Night at a video arcade.

I went to a video arcade today as part of a 13-year-old’s birthday party. And, yeah. You think you already know what I’m going to say.

You probably do, but perhaps you have not been in one for a while. Perhaps you are considering whether this might be a good idea for your child’s upcoming birthday. If so, please hear me. Do not do this.

To enter a modern day video arcade and remain standing upright requires nothing short of a total dismantling of the conscience, and violent suppression of the will. Notions of good and evil must be redefined. Not quite reversed, although that is tempting to say, but intentionally corrupted, imbued with a sense that evil is identified by subtleties of physiognomy and disproportion. For example, in some anime’ stylized games like Time Crisis III, the villain is virtually indistinguishable from the hero except by the angle of the jutting spikes hair, and the fact that villains always seem to be partly mechanized. Just look at these two here. They could be twins.

And what a stupid name for a game. Seriously, my entire life is a time crisis. Why is this name so intriguing ?

Indeed, don’t the kids who play these games live something of a time crisis? As in, do they have too much time on their hands that they’re here playing a silly game?  No homework? No job? Given up trying to find themselves? Spent all their angst? Their crisis is TOO MUCH time, the result of strict child labor laws and lax school standards, and the boomer prosperity, all combining to produce a bored generation with a lot of money.

As I entered the video arcade, I thought I would find a nice car racing game to pass the time. Who knew there was an INSANE TAXI game, or TOKYO GANGSTER RACE game? I did find a couple of nice racing venues with automatic shifting, but what, I asked, is the thrill of this? It is not that different from driving on 290 toward Dripping Springs, or 71 to Bee Caves, which are far more perilous anyway.

Beyond the numerous zombie and military shooting games, off in a corner by itself, alone as if banished, a recluse, a relic, a laughingstock, there stood an old-fashioned game, Galaga, aloof under a lamp post, melancholy as Sam Spade. I played this game when I was young – a gussied-up version of Space Invaders. I could never read in such a place, so I shot down pixelated bug-aliens as I had not done in some decades.

After all the free pizza I could eat, and a Sam’s birthday sugar cookie, and a few long stretches of Galaga, I was ready to go home. All the children and really, the adults too, were shooting zombies with plastic guns, riding simulated motorcycles, simulated snow skis, playing simulated guitars and drums, and simulating face-ripping street fights.

No one asked what this says about our society, or whether there would be a tomorrow. Nobody threw up, or curled up fetal on the ground in horror. Nobody ran through the room shouting “Ichabod! The glory is departed!” But if we were still sane, we would.