6. I Never Had Sinistar Go Down On Me…

From the moment the videogame bug took hold of me there was one thing I wanted more than anything else – my own arcade machine. I would fantasise about waking up one day to find my chest of drawers magically transformed into a Centipede and the wardrobe to a cockpit Star Wars. I blame Tron. Or Ghostbusters… I’m sure they had a game in their fire station HQ – and that was the very height of cool as far as I was concerned.

I also heard tales of programmers working on “official” home versions being given the real thing to work from. Sounded to me like the best job in the world. You could play all day and just put it down to research.

But what really sparked my interest were the stories I heard about people who reputedly had these things in their homes… The journalist who had a Tempest in his bedroom, the ambitious young programmer who brought home a Joust which his mum wouldn’t let him keep, the maverick games writer who had a whole bloody arcade in his house. I imagined all of these people living the life of Tron’s dashing vid-kid Flynn (although I bet Flynn’s mum never made him keep a Joust out in the garage). Gaming gods, one and all.

Flynn’s place. He LIVED there.

The biggest hurdle to my home arcade dream was mundane and obvious: I was still at school and an arcade game cost thousands of pounds. So, I collected flyers, instead. Where my school friends had posters of Big Country and Toyah, I had Zaxxon and Q*Bert. I filed them away in little plastic wallets, grouped by manufacturer. I kept my How To Win At Videogames book with me at all times, and inside the front and back covers I wrote down the name of every game I played, and when I ran out of room, I wrote over the foreword and contents pages.

It wasn’t until my early twenties that I had enough money coming in to pursue the dream. The games I had loved as a kid had all but vanished from the arcades and I figured that the only way I would ever get to play them again would be to track them down and buy them. I started scouring the adverts in the back of Coin Slot magazine in the hope of finding an unloved classic in need of a good home. Eventually, I spotted my all-time favourite game - Sinistar. It was with an operator somewhere up north and at £200 was the limit of my budget, but… fuck me! A Sinistar in my bedroom!

It is only with hindsight that I realise how much of a wrong turn that was. Sure, I loved videogames, but I also liked girls. My dad was understandably not entirely convinced of the latter, given the amount of time I spent indulging the gaming urge… but I wanted a Sinistar AND a girlfriend. How hard could that be?

”I AM SINISTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!!!!!!!!”

By the time the girlfriend part of the equation came together, I was happily living in my own flat with a small family of classic arcade cabs. They weren’t much trouble, except for the Gravitar that always smelt a bit and finally stopped working completely – but that’s another story. Some part of my mind was perpetually stuck at age thirteen and insisted that a wall of Williams games was a perfectly acceptable aspect of my sleeping space. Probably the same part of my mind that thought it was still okay to have a single bed in my mid twenties and somehow expect people to share it from time to time.

The rest of my mind was concentrating too hard on being charming, witty and not spilling my drink over myself to worry that my home arcade might be considered a little unusual. One night, my then girlfriend commented that the cabinets were “putting her off” and “watching her”, and insisted that it’d be best if I threw a sheet over them. I knew then, despite my best efforts to convince myself otherwise, that the fledgling relationship was doomed. I could have understood the objection if I’d tried to create a romantic ambience by turning them all on, but…

Retrokade. We don’t live there, but we know where it is (see link below).

After about eight months, she dumped me. On my birthday, as well - cheers. I was upset, but not that upset. I tried hard to be all grown up about it, and anyway, I still had a set of Major Havoc arcade boards being shipped from Wyoming to look forward to. Still, I never collected arcade cabs with quite the same fervour again. Sinistar was traded for a Tempest, which was smaller and less conspicuous. Robotron and Stargate went their respective ways to homes with bigger garages and single-male owners. Gravitar went away to be repaired. For three whole years.

Not that I’m cured or anything. I’m just better at hiding the games, now. Somehow, the two cabs in the bedroom don’t seem so conspicuous once you have some dried flowers, cushions and plushie toys scattered over them (thanks, Tina). I went a bit mental with pinballs a couple of years ago but I’ve sought counselling and have trimmed their numbers down to three. Sometimes I miss the games I used to wake up to, but for all his roaring and shouting there is only so much that Sinistar can do for you. A nice cup of tea and breakfast in bed isn’t one of them.

FUSEBALL, February 2004.

Comment Here.

____________________________________________________________________

Things to 'Make' and 'Do'.

Retrokade. Our mate Rav’s fine, fine selection – soon to be available for all.

Money to wipe your arse with? Start your cab collection with some advice from here.

Great Sinistar story.

Utterly ace philosophical analysis of Mr. Sinistar’s comments.

____________________________________________________________________