Addicts Reunited! What a great idea that could be, just like Friends Reunited, of course it could never happen, but it does seem a shame that over the years so many good friends and fellow addicts disappear over the horizon just like the Classic Games that they used to play.
Of course time and circumstance change. Arcades come and go, hell people even grow up (some of them anyway). Most Classic Gamers of the original generation are now in their 30's or 40's. But way back in the late 70's and early 80's those same married, fat and bald men of today were 'Kings of The Arcades'.
I include myself in that category, the King of The Arcade bit not the fat and bald part. I made many friends on the Classic Games Circuit and this feature is pure indulgence on my behalf as I regress and remember the many mad people I met on that journey. Let me take you back, back in time to the early 80's.
David Brown I guess was the first mate that I played Video Games with. I had played the arcades in Swanage when I was about 11 years old on a field trip, as mentioned in a previous feature (see Early Gaming Memories Part 1) and also had my first encounter with Space Invaders in a lay-by Station near the Severn Bridge. I was fascinated by it, later of course I found myself addicted to the snubbed Space Invader cabinet in the Clubhouse at the west country campsite we used to go to, playing doubles on it with my mate D. Brown.
The Famous ZX Spectrum
Dave was never a lover of the arcades, he preferred to dabble in home computing. He was the proud owner of a ZX80 one of the very first home computers. He had a crap version of ZX Invaders on it. Another favourite we played against each other was a number shooting game on his Scientific Calculator. David progressed to a Sinclair Spectrum and many nights we played tape loaded games of Atic Atac, Jet-Pac and TransAm. We had no joystick and the sound was poor but back then it was the equivalent of a Playstation or Xbox to the home-brew brigade.
Classic
Spectrum Games
Andrew Conway was a mate of Dave's and became a mate of mine, I believe he is a Policeman now, but back in the 80's he was an arcade addict. Conway was the mate who introduced me to 'The Basement Arcade' and then 'Pick-A-Pet'. He was a whizz on Asteroids and a dab hand at Scramble and not bad at Astro Wars either. We spent many nights after school at the arcades. We cycled around Ilford and Gants Hill in search of Video Games in chippys and newsagents and record shops.
Conway was mates with Heath Creasey at school. Now Creasey gets an honorary mention because without doubt he was and still probably is the best Defender player I have ever seen. During lunch hours we would head off to PopStop which was a video shop in Wanstead and play the machines in a small back room connected to the shop. Creasey held court on the Defender cabinet. He could clock it no problem. There was no point putting a credit in if he was on it because you would never get a game before school started for the afternoon. Sometimes we did bunk off though if he was getting a really high score just to watch him play as he was a master to watch.
Tutankham
& Rally X
PopStop opened another video shop closer to home which enabled gaming after school as well as during lunch-hour. The Gants Hill Popstop had a small room at the back through an archway. The room had been specially enlarged to accommodate as many video games as they could fit in there. The local school here was Valentines High so there were lots of addicts from there which we became friendly with. Panda was the most notable addict. He was bespectacled and a bit geeky, but he could kill you on about every game in the room. Pengo, Tutankham, Donkey Kong Jnr, and RallyX were his fav's and it was a foolish kid who would challenge him on any of these. There was also a kid called Darren who was the hunk at Valentines and all the girls fancied him, but his first love was video games and instead of being out on dates he spent most nights in PopStop pumping credits into Robotron, Defender and Donkey Kong instead.
Chris Hubbard hailed from our school but spent his evenings at Gants Hill's PopStop as well. He had frequented 'Pick A Pet' in the earlier years but I had never really spoken with him before. The great thing about Video Game addicts is that you all speak the same language, and as soon as we spoke about High Scores, lives left and credits we were on the same frequency. He went on many trips with our little group of addicts to Southend to play at the arcades on the seafront as well as up to London to play the big arcades of the West End.
Atari 2600/VHS
On the home-front I was mates with the Reeves brothers Steve and Mark. They were mates of Conway's and lived behind my house so we also became mates in the world of gaming. The Reeves family had a few bob and were first to have the latest Atari's and other home-brew goodies. They had a 2600 and later an Atari 800. Together with my meager Atari 400 many nights were spent playing home console versions of the arcade originals. They also had a contact down in Kent who worked in one of the then biggest Video Game shops in England. He was able to smuggle out the latest games and make private copies onto large floppy disks before they were even in the shops, thus we had one of the largest collections of home Video Games in England.
Classic Gamers Favourites The
Atari 800 & 400s
Owen Jackman a school friend, fellow addict and Boss on Berzerk would join us in the evenings and early hours of the morning playing Atari until we couldn't focus anymore.
People on the outside of this expanding group of addicts could not understand what was going on or why we did what we did. But as any addict will tell you, once you commit to the High Altar of Gaming there is no turning back even when you get into your 30's and 40's. Once you have taken a bite out of the apple there is no cure until death do us part.
I sometimes wonder where all these faces and characters are these days. But I comfort myself in the knowledge that wherever they are in the world I bet there is a game somewhere in their household or on their computer at work. Hey some of them might even hit upon this site if they are surfing for retro gaming on the net, if you are, email us, we would love to know if you want a game of doubles.
