Category: 16: Pocket Full of Quarters
By Eduardo
Okay, here’s some more dork history for you:
The true sequel to the most popular video game of all time, Super Mario Bros. was never released outside of Japan. According to Wikipedia, “The extreme difficulty and often frustrating gameplay made Nintendo of America deem the game too hard for American consumers; it was feared it would not sell well.”
The game we got to know as Super Mario 2 in the USA was actually a weird remixed version of a different (and totally unrelated) Japanese game called Doki Doki Panic. For you old school Nintendo folks, this explains why everything in the US release looked weird and very un-Mario like. If you actually find this interesting, you can read all the details of this whole kooky story here.
I heard about all this years ago, and had always been curious as to what the “real” Japanese version was actually like. I’ve always dug the old Mario games, and admittedly have been known to go for some NES action every once in a blue moon… So every once in a while, I’d look for more info on this.
I recently came across an NES emulator for OS X that supports Famicom disk images, and I knew that the game was released in that format in Japan. It was never a cartridge, which explains why there aren’t any readily available ROMs for it.
I downloaded the emulator, and after a few Google searches was able to find a site where you can download the actual disk images. A few minutes later, I was up and running.
The game is very cool.
It’s also infuriatingly cruel, but that’s kind of a plus. It’s a real challenge… much, MUCH harder than the original game was.
This concludes our Video Game Geek History Minute.
By Paco
I don’t know how this discussion got passed up in video games topic, but I just remembered, and had to post something about our high school Chuckie Cheese days.
Chuck E Cheese to most people outlived it’s “coolness” by the time you reached say 12 years old. But Jaime, Pepe, Eduardo and I managed to have a “renaissance” of sorts with that wacky mouse. One day, (I still don’t know the origin as to how and why he had this…) Pepe showed me a key…
“What’s that for?”
“It’s a key that will open a video game…”
“Where?”
“Chuck E.”
“Huh? How did you get it?”
“I made it.” (Only Pepe could do something like this…)
So one night, all us went to Chuck E to check out the key. Pepe led us back to the far reaches of the arcade to this totally random game. It was a game with 4 garbage cans, the garbage cans had cats inside of them. You would insert your token, and then try to throw as many plastic balls into the garbage cans while they openend and closed. Yes, the game was quite stupid. In fact, I truely believed that nobody would have played it.
However, when Pepe inserted his magic key into the coin box… and unvieled the bin FULL of tokens, I immediately thought otherwise. We filled our respective pockets and played games for hours.
Ahhhhhh… free entertainment.
The token snatching soon became a common occurence. It seemed like once a week we would head to the Chuck and play games for hours. In fact, it was because of those tokens, that I feel that Pepe and I were able to become proficient at Super Sprint.
One particular time, Pepe, myself, and a female friend of ours, (I’ll just call her the muppet) went to Chuck E to have some token fun. But this time, Pepe showed me a new key…
“Paco, look.”
“What’s that key for? Another game?”
“No, it’s for that door right there!”
“What?!?!? Are you serious.”
“Yeah, go in there.”
“I’m not going in there! That’s the Chuck E repair center!”
“You have to go in there, I bet there are a TON of tokens in there!”
It was tempting… but I knew it also could be a very bad idea. It was one thing to play garbage ball toss while someone secretly opens the coin bin. That game was hidden way in the back of the arcade. This door was way towards the front, and it’s not like random customers just walked into locked doors. But…
“Ok, you have to knock then if someone is coming so I know when to walk out.”
“Ok.”
So when the coast was clear, it slipped into the secret Chuck E door… Inside was a small room. And it obviously was just what I thought, a repair room. There were a few random tools, some broken game parts, but the mountains of tokens we thought would be in there was nowhere to be found. Just when I was about to give up I did find something of interst. A bin full of random non Chuck E tokens! It was funny… it was full of Scandia, Malibu, and Sex Shop Porno tokens! I grabbed a bunch, and quickly exited. I showed the bounty to Pepe, we had a few laughs, and went about our business collecting wrenches on Super Sprint.
Eventually the Chuck E fun started to get old. Part of the problem was we started to get a bit paranoid that someone at Chuck E was on to us. It seemed like every time we went we saw the same bearded man playing PacMan Mania. Maybe he just liked the game a lot, but we were sure he was undercover Chuck E protection. Soon, it became just us looking out for “Pac Mania”, it was like the fun was just trying to take the tokens without him seeing us.
I think the final straw came (correct me please Eduardo if my story is slightly off) when PacMania finally broke down and went after us. It was myself, Pepe, Eduardo, and Ryan. We were showing our friend Ryan the beauty of free tokens. Not long after we had paid a visit to the garbage cans, Mr. PacMania paid us a visit. I cleary remember running through Chuck E towards the entrance. (We all choose the larger glass doors over the small mouse door to the right) Once we got to the parking lot, Ryan threw his tokens all over the place. We were laughing so hard! I managed to wait until I reached my truck, and threw all of my tokens into the bed. We climbed in, and sped off.
I don’t think we made another visit to Chuck E for months… our cover was blown. But… it was fun while it lasted!
By Fernando
Found Memories of the TIME ZONE and the Gold Mine. I actually had a birthday party once at the TIME ZONE. It was incredibly orchestrated by my mom who sent out invatations to all the kids a made a whole futuristic video game theme out of the proposed event. Having a party there was chaos. Kids running everywhere, demanding more quarters. I just wanted to play Red Baron. It ignited was became a long-lived fascination with flight simulators.
The coolest games were at the Gold Mine. My favorite of all time was Crossbow. Crossbow actually HAD a crossbow you could shoot. Various creatures and medevil folks would wander across the screen and it was up to you to make sure your “freinds” made it. It quickly became more interesting to target your “friends” simply because of the reaction. There was this one tall, bald dude who looked like the freaky lead singer from Judas Priest who, when shot, would scream at you “aaaaaaghhhh – don’t shoot your friends”….
One of my other arcade all time favorites was discovered while playing pool at Mr. C’s billards. I think Jaime and I discovered NARC. NARC was the 1990 version of Grand Theft Auto – you had to rid San Fransico from swarms of druggies and other undesirables. You ran along, picked up any weapon, jumped in cars and did pretty much anything to everthing along the way – body parts were flying.
We wasted may a quarter on that game…
By Eduardo
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Sometime around ’86 or so, I went downtown with my mom to go grocery shopping. On the way home, as usual, she stopped at Rex’s Market on Placer to pick up some choice meats and assorted sundries. I followed her in, knowing that I’d have about 20 minutes to read comics, play video games, or pick out some cheap candy.
Video games being my diversion of choice, I went into the corner where the games were. They still had the same old games they’d had for years (I think they were Defender & Ms. Pac-Man), but a new arrival had joined the group. A very odd-looking game called Super Mario Bros was nestled in next to them, and I was immediately curious. There was a kid playing it, who appeared to be fairly into his game. It sure seemed exciting, at least from a spectator’s point of view.
Then, in a stroke of odd luck, the kid’s mom called for him. She was leaving, and there’d be no time for him to finish the game. He made a face and walked out after her, leaving me there to play his last couple of ‘guys’.
I didn’t know what to do. This game was totally unlike anything else I’d ever seen before. I’d played Mario Bros. many times down at the Holiday in Westwood Village, but this was a lot different. There I was, stuck on level 2, without a clue as to how I was supposed to control this little man (presumably Mario). My time ended up running out, and I was soon left with only one man to try and figure out how this darn thing worked. I finally got the hang of jumping and running and everything, but soon fell down a hole – thus ending my first game. I stuck in a quarter, and tried my luck from the first level, only to be killed by Koopa Troopas, due largely to my unpolished jumping skills and lack of mushroom-power knowledge. Soon enough it was my turn to leave as well, but I was definitely intrigued by this strange new game.
I played it many more times in the weeks that followed, and eventually started to get pretty good at it. After it disappeared from Rex’s, it resurfaced across the street at 7-11. On several occasions, I asked my mom to drop me off there on her way into town to shop – so I could get an hour or two of game time in.
A few months later, I was over at a friend’s house one day when he suggested we go over to see his neighbor next door. His neighbor was a kid in my little sister’s class, whose never-present dad used to buy him expensive toys. He may not have had a dad, but he did have a brand new Nintendo Entertainment System — the first one we’d seen.
I was absolutely amazed. Now it was possible to actually play Super Mario Bros. at home… and for the first time ever, the home console version was exactly like the arcade version. It seemed almost magical, and I was as excited as I’d been upon discovering the Atari 2600 so many years earlier.
I knew that I had to get one, but that my chances were slim. My folks seemed to think that video games did nothing but distract me from schoolwork, and I knew that were never going to plunk down a couple hundred bucks for an NES. Aside from putting it on my Christmas list that year, I don’t think I ever even bothered asking them for one after that.
I had to suffer through the huge the NES craze of the late 1980′s, while seemingly everyone but our family had one at home. I used to hang out at our neighbors’ place all the time, where I soon became familiar with The Legend of Zelda and many other fine NES titles. The more I played, the more I wanted one of my own.
Eventually, I got wise and bought one with my own dough. I think I found a used one for cheap somewhere, and finally at long last I was able to indulge in crazy NES fun as much as I wanted. By this point I was pretty darn good at Super Mario Bros, and knew virtually every secret trick there was. I could get to World -1, get unlimited guys, knew where all the warp zones were, and all that. I began to branch out and enjoy other games, and experienced the bliss of the many other great NES titles (particularly Zelda, Super Mario 3, and The Goonies II). Some time later, it was on this very system that Jaimenacho and I played our historic 5-hour long game of Gauntlet.
You’ll be pleased to know that I have long since overcome my NES obsession, and no longer experience any symptoms of withdrawal. I do, however, occasionally bust out with a little emulated NES action on my phone, which allows me to play pretty much any game I want.
By Paco
EARTH STATION I
The Earth Station was a super cool arcade. The stairwell you had to climb up… the space motifs, and does anyone else remember the theater they had in there? I was only lucky enough to visit the Earth Station on a couple of occasions, and I remember there being a movie being played in the back. Odd…
ARMADILLO
Does anyone else remember this place? It might have been the shortest lived arcade in town. I remember hearing about it in the 7th or 8th grade. It was a tiny arcade across from the Liquor Barn in that little strip mall. They had only about 15 games, and was very uninteresting… Somehow I ended up there a couple of times. They had some good games, but it was in a cheesy strip mall, and closed after probably only a few months in business.
VIKING SKATE COUNTRY
Viking Skate had a decent little arcade within their walls. I remember that Mickie landed there for a very brief moment after it’s stay in RT. They also had a black and white Space Invaders which was SUPER cool. But all in all… it was just a small arcade in a funky roller rink.
By Eduardo
As I’m sure many would agree, Redding’s Downtown Mall hosted two of the greatest arcades the city has ever known. The mighty Earth Station I was totally weird and cool; they certainly earned points for originality in regard to the interior of the place. it was all tricked out with funky mirrors, black lights, and odd space-oriented stuff all over the place. I remember they had this big ‘window’ type thing that was rigged to act much in the same way as two mirrors reflecting each other would. The inside of it had these weird circles arranged in a grid, and when you peered into it, it seemed to go on forever. I never figured out how that worked, but it was very TRON.
They also had big wall murals made from blown up Apollo moon shots, which added to the (surprisingly effective) space motif. The fact that you had to climb a long flight of stairs to get up to the place made it kind of cool, as well. It was perched at the top of the mall, right near that Hof Brau place and those funky multi-leveled wooden platforms you could go up onto.
Interestingly enough, the owner was a former elementary school teacher (Mr. Woodruff) who had taught at my school. I think he may have also opened an Earth Station II, over on Hartnell or something – but if it did indeed exist, it was probably as short-lived as the first one.
The Earth Station left our planet after only three or four years. I remember how forlorn the staircase looked after it was gone, with the lights turned off and the rope across the botton to deter people from walking up. Eventually, it was replaced by some real estate agency or something, and by then the magic of the Earth Station was but a distant memory.
Aside from being such a cool place, it was the first place I ever saw and played Galaga — so it’s got a special place in my heart.
Also worth mentioning was the Time Zone, located in the bowels of the mall, down below Leatherby’s where the ferns are (where supposedly some guy got killed). That place was great, and had many games that nobody had ever seen or heard of. It was always dark and kind of creepy down there, and the warm glow of the games provided an interesting, contrasting comfort.
This was back in the days when the mall actually had functioning businesses in it, and my mom would occasionally allow me to spend an hour or so there while she ran errands.
This place had so many games that it was hard to keep track of which ones they had at any given time. While the Gold Mine often carried the latest greatest ATARI games, the Time Zone seemd to specialize in the really weird ones (ATARI and otherwise), both new and old, that had never been seen before in our area. It was there that my eyes first saw the creepy Red Baron, TRON, the groundbreaking Baby Pac Man, and Tempest (which became quite common soon thereafter). TRON in particular was the perfect game for the Time Zone, as it was right in line with the “creepy & sinister, yet fun” vibe that place had.
Unfortunately, the Time Zone unexpectedly closed up shop after a few short years, bringing to an end the era of arcade fun in downtown Redding.
There was also a Time Zone in Old Sacramento (which I think later became Aladdin’s Castle before its demise), which was very similar to the one in Redding. However, the Redding one was cooler.
So, let’s show some respect… Pour a little of your 40 on the curb for the Earth Station and the Time Zone.
By Paco
Redding’s first arcade that I remember was the Gold Mine. It was a great arcade, perfect in the sense of what an arcade should be… dark and full of the newest greatest games. They didn’t have any silly token system, which I thought was nice… games were made for QUARTERS!!!
Anyhow… the Gold Mine was made to look like a mine, with it’s rocky facade, and dark interior.
Being a kid in Redding that lived far from the Mt. Shasta mall where the mine was, my visits there were not frequent. And when my parents did take me to the mall, it was sometimes hard to break away and go play a few games… they were usually cool with it though… and would hand me a buck, and off I went, while they got to do some shopping without me nagging them anymore.
The one thing that I remember most about the Gold Mine was when they got Dragon’s Lair. People our age will never forget when that game came out. It was SO groundbreaking… and I was actually kind of intimidated by the game. Plus that game was SO popular the line of quarters on top of it was daunting… I usually just watched. It was the coolest game to just watch people play. (Especially people that knew how to play it) Every now and then I got a chance to play, and I actually turned out to be OK at it.
The Gold Mine was also the only place where I ever saw Thayer’s Quest.
It was the first, and maybe only game I have ever seen that had a keyboard. The funny thing about it was it was more daunting than Dragon’s Lair. How the heck could anyone know how to play it? You couldn’t just put a quarter in and quickly learn how to play… it had a freaking keyboard! I remember watching one guy play it who “sorta” knew how to play… but even he got frustrated after making it past a few scenes. Obviously, even though the game looked and I am sure was super cool… it was rarely played, and the Gold Mine quickly replaced it.
The Gold Mine had a great run… I think they stayed open for about 20 years. And it wasn’t until just a few years ago that they shut down the mine… and soon after, a bar replaced it. Pretty sad… actually, the gold mine wasn’t quite the same in it later years… it was full of driving and fighting games that were stale, and actually annoying. So it’s passing wasn’t quite so bad, it had it’s day in the sun… but it was time for the Gold Mine shut it’s doors.
