If you go back more than two decades, back to the end of the 90s, when people's pastime was not as rich as it is now. The older generation would drink, play cards, and play mahjong. Teenagers flocked to video games, which at the time were like a flood of beasts. At that time, there were not many Internet cafes in the city, and if you were fortunate enough to meet a pair of enlightened parents and buy you a little bully learning machine, you must be the envy of the whole class of boys.
Did anyone really buy it to learn back then?
At that time, the game, there was no concept of genuine piracy, only a yellow cassette, which would be marked with xx in 1 or 9999 IN 1 words, even if young and ignorant, we also vaguely felt that the smaller the number of games, the more fun the corresponding games, and those large number of game cassettes were filled with many repetitive or magic works, changing the soup without changing the medicine.
At that time, in front of the railway station square, there was an underground shopping mall, down the dim, moldy and slightly urinary smell of the steps down, presented in front of the eyes is a variety of shops, the merchants here sell most of the digital products, the most of which is the game machine and a variety of game cassettes, the price of the cassette is about seven or eight dollars a plate, the price of the game machine needs one or two hundred. If you want, for two or three bucks, you can play for hours on the machine provided by your boss. Even if the TV is flat and big ass, and even a few are still black and white, it is still difficult to hide our enthusiasm for playing games.
Sega MD
More high-end shops, will provide a black game console and some black game cassettes, at that time was generally referred to as "black card", black card game console picture quality is usually better than the small bully, some have been comparable to the arcade hall at that time. Later, I learned that this black console was Sega's MD and a competitor to the Nintendo SFC console at the time. Since there was no piracy, SFC did not circulate in the mainland market that year.
In addition to this kind of home game console, more popular is the arcade hall opened in the streets and alleys, Xuchang locals are usually called game hall, in the context of the time, Xuchang's security is not very good, so the arcade hall where teenagers gather together often becomes a violent place for fighting, and even more will be robbed by some small. Fortunately, this kind of thing has not happened to me, not that my background is relatively hard, simply because I am poor, I only buy two coins with fifty cents each time, hold it in the palm of my hand for an afternoon, watch others play, until the palm of my hand sweats, and then I reluctantly throw myself into the game I want to play.
Fighting games I never dared to touch, like my level, encounter a master may be a coin also insist on two or three minutes, I prefer to play is a cooperative game, The Electric Essence 2 was the best game I played at the time, once played a life to pass the excellent record, but this feeling of pride did not last long, until not long after I went to another game hall, was pressed on the ground by the computer enemy to rub, only to wake up, not my level is high, is the previous boss to lower the difficulty only.
Journey to the West
In addition to Electro Essence 2, I also like the Journey to the West, a generation is relatively simple, meet the master, often can lie down to win. The second generation will not work, most rookies will die in the third level of the big water monster here, it is difficult for ordinary people to dodge its full-screen hurricane attack. The master will often choose the Eight Commandments of the Pig, which is his own life level, he can suck the blood of the BOSS, meet some more easy-going big guys, and often say to the bloody I say:
"Suck my blood with your blood droplets, it doesn't matter, I can suck it back from the boss in minutes anyway."
I did so, and the Blood Drops are a prop that sucks up the life of your teammates to feed yourself. Who knew that I had just finished sucking, swam past a tuna, and knocked the bloodied big guy to the ground with lightning speed, bursting out a piece of equipment.
I was a little embarrassed and overwhelmed, but the big guy was more generous, waving his hand and laughing:
"Well, it's all little things."
At that time, Xuchang, hidden in the city of arcade hall should have dozens of, the impression is more deep is the people's cinema on the second floor of the "universe game hall", where there is a 300-inch giant screen, watching others play king of fighters on it, that feeling is extremely shocking.
There was also a game hall near the Jiefang Road Interchange, and the sign at that time was called "Sanhe Dumpling Shop", and because it was relatively close to home, I spent most of my time here. There is also one on the bridge over the neutral interchange not far from it, the Carey Game Hall. In addition, there are the "Big Cross Street" and "Little Cross Street" of West Avenue, where the arcade halls appear in clusters.
In addition to the arcade business itself, some game hall owners will also purchase some of the most advanced 3D game consoles at the time, I don't know if it is SS or PS1, and then entertain themselves in the store to play Resident Evil, attracting countless people to stop and watch. I was particularly afraid of the animation that opened the door, and I always felt that I would see a faltering zombie in the house, and I would have to come to you........
Some stores also provide PS1 play, the price is not cheap, vaguely remember to five dollars an hour, to know that the Internet café at that time an hour is only one or two dollars. I once went to an electric appliance store near the Second Middle School to play PS1 during the Spring Festival one year, under the leadership of my cousin, and got the PS1 handle for the first time, and the mood was extremely excited. Because the way of playing changed from coin-operated to one-hour casual play, I finally plucked up the courage to play King of Fighters 97 for the first time, and I could even choose the BOSS snake on the host, but the biggest feeling in my heart at that time was:
The loading speed of this game console is really slow!
If I remember correctly, it should have coincided with the millennium, and the Japanese island nation across the sea was playing Final Fantasy 10 on the PS2, while we could only play PS1, which was an era behind, and the information blockage brought about a gap in the sense of experience, which is undoubtedly sad now.
Of course, this phenomenon did not last long, after entering the twenty-first century, the Internet café wind quickly swept Through Xuchang, and the games we played also transitioned from King of Fighters 97 and the Three Kingdoms War Chronicle to Dark, Legendary, Interstellar and CS, one by one in the arcade halls at the end of the streets and alleys, one after another, falling down, it is difficult to find its trace.
Seeing the arcade hall again, the name has become Anime City, to be precise, it is the Fat Donglai Animation City opened in Times Square.
At this time, the arcade hall has no previous appearance, the shooting machine, the doll-catching machine, the taiko drum master, the dancing machine are distributed in each area, and you can only see a row of lonely machines in an inconspicuous corner, running the Three Kingdoms War Chronicles 2, The Journey to the West 3....... And the people who play are no longer those little who wear strange costumes, dye small yellow hair, and smoke cigarettes, but become handsome men and women, dressed in fashion and dressed appropriately. They often hold a cup of DQ in their hands, and their faces are full of youthful smiles, which makes people sigh that it is good to be young.
The decline of the arcade seems to have been doomed. Since the emergence of Internet cafes and the popularity of personal home computers, more and more people can play a variety of arcade games through simulators, and even without leaving home, they can compete with various masters on some battle platforms. More importantly, arcade games not only the picture is more and more out of step with the times, the gameplay is gradually eliminated, players more want to play to can be saved, can continue to play, the user sticky game, the game has become more and more of an online social means, in contrast, the limitations of arcade function compared to it, dwarfed.
In any case, the arcade is not a short-lived product, he left an indelible impression on the childhood memories of our generation, writing a strong and colorful stroke. It may not have been the healthiest form of entertainment of that era, it kept us addicted, our eyesight deteriorated, and our academic performance slipped. But after many years of recalling that youthful time, it is really difficult for us to connect the arcade hall with the flood beast in the eyes of our parents, after all, it is also the same experience that has brought us countless blood-boiling experiences, thousands of heartbeat moments. It is also this precious memory that allows us in 2021 to see the image of Mario, Hachijin-an, Sun Wukong, Zhuge Liang and other games again, and the mind can instantly break through the shackles of time, travel back to the carefree juvenile era, and enjoy the unique innocence brought to us by that era.