Image © Disney
Last week I went to Barcade and played some old-school arcade games. I was pretty impressed with how well they were taken care of over the decades. I burned through a pocketful of tokens playing Joust, Daytona Championship USA, and Golden Axe, Revenge of the Death Adder. My proudest moments were making the scoreboard for Fix-It Felix Jr.
This retro-style console had me fooled; it came out in 2012.
Fix-It Felix Jr. was created for the Disney movie, Wreck-It Ralph. For the release of the film, Disney took what looks to be old Donkey Kong or Popeye arcade cabinets and created a very authentic feeling 1980’s arcade game. The controls and difficulty don’t exactly feel like something you’d find in a 1980’s arcade game – it’s a little more fluid and polished and has a much more player-friendly learning curve. This game isn’t about sucking down fistfuls of quarters.
Surprisingly, getting my initials on the scoreboard were pretty easy; I hit it on my second try. I placed a few more times over the evening, finding it more entertaining as I filled my tank with Brooklyn Mules.
My guess is that the game resets every night and the scoreboard is erase. That would hopefully explain why I’m the only person on it. I know I’m great, but hitting this leaderboard wasn’t really difficult.
I felt equally as accomplished when I beat the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game with Donatello. A Marlon Rando joined me and played as Leo for a bit, but he tapped out after his 8th quarter and I had to finish off the Technodrome myself.
