Back in the early/mid eighties, during my pre-teens, I went on this cheesy family vacation to Upstate New York. Me and my parents went to this tourist trap of a town called Lake George. It was bad enough that I was the only person into 80's New Wave in my junior school, and had to indure cat calls from the Queens neighborhood locals for dressing like Boy George. However, I took refuge in those 80's arcade games. Centipede, Space Invaders, Pac-man, Ms. Pac-man, etc. I also excelled in skellball. Since I had nothing better to do, I put my efforts into winning skeeball prizes. I ended up taking home a dorky prize which was a huge glass advertising Lake George.
Fast forward to the year 2000. Somehow I found myself in Lake George twice that year. Once on the way to Montreal, Canada. The other time I was returning from Ozzfest 2000. That particular Ozzfest that I attended took place in Sagatoga Springs, Upstate N.Y. Me and a friend made a pit stop in Lake George. I was hoping that somewhere in that sleepy town, there was a place that served iced coffee. (One of my quirks is that I'm addicted to iced coffee.) This time around, although Lake George was still pretty cheesy, it was also a nice quiet place with pleasant nature views. The townsfolk there seem mellow. Tacky tee shirt stores still line up the main street; and much to my amazement, so were the arcades that relived me of my teen boredom! Of course, I just HAD to stop in, and the video madness began all over again! My friend had to pratically drag me out! I took the opportunity to take some snaps of these machines of yesteryear, and here the photos for your enjoyment.BACK TO THE PRESENT...
We are now in the age of the Sony PlayStation II/X-Box/Nintendo GameBoy or whatever. In recent years there has been a slight resurence for vintage video games. There's nostalgia for either the old arcades forementioned or now-primative home systems like Atari, Activision, and ColecoVision. This doesn't impress me too much. No matter what kind of new games that are out on the market, they will never compare to those wonderful two dimensional games I knew as a kid.
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