Videogames have given me a lot of pleasure. There have been times when I’ve punched the air in victory, or sighed with relief, or smiled at a moment of orchestrated genius. But only once have I been struck dumb, unable to move, or breathe, or do anything other than stare, eyes bulging, in complete and utter disbelief.

The place was a small rundown arcade in sunny Littlehampton on the southern coast of England, the year was 1992, and the object of my awe was Sega’s Virtua Racing.

I was about to turn 17, and although I didn’t know it at the time, this was to be my last proper summer holiday away with my parents. No, don’t panic, they didn’t die, I’d just become too old to hang around with the oldies.

For reasons I still don’t truly understand, I turned, virtually overnight, into ‘Teenager From Hell’. You know the sort; walking five paces behind their parents, pretending to be alone, hands deep in pockets, possibly causing the shoulders to slouch. Or maybe it was the sheer enormity of the weight of the world that gave me that hunchback look; the unquestionable belief that being alive was just too painful to bear.

Teenagers. Hormone-ruled or just miserable cunts?

Teenage Atlas or Kevin & Perry, it hardly matters any more. There were hormones, and Nirvana, and girls who just wanted to be friends, and it was all too much. I was misery personified, the very cliché of the much maligned sixth-form poet. Plus, the disk drive on my Amiga had packed in, and with it, any enthusiasm for gaming.

The Amiga had been my only reliable source for videogames. Sure, finding arcade machines was easy, but finding one that wasn’t Street Fighter II was trickier. To this day, I haven’t seen an Outrun machine in the whole of North-West London. I’d heard about them, but they remained tantalisingly out of reach, hidden away in a membership-only pool club, or a mini-cab office too dangerous to investigate. I just couldn’t find something I wanted to play.

So it was just my A500, my trusty Zipstick, my incandescent rage-inducing sticky mouse, and any game I could borrow, blag, rip or steal. Those were great days. Game after game caned to death, in a way only an obsessive teenage mind desperate for diversion is capable of. And then the drive failed (a common problem with the early Amigas) and it all stopped.

The blocky beauty of the Commodore Amiga.

I didn’t even miss it. My trusty Commodore went straight into a cupboard without a moment’s thought. I could cite reasons, such as originality drying up, or the transitional state of the industry, but neither is true. Fact is, I fell in love. With a girl.

We dated. It ended badly. For me, at least. Why? I was 16, but I may as well have been 12. I knew nothing, especially how to handle the way I felt about her. Also, I was a dick. We broke up the day before our GCSE Graphic Design presentation. My Amiga disk drive gave up around the same time. I lost both English and Spanish girlfriends a matter of weeks apart.

That summer was a tough one. I’d dated the love of my life, and now she hated me. And my passion for gaming appeared to have deserted me, along with my sole videogame machine. There just didn’t seem to be any hope for the future. I went on holiday with my parents, to the aforementioned sunny Littlehampton, and with hands deep in pockets, towed behind them.

Parents. Funny clothes and hair, non-understanding, but usually a good source of love.

The arcades, previously the only bit of these annual holidays I enjoyed, did nothing for me. Credit after credit passed without holding my interest, and even the mighty Outrun (still the game I adore the most) failed to focus me. I wondered if I was done with games. I knew, even then, that I’d never ‘grow out’ of them, but it felt like there was nothing new, that the best of it was behind me. No hope for the future.

And then I walked into an arcade, and saw Virtua Racing. And everything changed.

It towered above me; a huge, hulking, five screen, four-player monstrosity. I’d never seen any machine so big. Or so loud. There was no-one playing it, just the demo running. Yet it had me transfixed, from the opening jingle to the metallic crunch at the end. But what really blew my mind were the graphics. Such bold colours, garish and primary, leaping off the screen. And they were 3D. And there were lots of them, moving damned fast.

Some utter, utter, too-much-money bastard with a Virtua Racing in his tossing living room.

I stuck in a whole pound coin. And then things started happening really quickly.

Past the bewildering option screen, and shoot out of the pits. The first thing I notice is the steering wheel - there’s feedback. Lots of feedback. I’m wrestling the car through the first corner, and it feels glorious. I flick the levers behind the wheel, but nothing happens (I’m playing on Automatic, should’ve read those options) but the sheer act of moving the levers feels cool in itself.

I punch a couple of the buttons beside me, and watch the camera behind my car zoom and soar in and out, and feel pure joy. I fight a couple more corners, and feel the hair stand on the back of my neck as I have a moment of inspiration: there’s a racing line. Sure enough, I’m getting the accelerator down earlier out of the next corner (when did I learn to ease off the throttle?) and am firing past the purple opposition. I spin it on the hairpin, which gives me ample time to get a good look at the Ferris wheel spinning serenely in the background. I shake my head in disbelief, and start Lap 2.

I run out of time before the four laps are up, and stumble out of the arcade. I look over my shoulder, and see it still there. I had to be sure, you understand.

I intend to ask my mum for another quid (or five) but she says its time to head back to our rented accommodation. I know we’re heading home early the next day, but I smile and nod, and walk towards the car. Perhaps it was the euphoria I was feeling, or the shellshock, but I prefer to think of it as an understanding, that things had changed.

A month later, school starts, and it’s hell. She’s there, and I can’t handle it. I buy new trousers with deeper pockets, and slump around, a picture postcard for teenage despair. And it stays that way until we finish our A-levels, two years later. I guess some people take longer than others to grow up.

Sega World. Like the one in Oriental City, Colindale, where our Ed recently whipped a Japanese
kid’s sorry arse on Virtua Tennis 2 100% true 4 eva.

But a new shopping complex has sprung up not a mile from our school, called the Yohan Plaza (it’s still going today, renamed Oriental City), and past the Japanese bookshop, below the sushi restaurant, is the Sega Dome. And in it, taking up a whole wall, is eight-player Virtua Racing.

A little later comes Daytona, then Sega Rally. Both games are spellbinding, with breakthrough graphics, perfect handling and inspired track design. But it’s Virtua Racing that was discovered by me, when I wasn’t looking, and when I needed it most.

CHANT, August 2004.

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