outlined below is brief description of some of these websites which provide online poker games.
PokerStars is most famous in San Jose and Costa Rica in which you have the chance to play with real poker players. There are many features in this website like featured card rooms which can be played from around the world with limits ranging from 0.01$ to 100$. On this website you can play different online games like Omaha, Seven Card Stud and they also have some free games to download. There are number of daily poker tournaments available on this website.
Truepoker is one other good website which provides the latest poker games featuring real people in tables from all around the world. This website hosts Omaha High, 7 Card Stud and Texas Holdem games. There is a chance to play a one on one game on this website and many professional players are members here.
Some other websites which provide poker online games are Paradisepoker and Liveactionpoker which also provide demo and free versions so that you can get used to playing before playing a real game.
Online Poker Game Software Is Not Just for the Pros
Improve your poker games with lots of tips and strategies that are available online and become a professional poker earning lots of money. Utilize the best software available on the market that provide good tips and read reviews about playing online poker games from pro's and become a professional yourself in playing poker games.
So, apparently, life finally caught up with me, and it said "Wake the hell up!!". What does that mean? Well, it seems I've been so mixed up lately, that I've forgotten about potential trades and deals that I had made. I feel like I've been pulled right out of Hotel California or something.
That being said, if you remember making a deal with me, please let me know so I can look through my PMs and fix any mistakes I may have made. Also, after I complete any trades that were forgotten, I have to drop the trading for a while, as money is very tight, what with me going to New York in December. You ever feel that need to get away from it all sometimes, if only for a little bit? That's me right now.
Now, with that out of the way, I'd like to say that I've also been neglecting my gaming time to a point, hence why you haven't seen many Gaming-Related Blog Entries from me. I also had to give up my new Glove Gaming Series, as I found that it was quite difficult to play any game with it, and quite frankly, that sucks. If a new glove controller for anything ever comes around, perhaps I'll start yet another new series, but for now, nothing is going to come of it.
Well, that about covers it. As I said before, PLEASE PM me if you remember a trade that I've forgotten. Seriously, nothing upsets me more than unhappy customers.
[img width=400 height=390]http://i.picpar.com/0cf8b89f34a777749f727017def3c1da9916eebd.png[/img]
I have been excited about the release of Tales of Xillia 2 since I played and reviewed the first one a few months ago (http://www.rfgeneration.c...-Tales-of-Xillia-2755.php). I greatly enjoyed the main characters and writing of the original game and thought that the plot took plenty of nice turns that were not as predictable as an RPG veteran would expect.
Continue reading Psychotic Reviews: Tales of Xillia 2
Episode 2 of Game vs Game covering the N64 and Wii versions of the ever-classic Goldeneye. What a nostalgic game for so many people, 4-Player Multiplayer was a dream. Then years later it got a remake to the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3.
How do the two compare? Let's find out!
[img width=642 height=336]http://indie-love.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/IndieBox_Sticker-642x336.png[/img]
Digital distribution is a touchy subject, especially on a website that's home to so many collectors. But in fairness, downloads have been great for some of us. There's no denying the certain rush that comes from instant gratification. In fact, thanks to digital distribution, I've vastly cut down on my game purchases. The thought that a game is (generally) going to be available to purchase and play whenever I'm ready to play it seems to trump even the allure of stocking up during sales. And there's certainly no denying that this cheaper form of distribution means that many games by smaller developers are finding their way into the hands and hard drives of gamers that would be near impossible otherwise.
Continue reading The Secret Renaissance of PC Game Boxes
In case anyone was still even mildly interested in my previous blog post from some 6 months past, I have officially opened up my Facebook page thing dedicated to my cause.
That can be found herehttps://www.facebook.com/...0?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
I haven't completely decided on how to follow through on my promises to play all my games. I'm thinking the older games would be hard to broadcast through Twitch or something of the like but I still have some research to do. I could record it and just upload to Youtube but that seems less personal and who the heck is going to sit and watch 30 minutes. I guess people watch gameplay videos all the time. At any rate, this will start 1/1/15 and go one for the year. I am not quite to my total game count needed but I am close enough and confident I will get there prior to that time.
Anyway, that's just a preview of my plan. There will be a donation link on the page that might even be active now. I'm aiming low but who knows. Like the page if you want and pass it along. I have no reason for doing this other than I want to help. I already play games half of my day so why not do it for a good cause?
[img width=500 height=281]http://new1.fjcdn.com/comments/Paradajs+rolled+image+stop+smokin+hard+stuff+_b3af684b05a4485f51a03f31f85111b7.jpg[/img]
It looks like all the Halloween scares and candy didn't distract anyone from contributing to RF Generation's database.
During October you made a total of 2380 submissions to the ever growing database. Of those updates 45 were hardware submissions and 2335 were game submissions. And you kept those scanners buzzing with 1163 image submissions.
Our top contributors last month were: ericeskapade (596), Shadow Kisuragi (257), Flee (206), ae.tc (197), and CoinCollector (169)
On behalf of the RF Generation staff and community we thank you for your incredible efforts.
Our top approvers were: Shadow Kisuragi (1256), ApolloBoy (205), and Tynstar (88)
[img width=700 height=439]http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c394/bombatomba77/TRT_title_small_zps56534fbe.jpg[/img]
What if I told you there was a game, released for Windows, Mac, and Linux, that mixed the rich story and character interaction found in an Ultima game with some of the action featured in Zelda: A Link to the Past? Would you bite at such an opportunity or would you balk? Should your curiosity pique at such a combination, let me introduce you to The Real Texas.
Continue reading The Real Texas
HEY NOW!
As many of you already know, the week started on a pretty low note for me.
[img width=700 height=497]http://i1273.photobucket.com/albums/y409/Zagnorch/Score11-6-2014a_zps2a5bb738.jpg[/img]
Daylight burglaries aren't exactly a laugh-a-minute.
But things improved immensely today when I got off work and embarked on what I call a "hot-hand" thrift crawl, where almost every stop yielded at least a little something, and a couple stops a LOT something. Read on and you'll see what I mean.
The day started off small as I dropped by the Goodwill near work:
[img width=700 height=462]http://i1273.photobucket.com/albums/y409/Zagnorch/Score11-6-2014b_zpseb291e4e.jpg[/img]
Although they lacked manuals, I found Mario Kart Wii and New SMB Wii for $3.99 each.
Then came the deluge as I hit the Mountain View Rasputin's:
[img width=525 height=617]http://i1273.photobucket.com/albums/y409/Zagnorch/Score11-6-2014c_zpsf488c233.jpg?t=1415323213[/img]
This haul consisted mainly of $1.95 CIB PS2 games, including:
- Conflict: Global Terror
- Dark Cloud
- Dr. Muto
- Kessen II
- Romance of the Three Kingdoms VIII
- Samurai Warriors XTreme Legends
- Star Wars Bounty Hunter
- Terminator Dawn of Fate
- Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land
I also found a few $1.95 CIB PSP games:
- Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
- Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2
- Monster Hunter Freedom Unite
Let's not overlook the $1.95 CIB 360 & GameCube games:
- Wario Ware, Inc.
- Donkey Konga
- Kameo: Elements of Power
- Gun (sealed)
Finally, some miscellaneous stuff I snapped up for $0.50 a pop:
- CIB Age of Mythology Bonus Edition for PC
- Riven for PC
- Official XBox Magazine #45 demo
- CIB Kiss Pinball for PS1
Next up was the Mountain View Goodwill, where I found a morsel of number-crunching goodness:
[img width=561 height=464]http://i1273.photobucket.com/albums/y409/Zagnorch/Score11-6-2014e_zps27a90d0e.jpg?t=1415323248[/img]
While this $4.99 Texas Instruments BA-II Plus business calculator was a nice find, there were no gaming goodies of note at this stop. Good thing it was a different story at the Parkmoor Savers in San Jose:
[img width=692 height=533]http://i1273.photobucket.com/albums/y409/Zagnorch/Score11-6-2014d_zpsffe57cda.jpg[/img]
For a little over seven smackers, I walked out with fifteen Nintendo Power back issues-- and I mean WAY back, between issues 16 and 41-- as well as Mario Mania, Top Secret Passwords and a Ninja Gaiden II player's guide.
Next up was the Almaden Expressway Savers, which yielded all you see here:
[img width=700 height=427]http://i1273.photobucket.com/albums/y409/Zagnorch/Score11-6-2014f_zps51e10c36.jpg?t=1415250608[/img]
The Super Mario 2 cart, CIB Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, and CIB Supreme Commander were $2.99 $2.39 each with savings coupon, and the Nintendo Power Mario Collector's Special set me back $1.99 $1.59.
Funny thing about the Dragon Quarter pick-up: a few minutes before I saw it, I was thinking about SirPsycho's recent acquisition of the same game, and how it looked like a promising title. It's a happy coincidence that's happened a couple times before in my thrift hunts, and has almost led me to believe I have some odd power of clairvoyance. But it's not that I possess odd powers; I'm just plain odd.
A few miles up the expressway, and I arrived at the Almaden Goodwill. Sadly, this particular store has some of the most ridiculous asking prices for console games and hardware I'v ever seen. $9.99 for a loose Ecco the Dolphin Genesis cart with a half-ripped-off label? Thanks, but no thanks (and tell the pricer to stop hitting the pipe). Fortunately, I'm always finding other interesting things here for far more reasonable prices...
[img width=493 height=537]http://i1273.photobucket.com/albums/y409/Zagnorch/Score11-6-2014g_zps06f33cdc.jpg?t=1415323153[/img]
...like this CIB Tomy Atomic Pinball game for $5.99. And, ummm, you might wanna cut back on the heavy breathing there, SingleBanana; you're kinda creeping everybody out with that. Someone's in need of a cold shower.
After checking out another Goodwill that didn't have diddley, I ended today's run at the Bernal Goodwill, where I found:
[img width=700 height=383]http://i1273.photobucket.com/albums/y409/Zagnorch/Score11-6-2014h_zpsa1328e1c.jpg?t=1415323181[/img]
- Metal Gear Saga Vol. 2 / MGS4 bonus DVD, $3.79
- CIB PlayStation Official UK Magazine demo disc 25, $3.99
- Sealed Dungeon Keeper for PC, $3.59
Needless to say, I'm feeling a little better now.
Until next time...
...'Late
The game industry is shifting. It is slowly creeping from its immature state to a fully fledged form of medium. Looking back at the last years clearly shows the evidence that more and more people find games as a way to communicate.
There is a large field around serious games which adapts games for use in teaching, simulation, and even healthcare. On the complete opposite side of the spectrum of games lies a big question: are games a form of art?
We - humans - have been telling stories for centuries. First orally, then we started writing them down, and about a century ago we developed the technology to tell stories in the form of movies. Only recently are games considered as a serious medium to tell stories. It is amazing to see how far we have come in such a short timespan: from Tetris to games that can be as emotionally touching as a movie or a book.
I was touched by the games To The Moon and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. Both were able to not only pull me into their story, but also leave a permanent impression on me. Trust me, I am not a person that tears up at the first sign of drama, but To The Moon made me cry... twice. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons stunned me in a way I never experienced from a game before.
Ever since I finished Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, I have been amazed by how integrated the gameplay felt to the story. Yes, the game has cutscenes, but those do not tell the whole story. Only by playing the game you experience the journey the main character make, both the good and the bad parts. The relationship between the main characters grows throughout the game, but there is also a relationship growing between you and the main characters. This is fascinating on its own, but doing this in a mere two to three hours, without saying a single word of understandable English, and mainly through gameplay, is an incredible achievement. Based on this experience, I have grown to find out what it is that makes this game so engaging.
Several elements of the game can be considered as emotionally engaging, and if you give the game some more thought, you notice a lot of symbolism and smart design choices, but there is no way of extracting what it is that makes you feel so connected to the virtual characters from the game. This raised the question: does the gameplay really make the experiencing more immersive? This question is what I took into my research project for the master's programme Game and Media Technology at Utrecht University. Determined to find an answer, I am currently conducting a user study where I compare the narrative engagement of two groups: people that played the game, and people that only watched a condensed video of the story of the game. Hopefully this will give us more insight in the role gameplay can have in telling a story.
Personally, I find this an intriguing subject, and I am very interested in hearing more about how other people experience these kind of games. I am also still looking for more people to join the user study. More information on the project and how to participate in the user study can be found on my website. By collecting as many experiences as possible, I will be able to give you an answer on the questions posed in this blog, and contribute to growing games into a mature and revolutionary medium to share compelling stories.
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We are a community of collectors, gamers and the likes, and some of us enjoy to let the world know what is on our mind. For those members, we have the community blogs, a place where they can publish their thoughts and feelings regarding life, universe, and everything. Some of those members might even choose to write about gaming and collecting! Whatever they write about, you can find it on their blog. You can either see the latest community blog entries in the feed you see to the left, or you can browse for your favorite blog using the menu above. Interested in having your own blog hosted on RF Generation? It's rather simple, first be a registered member, and then click the "My Blog" link that you see in the navigation above. Following those two steps will certainly get you on your way to blogging.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy our entries, rantings, and completely unrelated series of thoughts. We write for you to read, so we certainly hope that you enjoy our material.
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