Tony's Arcade

Every arcade collector has read about or been lucky enough to participate in one of the best experiences in gaming geekdom — the arcade warehouse raid. I was fortunate enough to hear about a friend of a friend of a friend (of course) that was getting out of “the business” and had “some games to get rid of at a good price”. So, what do you do when you have no room in your basement arcade for more games? Why, you get more!

Chicken Coop

After making the necessary arrangements, a good friend and fellow pin geek, Rob, and I climbed into his dad’s moving truck. Drinking coffee (it was early) as Rob drove, we traded tall arcade tales from our childhood, “Yeah, and when we were nine this kid Chris could play Crazy Kong, cuss you and the game out, eat pizza, hum “Electric Avenue” all at the same time and still get the high score!” We drove to not one but THREE warehouses of arcade games and pinball machines. Our minds raced as we thought of what gems these warehouses might hold. Our first stop was at a small farm, where the warehouse was actually an old, abandoned chicken coop. I looked around to see many video games and shuffle alleys from the late 1970s. My jaw dropped at how pristine the artwork looked on many of these games. It was as if we walked into a lost mine and there was the DeLorean from “Back to the Future”, covered in dust and waiting for us to drive it away.

Tony: “Uhhhhh…”
Rob: “Three Atari Night Drivers?”
Our Guide: “Yes. See how they look like they were never on location? The operator that is selling these used to buy two of each game — one for the location, one as a spare.”
Rob: “Where were the locations?”
Our Guide: “Misquamicut beach. He used to take care of ALL the arcade games for Miquamicut in arcades, bars, restaurants, laundromats, you name it.”

And here we were, 90 miles from Misquamicut Beach, standing next to some games that I probably played in my youth. I used to frequent Misquamicut with my family and I have many good memories as a kid playing arcade games there, like SubRoc-3D. As I stumbled around the chicken coop, my mind thought, “Wow, wouldn’t it be great if there was a Space Encounters here? The one I currently have is so incomplete.” I then walked smack into a perfect-looking, dusty yet complete Space Encounters. I thought again how cool it would be if I found a Kee Games Tank. You know, Kee Games… run by Joe Keenan, Nolan Bushnell’s buddy? The company Atari created in the 1970s to “compete” with itself so they could get around distribution rights. The company that made a very profitable game for Atari that ended up on the Combat cartridge for the Atari VCS. I turned around and there was Tank II. Dare I thought of Space Wars? Our guide said that last week someone came and picked up four Gorfs and two Space Duels. I was crushed.

Pins

Rob was sweating for pinball games. I heard him murmur, “Pinball. Pinball! My precious.” So it was time to load up two Asteroids, Space Encounters, Tank II, and hit the road for warehouse number two. The second warehouse was huge compared to the chicken coop and had the pinball games… but not as many as we hoped for. Most of the games here were conversions and “newer” games from the 1990s. Drab, black cabinets housing 25″ monitors with peel-and-stick sideart over peel-and-stick sideart. There were Buck Hunters, Street Fighters, and even a couple of intact Klaxes. I saw a converted Kangaroo, Root Beer Tapper, and a Bud Tapper. It was like seeing three old friends where the years have taken their toll. There were a few pinball bodies here but the heads were missing. Our guide mentioned that the heads were in warehouse #3. So, Rob picked out a Williams Firepower II and a Gottlieb Close Encounters with an extra body. I picked up a Williams World Cup. Onto Warehouse number 3.

Hurricane

Warehouse three promised to be better than the last two — it had the missing pinball heads, it was heated, it had electricity, and it hopefully had more classics. Those benefits came with a price. As we entered the warehouse, it was like a hurricane ripped through. Circuit boards were piled in a side room, video games, hockey games, shuffle alleys, and Rowe CD jukeboxes were crammed against the wall, four deep. Rob and I looked at each other in disbelief. We were already in this raid for four hours and this stop on our journey was going to be the most time consuming. Nothing was organized. Rob, with the help of our guide, somehow found the missing heads for our pinball games. I told myself to think about what games I’ve been searching for the past five years. Maybe they’re here. Looking around the wake of Hurricane Evil Otto, I thought of:

Atari Football…
Pole Position Cockpit…

…and there they were.
I also thought about an electro-mechanical (EM) game, Dune Buggy, that I always thought would be impossible to find. It was a game where you drove a matchbox car dune buggy around a course, listening to surf tunes from an 8-track tape. I looked behind some jukeboxes and saw an EM-looking game, upside down, with its legs up in the air. I looked over to the left… a Sub-Roc!! Hey, maybe that’s the one I played in Misquamicut as a kid. I squeezed through those jukeboxes and saw… could it be? An upside-down red and white sideart of two people driving a dune buggy. I nearly fell backwards into an empty Big Buck Hunter.

Seven Hours Later…

So, after spending three hours at warehouse number three, Rob picked up his missing pin heads and an Asteroids cocktail. I got that Football and Pole Position cockpit as well as… Dune Buggy. We had spent a total of seven hours, plundering three warehouses full of childhood memories. I couldn’t have done it without Rob. He helped me dig out (and unload!) all of my treasures, spent seven hours on a Saturday in the name of classic gaming geeks far and wide, and provided the moving truck to boot. The good news is that Rob and I have some “DeLoreans” we’ll revive so kids — old and young alike — can yell at, button smash, shake, and nose thumb.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 at 10:23 pm and is filed under Arcade Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.