There was a time before the personal computers were as common as today when one had to go out to an arcade to play video games. In the late 80's and early 90's, arcades were extremely popular in my country, Turkey, and I imagine it was more or less the same for most of the other places in the world. As a child of this era, I got my fair share of this arcade scene. There was an arcade about 3 minutes walking distance to our home at the time, and there were at least 5 others if I was willing to walk an additional 10 minutes. There were parts of the city where there were like 5 arcades on a single street.
I don't exactly remember when was the first time I have ever been in an arcade, but I am pretty sure that I was hooked on the very first minute I was in one. You could drop me off in an arcade and come back hours and hours later only to find that I am still unwilling to go back home, my parents used to say that I would sleep in an arcade if they allowed me to. I would have spent all my money in half an hour, and after that I would spend my time watching other people play. Occasionally, I would find some money (or rather, tokens) in the coin return slot or a machine with an extra credit on it. I was the happiest person in the world when that happened.
Like all good things, this happy period ended after some time. I guess it was because people started playing games on their home computers instead. For a brief period of time, arcades and personal computers coexisted, because although you could play games on your personal computer, arcade games were much superior in sound and video quality, so people kept going to the arcades for a while longer. However, as personal computers became what they are today, people stopped going to the arcades and one by one all of them went out of business. Some of these turned into internet cafes where people could play multi-player games, others have disappeared completely.
This blog aims to preserve the memory of this period and share it with those who never had a chance to experience it. I will review the games I used to play in these arcades, post videos of these games and maybe throw in a memory or two. At the moment, I am making playthrough videos of some of my favorite games and uploading them on YouTube, feel free to check out my page.