If you're an arcade afficionado, a real retro ragabash, today's your day to begin a pilgramage to Rochster, N.Y. The National Museum of Play's Boardwalk Arcade is swinging its doors open today to present a number of historic arcade games. Not pithy ports you can download while you sit your butt on the couch, I mean authentic, working, stand-up cabinets that swallowed up kids' pocket change hot from their sweaty little hands for years and years.
This is definitely the kind of museum I can get behind, particularly if they're making the games free to play. Nowadays, that term brings forth terrible visions of buying in-game content as a means for the game to make any sort of real money, but once upon a time, it was a lovely thing that meant you could play games without being encumbered by a pocket full of coinage.
The Boardwalk Arcade will feature some of the stand outs of the old-school, like Donkey Kong, STUN, Cruis'n USA, and others. They even managed to grab a hold of a modern day homage to the retro era, a Fix it Felix Jr. cabinet made by Disney as a neat bit of marketing for their "Wreck-it Ralph" movie. A dozen or so old pinball machines complete the experience.
It's a summer long affair that doesn't end until Sept. 8.
Once you get tired of button mashing a couple of relics, make sure you explore the rest of the museum as well. You'll find an exhibition called "Atari by Design: From Concept to Creation," a relatively new display that shows the development process behind some of Atari's earlier hits, like Gauntlet and the original Street Fighter.
Lastly, there's also a permanent exhibit on display in the museum called eGameRevolution, 5,000 square feet on the history of video games, with over 4 dozen more old arcade games and pinball machines.
While it might be lost on most of the youth, it's still a neat bit of history that shows the devlopment of an industry that now brings in tens of billions of dollars annually.
Additional details can be found at the museum's website here.