<Sardius> Wait, was that a 20-piece McNugget meal AND a chicken sandwich meal that you just ate?
<Spinner_8> Yeah...?
<Sardius> How in the hell...
<Sardius> Actually, nevermind.

So, with our bellies full and our constitutions rejuvenated, we head out.  Where will our dulled senses of adventure take us now?

Well, that arcade right next to the McDonald's seems like an obvious start.

<Spinner_8> You know what was an awesome game?
<Spinner_8> That...Time Crisis with a badass machine gun...thing!
<Sardius> Crisis Zone?
<Spinner_8> YEAH!

So that's what Spinner sunk most of his time into.  Me, I preferred to stick with a nearby Time Crisis machine, a deluxe model with an absolutely gigantic screen.  It was only a quarter per credit, too, and the difficulty level was set generously low, so I ended up playing it all the way through.

Yeah, you can keep your crappy 2600 games, you freaks.  Cheap'n easy Time Crisis was where ALL the action was at.

The arcade didn't have much else to offer, though, besides the common Midway games you see everywhere and a couple of busted-ass Stern pinball machines, so after my Time Crisis game was over (I got on the high score list, too! Wee!), we left.

*sigh*  Okay, Spinner.  We can gamble now.

And gamble we did.  We took turns watching each other sink our money into several of the hotel's many different slot machines.  And though I did good at first, winning a few bucks on some slot machine or another right away, I of course eventually reinvested it right back into the slots, and then some.  I then moved on to video poker, which I fought long and hard with and never seemed to gain or lose a dime from.  Eventually, the sheer pointlessness of it all becomes apparent, and with around twenty bucks lost, I called it quits.

Spinner, though, decided for whatever reason that his money would be better spent nearly exclusively on the dollar slots.  So while we both made our decisions to quit at around the same time, he had a much bigger loss to show for it than I did.  See, I knew I was going to lose money anyway, so I figured that I'd just lose it on the quarter machines.  And that's just what I did.  I pulled a few levers, lost a little cash, and had a few laughs.  No big deal.  But Spinner?  Well, he still won't tell me exactly how much he lost that day.  And I'm not going to press him about it.

So, with more than an hour of time that we could've spent at the Expo wasted (I have no regrets about getting away from the show when I did, however), we head back, expecting to see that everything is still just as boring as when we left it.

Instead, we see that events of catastrophic horror have apparently unfolded in our absence!

Just what in the holy name of FUCK...

...oh, right, the Dig Dug Drop.

...

FUCK WE MISSED THE DIG DUG DROP!  MOTHERFUCKER!

Okay, see, there was this thing planned for the second day of the show.  A thing where a bunch of Atari 2600 Dig Dug boxes would be dropped from the ceiling.  Some of these boxes, however, would be filled with coupons.  Coupons redeemable for fabulous prizes.

And I fucking missed it!  Dammit dammit DAMMIT!  I would've been all over that shit, too.  I'd be all, "Here, Spinner, hold my glasses," and then I'd dive right into the fray, ready to kick fat nerd ass and dash away with an armful of boxes, in true asshole fashion.  It would've been fun!  But nooooo!  We had to go to McDonald's and gamble...

Well, actually, I suppose it was for the best that we skipped the Drop in favor of food, seeing as how I was near-death and all.  Then again, I could've potentially used my hung-over rage to my advantage in the situation...hmm.

Actually, it probably WAS better that I missed the Drop.  It's not long before I overhear a story about some guy who got sat on by a "large gentleman" in the ensuing melee.  Eeeugh.  That's not a memory I'd like to have taken home with me.  And what if I had been killed?  Crushed by a fat guy's shorts-covered ass.  What a way to go.

So yes, I'm GLAD I missed the Drop.

Anyway.

<TheRedEye> Oh, there you are.
<TheRedEye> Watch my table. I wanna play some Galaga.
<Sardius> O...kay?

And so it was.  I once again assumed the role of TheRedEye for a few minutes while he took a Galaga break.  Hey you!  Lowly show attendee!  Get away from that copy of Q-Boy!  FOR I AM THEREDEYE...'S TEMPORARY REPLACEMENT!

As I discovered later, Red was bored out of his mind during our absence.  He had resorted to handing off control of his booth to random people for extended periods of time, just so he could get in a smoke or a game of Galaga or two.

A short time later, Red reappears.

<TheRedEye> You'll never guess what I just did.
<TheRedEye> I just met and hit on a cute girl.
<TheRedEye> ...while playing Galaga.
<Sardius> ...my GOD, man.
<Sardius> You are THE pimp.

Yes, TheRedEye apparently met a girl while playing Galaga, taught her some tips, and flirted with her.  Of course, my question is: how in the FUCK?  Seriously.  You don't meet chicks while playing video games, especially not ones that are more than 20 years old.  But hey, this is TheRedEye we're talking about here.  Your common sense notions do not apply, when it comes to discussing TheRedEye.

That really shouldn't have rhymed.  I even got the meter right and everything.  Please kill me.

Anyway.  More stuff happens.  I play some Eon Man, and then I move on to more Cliff Hanger.  And check it out - there's another copy of Cliff Hanger playing in the Space Ace cabinet now!  Awesome!  It's even the rare early version that shows a graphic hanging scene every time you die!

...which I ended up seeing a lot, since the Space Ace cabinet only had one action button, and Cliff Hanger is a two-button game.  Oops.  Still, it was neat to play that rare version and see its deleted scene.  Over and over.  But still, I can't think of a better use for an otherwise-worthless Space Ace machine.

Once I'm done playing the early-revisioned Cliff Hanger, I take another look at the Dragon's Lair machine right next to it.  Maybe I'll give it another shot...

However, as I grasp the joystick and press the start button, a guy pops out from behind the machine and starts screaming at me.  I swear I'm not making this up.

* DOOD emerges from behind the Dragon's Lair machine.
<Sardius> ...AAAAH!
<DOOD> SORRY MAN BUT WE'RE GOING TO BE INSTALLING THE PROTOTYPE VERSION NOW
<Sardius> ...AAAAH!
<Sardius> ...oh. Fine, okay fine.
<Sardius> You scared the hell out of me, though!
<DOOD> HAHA SORRY

And so, I leave the machine and never, ever go near it ever again.  Thanks so much, Dyer, for making a game that I'll forever associate with a traumatizing experience that still haunts me to this day.  One that doesn't involve its actual gameplay, that is.

So, still trembling, I walk away from the Dragon's Lair machine.  But then I notice something to my left.  A doorway.  Hmm, can I go in here...?

Oh.

Ooooooh.

Will you look at...wow!

<Guard> There is NO TOUCHING here, sir.
<Sardius> ...uh, okay.

That's right, I had managed to stumble upon the Expo's museum exhibit.  Lots of neat video game...stuff! lined the walls, on a series of tables that stretched several yards toward the back of the room.  Too bad there's only one closely-guarded exit to the place, or else I could've made off with some pretty sweet hardware.

After briefly examining the museum's wares, I remember that I don't give a shit about any of the Atari crap they have on display.  So I head over to the tiny NES section for closer examination.

And pictures.

See?  Told ya there was neat stuff there.  In the back, you can see boxes for the Family BASIC accessory, the original Famicom, and the Famicom Disk System.  In the front on the left, we see a box for the rare, recalled Bandai Family Fun Fitness mat (I assume it was recalled, because Nintendo brought out their Power Pad soon after and forced Bandai to remove all references to the Family Fun Fitness mat from the labels of their games, and made them stop selling one of their games entirely), and that big red thing on the right is the Sharp Twin Famicom, which has a Disk System built-in.

That thing in the middle is the real showpiece, though.  What is it?  Why, it's the fabled Nintendo Hands Free Controller, of course.  I don't feel like explaining it, so I'll just let a scan do the talking:

Yes, even though it looks like something out of the spaceage, it's actually nothing more than a torture device used to add yet another element of pain to the already-difficult lives of handicapped children.  Nintendo was quite evil way back when, you see.

One thing worth noting is that nearly every NES item on display at the Expo museum was accompanied by a descriptive card that read "courtesy of Jason Wilson."  Jason Wilson, aka DreamTR.  While I can imagine that all of these items were obtained using certain devious, prickish means, I get a particularly clear mental image of the circumstances surrounding his obtaining of this particular item.  I can just see him sneakily approaching a red-faced, armless child in the hospital, who is madly sucking and blowing away on the controller, trying desperately to get Mario past World 1-1.  Then, as the child banks her head right and takes a deep breath to prepare Mario for a running jump, DreamTR bursts into the room and yanks the Hands Free contraption away, causing the child to tumble out of bed, screaming.  As he makes for the door, DreamTR takes pause to look back and admire the horrific scene, cradling his new acquisition with one hand and twiddling his fake Snidely Whiplash moustache with the other.

...uh, so anyway.

Scooching to the right, we can see the box for the Famicom version of our Robotic Operating Buddy in the back, and the box for the Japanese Stack Up right next to it.  In the middle, you can see boxed versions of all three Panesian games - Hot Slots, Peek-A-Boo Poker, and Bubble Bath Babes.  In front of those are a few rare NES carts.  The leftmost one is the cart that's used with the ultra-rare Racermate exercise bike accessory.  The middle one is Stadium Events, the previously-mentioned game that Bandai was forced to recall after Nintendo released the identical World Class Track Meet.  Only a few thousand are estimated to exist today.  Next to that is...some prototype, I guess.  I can't remember which.  Right next to that, though, is a Famicom prototype of...Guevara?  I think?  And over there on the lower far right corner of the table is...something!  Actually, if I remember correctly, it's an unreleased camera accessory for the Famicom.

...and that's it.

Seriously.  That's all the NES stuff that was there.  There were hundreds more items on display in the room, but they were all older crap that nobody cares about.

Actually, I take that back somewhat - the Vectrex is indeed a badass piece of hardware.  After seeing it at the show (but not playing with it - the security guard frightened me into submission), I decided that I needed to have one.  I mean, it's a freaking vector-graphics home console, with screen included.  How kickass can you get?  Not much more, I'd think.  So yeah, gotta get me one of them things sometime.

So for a few minutes more, I look around the museum and its uninteresting exhibits.  I do get the privilege of being near a group of idiots who decide to manhandle a bunch of Atari boxes while chattering away to each other.  They are, of course, completely surprised and more than a little scared when the guard comes up behind them and yells "NO TOUCHING!"

That RULED.

What didn't rule quite so much was what happened when I was trying to line up shots of the NES stuff.  The guard, who was like ten feet away from me while I was looking through the lens, suddenly decides to start doing power squats.  I shit you not.  For whatever reason, he just starts squatting, right there and then.  So of course, I nervously get the pictures snapped as quickly as I can and get the hell out of there.

Whew.  Okay.  That was scary.

Hmm...looks like I've only got one picture left in my last camera here...what should I take a picture of?

Aha, perfect.

I even managed to get Spinner in on it, too.  And the best part was that he didn't notice me taking it.  Mwahaha.

The dude in the foreground goes by the name of Raccoon Lad, a guy who I never got the chance to speak to, but whose recent description of the Classic Gaming Expo on the Digital Press messageboards is much more succinct and entertaining than this entire rambling account:

"It was great! They had EVERY arcade game ever made, and ALL the classic programmers were there. The best part was when David Crane exploded, sending thousands of unreleased prototypes flying all over the place."

Indeed, man.  That was pretty awesome.  Anyway, I know that posting this picture is going to get Spinner pissed at me, but...well...

<TheRedEye> Dude.
<TheRedEye> You don't fuck with the picture of me playing Dancing Blocks with Raccoon Lad watching.
<TheRedEye> Crop him out.

Exactly.  That picture's too radical to leave out.  Even if Dancing Blocks is involved.

Oh, God, Dancing Blocks.

All right, so Dancing Blocks is yet another Sachen game.  It's more than that, though.  It's also really fucking weird.  Surreal, even.  Illegal narcotics-inspired, definitely.

It also totally blows, but that's not the point.

Now, this is one of those games that's almost impossible to put into words.  I honestly don't know how to begin to describe it.  Let's see.  Okay, so in the game, you control a block.  A cube, to be specific.  A cube with a hole in it.  Out of this hole, you shoot little white bullets.  You are then supposed to use these bullets to kill the various small insects that inhabit each single-screen overhead level.  However, as you move your cube around, it turns and flips, causing the bullet-shooting hole to change position as you move, and thus making the game impossibly difficult.  Assuming it wasn't impossible, though, the theoretical object of the game is to avoid or kill your enemies while collecting all the fruit strewn about each level, in order to progress to the next.

Due to the game's utterly retarded movement scheme, however, you are very seldom in control of where you can shoot, or even if you can shoot at all.  If your cube's hole is facing straight up or down, you can't fire, and you are fucked.  And the only way to get your cube's hole lined up properly to shoot enemies is to flip it around randomly until you're firing in the right direction.

However, as you're flipping your cube around like an idiot, the screen's insects swarm on you, killing you instantly with a single touch.

Sound like fun?  No, of course it's not.  But for whatever reason, Red played this game for an extended period of time at the show.  Then he made me play it.

What did I think of the game?  Well, after about five minutes and countless attempts to beat level 8...

<Sardius> Okay, FUCK THIS GAME.
<Sardius> Red, you've punished me enough with this pile of shit, and you're going to pay.
<Sardius> I'm putting on Little Red Hood.
<TheRedEye> Oh, Jesus no.
<TheRedEye> Well fine, go ahead. You're not going to get me to play it, though.

Fair enough.  I figure that the mere act of exposing him to Little Red Hood should be revenge enough, considering.  It was all Red could do to sit there squirming in his chair in front of his booth, as I took control of Little Red Hood and started kicking trees like it was going out of style.

Amazingly enough, I actually managed to get to the second level.

<TheRedEye> Haha, there's Glitchy.
<Sardius> Huh?
<TheRedEye> Glitchy the Bear. Up there in the corner.
<Sardius> Oh yeah, that fucked-up black sprite thing.
<Sardius> Weren't you going to feature him in your Little Red Hood page or something?
<TheRedEye> Yeah, but I never got around to it.
<TheRedEye> All right, there's a story here.

Red then related Glitchy's wondrous history while I continued to kick trees and escape the clutches of block-headed child molesters.  Apparently, Red and Ian had - at some point, for reasons I can't fathom - designed a game with Glitchy starring as the main character, with the premise being that he's an asshole.  Unfortunately, as hilarious as the story was, I managed to forget most of its particulars almost immediately, because I'm a jerk.  Luckily, though, Red and Ian discussed Glitchy again recently on #fefea.  For your convenience, a (heavily trimmed) transcription:

<Sardius> People need to hear about Glitchy the Bear.
<Sardius> And I do too, because I forgot the story.
[...]
<PopaSmear> like the level where you have to sneak out of a girl's bedroom without waking her, but still break as much stuff as you can "on accident"
<PopaSmear> glitchy the bear is an asshole
<TheRedEye> I forgot about that level
<TheRedEye> I mostly remember the mall one
<Sardius> Ohhhh yeah, that's right.
<Sardius> He's an asshole. That's the premise.
<PopaSmear> or the one where you have to drive to work, and you tailgate people all the time
<PopaSmear> but if they let you pass you have to slow way down
<TheRedEye> Your girlfriend asks you if the dress she tried on makes her look fat
<PopaSmear> and you say "i guess so"
<TheRedEye> as you look at her breasts
<PopaSmear> bonus points for looking down the sale's girls shirt!
<TheRedEye> because the whole point of the mall level is to look down as many shirts as possible
<PopaSmear> yeah
<TheRedEye> there's a bonus game where you do it from the second story
<PopaSmear> the second story is the best for that
<TheRedEye> I don't remember any other levels
<PopaSmear> and as sardius said, glitchy the bear is an asshole, that's why you can't beat the second level
<TheRedEye> driving, girlfriend's house, mall
<PopaSmear> there was one where you went shopping
<PopaSmear> and you were terrible
<Sardius> Glitchy is awesome.
<PopaSmear> like, you had to disorganize everything
<PopaSmear> and you have to be sure to talk on your cellphone about sex in public

And...that's about it.  There were various other small, intricate details that Red and Ian had planned out, such as the fact that every character in the game is human, except for Glitchy, who is just his normal 8-bit glitchy sprite self.  But yeah, you get the idea by now.  This game must be made.

And as frightening as it may seem, it may soon become a reality.

<TheRedEye> If a woman walks by, and you click on her tits in time, you get asshole points.

Beware.

...

Anyway.

We spent much of the next hour or so in a similar fashion.  Playing games.  Doing things.  You know.  We played more Red Hood (at my insistence), more Drac, more Eon Man, some prototype Zelda, a LOT more Cliff Hanger, and some other things.

Oh, didn't I mention the Zelda proto?

Well...yeah, there you go.  I'm sure there's absolutely no interest in something as common and boring as a first-party Nintendo prototype (especially something like, psh, Zelda), so I won't elaborate.  Oh, but hey, I think that's my Pepsi in that picture!

Anyway, yeah, we did stuff.  Once though, after I went back to Red's table another few rounds of Cliff Hanger, I started looking around for other games to give a second shot.  I glance at the row of machines lined up only a few feet away.

Fax, huh?  I've played that in Mame before.  It's a quiz game (notable for the fact that it occasionally slips in really. stupid. jokes disguised as questions, and also for the fact that the programmers apparently hate the Italians), and I remember that I had gotten pretty good scores on it a time or two before.  And you know...I bet I could kick Spinner's ass at it.  That would really show 'im.  Nobody gets away with taking advantage of my impaired motor skills and challenging me to games when I'm drunk.  Heh heh...this'll be good.  Poor bastard'll never know what hit him.

<Sardius> Spinner.
<Spinner_8> ...mm?
<Sardius> Quiz game.
<Sardius> Now.
<Spinner_8> Kay.

Yes, there was quite the major ass-whipping in store...

Too bad I was on the receiving end.

See, I hadn't taken into account the possibility that Spinner was freakishly good at trivia.  I swear, I never even had a chance.  Spinner was buzzing in with the correct answers even before I finished reading some of the questions.  I could only shake my head in shame as he smoked me at every prompt, and I watched helplessly as he rose through the game's ranks.  It started off with him being dubbed "Clever," early on, then he quickly moved up to the level of "Brain Child," and then finally at the game's end, he had achieved the honor of being called "Smart."

I didn't even make the high score list.  Spinner, though?  Number fucking one.  Yes, really.  The name he entered (ACK) remained atop the list for the rest of the day.

Fucker.

So, humiliated once again, I return to Red's table in defeat.  Fortunately, though, Red quickly cheers me up with the suggestion that one of the cartoon tapes being sold at the next booth may contain the fabled Popeye cartoon, "You're a Sap, Mr. Jap," a personal favorite of mine.  So, cartoon guy, you got that thing on any of these tapes?

Sweeeeet.  I was sold immediately.  So what if I don't own a VCR?  This is too good an opportunity to pass up.

Oh, was I glad to finally see this thing again.  Fun stuff.  Offensive and racist as hell, sure, but hilarious all the same.
 
 

So we did more stuff.  I bought more things.  A grand old time was had by all.

However, as fun as everything was, all good things - as they say - must come to an end.

...

Late that afternoon, Spinner and I unite and approach Red's table for one last time...

->On to Part 17
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