Video Killed the Arcade

I can remember visiting the arcade when I was a kid. Or at least my version of an arcade. Where I lived, going to the arcade had many different connotations. It meant that every time I would go shopping with my Mom, I would beg her to go to Wal-Mart. Because her shopping at Wal-mart meant me playing Primal Rage, Street Fighter II, Virtual Fighter or that light gun game with Aerosmith at the local Wal-Mart.

Or it would mean me always, ALWAYS, begging to go to Pizza Hut. And it wasn't because they had good pizza. They had Misses Pac-Man, the kind where you lean over the top and play. The kind with the greasy joy-stick and the booth cushion for a chair. Growing up when I did meant nothing was cooler than pizza, so said the four wise ninjas - Leo, Ralph, Mike and Don. Whether the pizza was good didn't matter, it was just luck - or I like to think, fate - that Pizza Hut made the best damn pizza I had ever had.

Going to the arcade was every trip to ice skate, every roller rink visit. Putt putt? All I took was quarters. Skate? Why would you skate when you could play Time Crisis or Metal Slug (oh Hometown Pizza!!) or, I'll never forget, the Marvel VS. Capcom at Iceland - the only one I ever played.

And then they built an arcade in the mall, which had all the games, but by that time, I was getting older, I had a Playstation, games cost 75 cents for one credit, Crusin USA was EVERYWHERE, along with those big loud Dance Dance pads and generic crap that took up the room the Virtua Tennis's, pinball machines and Galaga's used to occupy. I couldn't play Street Fighter anymore, it was all Tekken and...Tekken.


But I digress...every trip to the movies was also a trip to the arcade. I remember when they got House of the Dead and I spent hours playing that game. I would get my allowance in quarters, cut yards for quarters, recycle aluminum cans for quarters. When I could play Time Crisis, House of the Dead AND Virtua Tennis all in the same place, I was in arcade heaven.

So playing House of the Dead 2 and 3 on the Wii was a bit of a nostalgia trip. There was no slot to put the quarters and no germ covered plastic red and blue guns, but shooting zombies in my living room with my Wii zapper was a lot of fun. I'm going to get the Handgun made by Nyko for the Wii for that authentic feel, but the zapper is still fun.

I just hope they put out Time Crisis 1, 2 and 3 for the Wii. Imagine, all three on one disc. I would pay $50 for that easy. The Wii could be a revival for the hardcore gamer, making light gun games and arcade titles available that may be hard to come by or nearly forgotten. I'm excited, I want to see more Sega games, more 3D0 and all that other stuff that was great but so many people have forgotten.

There Better Be Blood

I went and saw There Will Be Blood a few weeks after it opened in movie theaters. Wow, I was impressed. Not only with the story and the acting but with the visuals and the colors. For the first time in a long time, I found myself mesmerized by the look of a modern film.

The only films that have really drawn me into their look are old foreign movies, Japanese especially, and most old noir and American films. There's something special about black and white.

But There will be Blood was astounding. During the first thirty minutes, I found myself wondering how the film would transfer into HD and how it would look on my new 40" Sony XBR4. I couldn't wait to get the movie on disc and watch it again in my own home.

I enjoyed the rest of the movie and was truly marveled by some of the visuals towards the middle and end of the film. It brought to mind stark and revealing scenes from movies like Citizen Kane. I walked out excited and satisfied. I was totally mystified by the world that movie created. It was like seeing a ghost of America's past and the people that built what has become the country we know today.

It all got me thinking and the announcement about the movies HD copy got me thinking. HD and Blu Ray have raised the bar, like it or not. They are better and worthwhile technological advancements worthy of your consumer dollar. Now, because I work at Circuit City (blAh!) and am a total geek, I'm hooked into all this latest technology stuff. Plus I'm a total movie geek, the kind of guy that will buy three editions of the same movie if there are extras and junk that I think's worth it. If there's improved picture quality or sound, I'll snatch it up.

The recent announcement by Paramount sucks. They announced they would cancel the HD DVD release of There Will Be Blood, opting instead for a standard DVD and an eventual but more than likely delayed Blu Ray. Or even worse, a bare bones, weak Blu Ray release. After hording HD DVDs over the past few months, I've really been convinced that right now, it is the better format. That may change once the new Blu Ray players hit this summer and fall. It's funny because they will be adding features found on HD DVD players, the biggest being an ethernet port and on board decoding.

So I still wish that HD version of There Will Be Blood Was coming out. I'm still scrambling for an HD copy of Pan's Labyrinth (even though I heard the Blu-Ray edition was fantastic), the new Justice League movie, I Am Legend and that Assassination of Jesse James movie. I hope the Blu-Ray copy will up to par with what would have certainly been an outstanding HD DVD release. It's almost like Toshiba had their stuff straight with movies more so than Blu-Ray. I don't know, they both came out too early, they needed to get more of their stuff straight. It's just a bummer that one of them will be gone forever because of it.