The action arcade

Most of us grew up playing one video game or another. First was Atari and Colecovision, then onto the Nintendo years, then Playstation, X-Box, PC games, and on and on. But no matter how far home gaming has gone, we all remember the action arcade games could proide for us. There's nothing like an action arcade to get the blood flowing - the constant din, chatter and hordes of intense gamers was a culture unto itself.

The nice thing now is that you can download so many classic games for free if you just know where to look. Everything from Pitfall to Soul Caliber can be accessed online if you put in the time and effort to find them. So suddenly, your good old PC can be that same action arcade you grew up with, including the same title and gameplay.

My favorite growing up was Gauntlet. I would head down to the "OP Arcade", as it was then called, with my roll of quarters and a Jolt Cola and spend hours in front of that screen. "Green Elf Needs Food Badly" - remember that? It's a line that every gamer has heard more often than they can count, and it's still good for a laugh when in the right company.

The action arcade there was a congregation point for all sorts of misfits. The true nerds and gamers, of course, were there in numbers. But so were the toughs, the greasers and, for lack of a better term, the "socs". It was kind of like The Outsiders, except with less C. Thomas Howell. Pretty funny.

What surprises me is that no one has really been able to capture the action arcade mood and atmosphere in a film. Sure there was that terrible Fred Savage movie from the '80s - and for the life of me I can't remember the name of it - but other than that there've been pitifully few attempts at creating that world. You'd think a film about that subculture would have wide popularity given the pervasiveness of gamers and gaming in today's culture.

One film that did try - successfully - to capture the culture of the action arcade is called "King of Kong - A Fistful of Quarters." It's a documentary film from 2007 about two gamers attempting to set the high score on Donkey Kong, and it's definitely worth watching. I know it sounds like you'd be watching two nerds playing video games, but it's actually insanely well done and the story arc is impossible to turn away from. Definitely one of my favorite documentaries of the past few years.

Of course, there are still real arcades in existance, but the advent of serious home gaming has largely eliminated the action arcade subcultre. Alas, to everything there is a season.