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Rain brings on the aliens

GalagaI had it all worked out — 15 more minutes mucking about, then we’d go outside. I’d bring my laundry in off the line — it would be about dry — the kids could jump on the trampoline, or get their bikes out, whatever.

15 minutes later I glanced outside. It was pouring with rain. It did so for the rest of the day. No trampoline, no bikes, and my laundry was drenched.

Damn.

So instead of enjoying the non-sunshine, we went to Bunnings to get some storage boxes. On the way we stopped at the game/arcade place on Huntingdale Road and fed a couple of dollars into a retro video game for some geek nostalgia. It offers Frogger, Ms Pacman or Galaga.

We each had a go, and by the time it was my turn, I was blasting away aliens in Galaga at a rate of knots, my button finger on rapid-fire. The kids were cheering as I cleared through them, got the double ship on level 2, shot everything on the first challenge stage. The pace picked up and it got pretty tricky, I lost the double ship, but I eventually got as high as level 10 before bowing out. It was high-fives all round — a real WarGames moment.

By Daniel Bowen

Transport blogger / campaigner and spokesperson for the Public Transport Users Association / professional geek.
Bunurong land, Melbourne, Australia.
Opinions on this blog are all mine.

5 replies on “Rain brings on the aliens”

Ahhh galaga.. Many a lost hour spent in my youth playing this classic and others such as elevator action.

All these games by the way can be played now on modern computers via something called rom emulators or something similar. Forget the exact details but I remember a fun day last year on a friends computer when I had the choice of 1000+ games of yesteryear on his PC, gameplay as original and graphics, sounds etc.. have to digup the details.

Yes, MAME is well worth the effort.

Ahem, of course I only play games that I have also bought (via Midway Arcade Treasures for XBox etc), naturally. Yes. Of course.

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