I’ve had this since I was a child in the early ’80s. The steel balls inside once shown with luster, but have dulled over 40 years. The plastic has gotten scratched up considerably. This is a pocket pachinko-type game. Roll the dial and it drops the balls onto the pegs. Move Pac-Man across the bottom to catch them as they fall and bring them to the center hole for points. My daughter Ulan used to play with this in the car when she was a tiny girl. Now she’s grown up and has a smartphone. She’s growing so quickly…
When I was a boy, the #1 game arcade I went to in Glendale, AZ was Bag-A-Tel in Valley West Mall. My #1 go-to game was, of course, Atari’s Star Wars sit-down cabinet. Released in 1983, this game came out the same year as Return of the Jedi, yet it involved the first Star Wars movie. I remember playing Atari’s Red Baron, a similar vector graphics shooter cabinet, before Star Was was released. The Return of the Jedi game by Atari came out in ’84, featuring an isometric view that I really could not get the hang of. Then in ’85 the first game was modified to play the Empire Strikes Back vector graphics game, which was not as good.
If Star Wars was occupied, my #2 choice was the Namco’s Pole Position II (released by Atari in the US) sit-down cabinet, which was located next to Star Wars. (This animated gif is actually of the first Pole Position game though.)
I have very fond memories of Bag-A-Tel. I loved that place. Whenever we’d catch a movie at the dollar theater, we’d be sure to stop by that arcade. Valley West Mall was eventually closed down, then later re-opened as Manistee Town Center. Eventually that mall went goodbye as well, and the mall was used for filming the movie Eight-Legged Freaks starring David Arquette and featuring a very young Scarlett Johannsson. The mall was demolished for that movie.
So, here is Pac-Man, Frogger, Centipede, Donkey Kong, Asteroids, Defender, and the last two on the right are kind of small and I can’t recognize them.
For me, when my family would go to Valley West Mall in Glendale, Arizona, there was a game arcade there called Bag-A-Tel. My first go-to game was Atari’s Star Wars sit-down cabinet! If someone was there already, I’d go to Atari/Namco’s Pole Position II sit-down cabinet. I have so many great memories of that arcade. Valley West Mall died, was reborn as Manistee Town Center and died again. It was eventually demolished for the movie “Eight-Legged Freaks.”
The first time I visited Japan was in 1998, and at that time all I saw were sit-down cabinets like the Sega Astro City, Taito Egret, Namco Cyberlead, etc. So, I was unaware that game centers here in Japan once had standing cabinets like America did until talking with my Japanese friend. He said that he would play Atari’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in the ’80s. Atari had some successes in Japan back in the ’80s, especially Gauntlet and Marble Madness. And going back further, Breakout obviously made quite an impression in Japan, giving birth to the “block kuzushi” genre with Arkanoid being the most exemplary title. Dang, if only I could travel back in time, or at least Quantum Leap into my childhood self and relive those memories…
