{"id":2156,"date":"2025-05-09T13:51:34","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T04:51:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/?p=2156"},"modified":"2025-06-02T13:20:45","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T04:20:45","slug":"its-the-80s-and-you-have-only-one-quarter-which-game-will-you-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2025\/05\/09\/its-the-80s-and-you-have-only-one-quarter-which-game-will-you-play\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s the ’80s, and you have only one quarter. Which game will you play?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pac-Man is my all-time favorite game. In fact, I’m wearing Pac-Man boxer shorts underwear as I post this. I’m nuts for anything Pac-Man. That said, Star Wars was my #1 go-to game every time, as I mentioned in my post about the old arcade Bag-A-Tel<\/a> as a kid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn’t really play Defenders or Space Invaders in the arcade that much. I’d play them on my Atari at home. I preferred Galaxian over Space Invaders and I found the controls of Defender in the arcade to be too complicated with all those buttons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Tempest… wow. Star Wars and Tempest are the two I’d most want to play today. Playing games on an emulator and my Sega Saturn Virtua Stick<\/a> is a great way to go at home, but the flight yoke of Star Wars and the analog knob of Tempest are two experiences that emulators can’t truly capture. For that matter, Centipede’s trackball is worth mentioning too, although while I liked that game, it didn’t come close. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps my least favorite of all of these games was Donkey Kong. I actually liked Popeye better, and Kangaroo even more so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pac-Man is my all-time favorite game. In fact, I’m wearing Pac-Man boxer shorts underwear as I post this. I’m nuts for anything Pac-Man. That said, Star Wars was my #1 go-to game every time, as I mentioned in my post about the old arcade Bag-A-Tel as a kid. I didn’t really play Defenders or Space … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “It’s the ’80s, and you have only one quarter. Which game will you play?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[160,2],"tags":[223,162,65,12,282],"class_list":["post-2156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nostalgia","category-video-games","tag-1980s","tag-arcades","tag-game-arcades","tag-retrogaming","tag-the-80s"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1429,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2024\/04\/17\/moar-80s-game-arcade-memes\/","url_meta":{"origin":2156,"position":0},"title":"MOAR ’80s game arcade memes","date":"2024-04-17","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "humor"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/smartphones-in-the-80s.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2254,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2025\/06\/04\/taito-game-station-in-lirica-mall-maebashi\/","url_meta":{"origin":2156,"position":1},"title":"Taito Game Station in Lirica Mall, Maebashi","date":"2025-06-04","format":false,"excerpt":"These are pictures I took a few months ago in the Taito Game Station arcade in Lirica Mall. From left to right: the sign in front, a vending machine, and Space Invaders Frenzy.","rel":"","context":"In "video games"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Taito1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":610,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2022\/10\/18\/a-couple-of-clever-80s-game-arcade-memes\/","url_meta":{"origin":2156,"position":2},"title":"A couple of clever ’80s game arcade memes","date":"2022-10-18","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "humor"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/your-childhood.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2408,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2025\/08\/09\/pac-man-battle-royale\/","url_meta":{"origin":2156,"position":3},"title":"Pac-Man Battle Royale","date":"2025-08-09","format":false,"excerpt":"Powered by odysee embed generator This game has been around for a while, but today I played it for the first time. I've seen it before at game centers. This would be more fun playing with other people. I was kicking ass, but the CPU still beat me. Oh well.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "video games"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_1495.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1861,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2024\/11\/28\/pac-man-pocket-game-by-tomy\/","url_meta":{"origin":2156,"position":4},"title":"Pac-Man pocket game by Tomy","date":"2024-11-28","format":false,"excerpt":"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.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Nostalgia"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Pac-Man-Tomy-pocket-game.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2437,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2025\/08\/27\/namco-capsule-factory-pac-man\/","url_meta":{"origin":2156,"position":5},"title":"Namco Capsule Factory (Pac-Man)","date":"2025-08-27","format":false,"excerpt":"I was at the Tilt game arcade in Arizona Mills in Tempe, AZ (formerly Game Works) with friends when I came across this neat Namco gachapon attraction. I didn't give it a try, but it looked neat. Of course, I'm a sucker for anything Pac-Man. Apparently you have to slide\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "video games"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_1678-rotated.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2158,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2156\/revisions\/2158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}