As if all the 80s remakes of our favorite kiddie films wasn’t enough to make you all nostalgic, then Hand Baked Arcade provide everything for your ultimate retro treat.
HBA put on these nights where you rock up with loose and limbered thumbs so that you can really trip down memory lane with a glut of old school consoles and games. Star of Kings, a nifty and lovely pub in Kings Cross, was host to a large collection of them – from Game Boys to Ataris and once you paid your measly £4 cover charge, all were free to play on to your heart’s content.
Thank hell we got there early, by the time we’d done the rounds, the place was hopping with cute geek couples and boys in Mario Kart Time Trial t-shirts hogging all the action. Tom, the curator and avid collector, of all games was kept busy changing game consoles (as we begged for a Galaxian cartridge to no avail) as we wrestled with graphics so basic it made your eyes water.
Some of the games – like the Binatone Sports System – were so utterly laughable in their simplicity that it was hard to believe these things held people’s attention for more than five seconds. Some, like Space Invaders on the Atari system, were ahead of the, erm, game despite joysticks that were stiffer and less user friendly than a glued up gearbox. Others, like some dreadful motorbike challenge (random pixels, no challenge and two moves – go and wheelie) had to be seen to be believed.
Playing games like Street Fighter and Bomberman and even Pong (the controls were mind-bogglingly simplistic) were true joys. Others, such as the strange sports challenges and Pokemon on the Gameboys were interminably dull. Fun was to be had from the projector screens hosting Mario Kart and James Bond where found yourself against three strangers and everyone hooting and booing your progress. As people got steadily sloshed, the name of the night became evident with hand/eye co-ordination became more problematic and it really was a free for all, particularly on the shooting games where you ran for the ammo and shot the hell out of walls, just for the sake of it.
If you got cross-eyed, as we did, then the simple thing to do was head downstairs to the entirely separate night – a punk rock pop club – and dance off those lost-again frustrations. Mission accomplished.
Hand Baked:
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words by Taylor Glasby
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