Video Games.

Whatever happened to video games.
Not those complicated, computer-online driven $50 to $100 cd-rom's you find in aisle after aisles at your local bulk electronics franchise, I mean arcade video games. In my youth, you couldn't go into a convenient store without seeing two or three or them lined up against the front, interior wall. There'd always be a kid playing one, and the next best thing to playing one would be to stand behind that kid and watch him play. Those games were the greatest. Every few months one would be changed, and you'd get excited about the possibility of starting a new twenty-five cent adventure. That's all it cost-- twenty-five cents. Sometimes even free, if you'd happen upon a slug or one of those quarters with a hole drilled into it. You remember those quarters: some ne'er do well kid drills a hole in it, ties a string through it and plays endless hours of free video games by dipping it into the coin slot and pulling it back out. Innocent genius.
Nowadays video games are too complicated. There is no real sense of enjoyment. Back in my day, there was more enjoyment than complexity. Sure, the games were challenging, but you didn't need an advanced math degree to figure out how to get to the end. You just needed to beat up seven opponents, or jump across mystical landscapes, or shoot down a bunch of enemy fighter planes. There were no "play online" options or multi-faceted wireless controllers. There was a big box with a joystick sticking out of it, along with a few buttons. There was a "start", and a "two player start." There was no "enter code to play last saved game."
It was a social setting, too. Nowadays, video games mean playing in a home, shut out from the outside. There is no conversation or meeting of new friends. Back in my day, after standing there for hours watching that kid play, he'd turn around and make a comment to me after losing all his lives.
"I never know how to beat him," he'd say.
"You have to block, block, block, then low kick," I'd say.
"Oh yeah?" he'd reply, as if I'd just endowed him with a well-kept secret.
"Yeah, watch-- lemme play, I'll show you."
Then I'd stick my quarter in, advance to his level, and show him the secret to defeating the opponent that someone had once shown me. He'd laugh exuberantly, I'd smile, until I got to my part where I was unable to defeat the opponent. I'd repeat the same thing he'd just said to me and he'd agree, admitting that "that part is tough."
We'd part ways in a friendly way, comrades united against a common enemy. I'd see him again, because game locations were a spot for frequenting, specifically to play the game. Next time maybe we'd play two player, and defeat the enemy that way. It was unifying, it was bonding. I think most of my childhood friends were made over video games.
Street Fighter marked the decline of the video game. It was a hot game that attracted many a player to it, and it started the trend of placing your quarter up on the screen to signal your turn. It was the beginning of the end for arcade video games, because once it came out, the following trends were all about "turbo'ing" it up, or adding more high-speed options. It was the last video game to draw crowds into convenient stores and supermarkets. Since then, arcades have become something completely different.
I went into a large arcade the other night and didn't recognize one game. They were all highly-advanced, souped-up versions of already highly-advanced, souped-up versions. There were dancing games, shooting games, driving games, and a lot of games that were impossible to understand just by looking at. I saw one that had a keyboard instead of a joystick. A keyboard.
Whatever happened to video games. I guess they fell victim to that bottomless pit of missing things known as nostalgia. Such a shame, really. These young generations of kids will never know what it was like to spend hour after hour, quarter after quarter, and go through blood, sweat, and migraines to try to accomplish that one claim to glory that everyone who graced that section of the local liquor store hoped of doing: entering your three-letter moniker into the high-score ranking hall of fame.