In the Charlie Brown Christmas special, Lucy Van Pelt just "loves the sound of plinking nickels." I too once had an unholy love of money. For me, it was quarters. It wasn't just the jangle of loose quarters in my pocket, it was the promise of a few minutes of electronic glory.
From that first moment in the late 70's when my quarter kissed a coin slot, I've been hooked on video games. My illicit relationship started with the pinball machine at the local bowling alley and has lasted all this time and through many incarnations.
Movies and television were okay, but nothing ever thrilled me like the garish displays of an arcade game. I remember being no more than six, and pushing up a stool to play Silverball. I have a warm affection for that era of pinball machines, because they were mechanized, but without a lot of that fancy electronic crap like multiball and those distracting displays. It was much more a game of skill - not that I had them, but that certainly didn't stop me.
Flash forward a few years into the early 80's, when a lot of the titles that are synonymous with games first came out. Space Invaders and Asteroids had already enticed a lot of acne-laden teens and adults looking for the next big thing to blow their hard earned cash. Pac Man was a new table game. (Does anybody else remember the Pac Man graphic where he actually had feet?) My aunt took my sister and I to the bar to play Frogger. I also remember playing Donkey Kong. A few more years into the future saw the first home console unit come on to the market. We never had an Atari 2600, but we did have friends who did. I don't remember being terribly impressed with the quality of that unit. The 5600 was a far superior unit - which we did have. Meanwhile, the number of arcade (and console) games exploded - this new wave produced my personal favorite game, Centipede. (Not to toot my own horn, but I rock at Centipede.)
After an initial fury, the video game market died down until Nintendo came out with its NES system in the early 90's. I spent countless hours playing Super Mario Brothers - enough to joke that Mario and Luigi were the men in my life. I was also hopelessly addicted to Dr. Mario and Tetris. My family even rented those silly game show versions when I'd come home, and we'd spend some quality time with Alex Trebek or Ray Coombs.
Super Nintendo was a cool system because you could get the special cartridge and play the Game Boy versions too. This was a big deal because GB had released cartridges with "classic" video games like Centipede and Millipede. I had gotten one for my brother for his birthday, but I think my mom and I spent as much time playing it as he did.
Then along came Sega. Of course, there was Sonic the Hedgehog, which was a fairly cool game. I, however, spent most of my time playing Columns, or Klax, or on occasion Eternal Champions. In fact, I played Klax so much that my boyfriend at the time used to make jokes about the Klax demons. (Hint: There's always time for Klax!) Eternal Champions was a bit of a departure for me, as it was the first fight game I actually got into. My favorite character was always Larcen, because he was a gangster who knew kung fu. My favorite super secret move was making him swing across the screen on his grappling hook (those of you who've actually played the game know what I'm talking about). It looked really sweet!
But of course, the hold over the market (and my loyalty) wouldn't last for very much longer. Faster processor speed and improved graphics began to make PC games a force to be reckoned with. It wouldn't be too long until I was a full fledged PC game geek, leaving Pinball Pete's without the gratifying clinking of quarters kissing change slots and my own console stashed away unloved in the closet...
