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Rowdy Rob
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Joined: 09/04/2006
Clok1966, I'm an old fogey too!
clok1966 wrote:

I'm not sure how many of you are as old as me, but I actually played this game when it was still in arcades.

Clok1966, if your login name is a clue, I may be around your age also, since I was born in 1966.

I also remember Death Race, but I don't recall if I played it. If I did, I apparently wasn't impressed enough to remember playing it heavily. I know that I at least WATCHED others play it.

Believe it or not, America had an "arcade" culture before "Space Invaders" hit big over here. Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota (where I lived at back in the 1970's) had an arcade which featured various videogames (Pong, Breakout, Space War, Sea Wolf, Night Driver, and several other vector games that I forget the names of), plus a large variety of pre-digital pinball games. Death Race, if I recall correctly, was probably among these games.

Death Race didn't interest me like the various other videogames. I thought Atari's "Night Driver" was much more interesting. In fact, it wasn't until I saw Bill's "Death Race" video from San Francisco that I realized "Hey, I remember that game!!!!"

I know I first played "Space Invaders" here in the States before we were stationed to Japan, where it turned out that Space Invaders had taken over the country and pretty much started the arcade industry there. But over here in the States, I remember various mechanical-oriented games, which included a UFO shoot-em-up which featured an actual town built in miniature, with a gun mounted to the cabinet. UFO's would rise over the town (I don't remember if they were mechanical or video), and you were to shoot them. It may have been primitive, but think about the work that went into building these mechanical coin-ops, especially with miniature towns!

I also remember that the "Skeet Shoot" videogames were very popular back then. I played it all the time at Pizza Hut in Minot, along with Pong and Atari Football. In my recollection, arcades didn't begin with Pong.

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