A short journey with Punk Arcade in to the early days of Arcade Games. Some of the great titles in this article are available on this site. Play classic Arcade Games here.



When I first walked into an arcade the thing I remember most was the sounds of the electronic machines dinging away and in some cases even talking some simple speech phrases. The majority of the games in the Nickelodeon where the old machine style style pinball games with reels for scores. These pinball games were a blast and probably the closest I ever came to a truly spiritual analog experience.  Some of the pinball games dated back to the 60's but most were 70's beauties. What I was not aware of at the time is, that I was playing on the cusp of the arcade games revolution.

Sprinkled about the arcade were the early classic arcade games such as Space Invaders, Asteroids, Gorf, Grand Prix and Lunar Lander. Like John the Baptist these vector style games haled the coming of a new age in entertainment. It would not be long before the real revolutionaries would arrive.


The next few years delivered the great titles that are still famous today. I played them all.  Defender was one of the slickest games I had ever seen and the first time I had ever truly heard sophisticated synthesized sound effects, to say the least, were super cool.

It was hard to even get close to the Pac Man machine as it was not long before the game claimed its first junkies. The sound of the Pac Man eating the energy dot and eating up the pac men reverberated throughout the arcade.

Tempest was an exercise in depth percpection as you looked down the portal to shoot the oncoming shapes with what was to become hugely popular, the track ball.


After overcoming my game addiction to the prophet Asteroids it would not be long before I was addicted to such titles as Centipede, Missle Command and what would become my first love affair with a machine, Star Castle. This is was what Arcade Games were all about. A dollar bill could never be worth as much as it was in those days. At twenty five cents, a fix was easy.

Before the first wave of game could be fully exhausted, they just kept showing up. It was a full fledged orgy of gaming bliss when Donkey Kong and Frogger made their entry. The modern era of Arcade Games had arrived and the sprite had been mastered. Moon Patrol, Zaxxon, Pole Position, Dig Dug, Qbert, Burgertime and Joust. That was it. NOTHING WAS BETTER THAN HANGING OUT AT THE ARCADE.