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crossbow
SANTA CLARA, California — Remember that one arcade game? The one you'd always play at the bowling alley whenever you could squeeze your parents for their spare change?
Well, odds are you'll never find it again. It's rare to find those old classics still up and running; the ones that weren't sent to the junk heap with burnt-out CRT monitors or busted joysticks rest in the homes and warehouses of hard-core collectors. But once a year, said collectors haul their games out of storage to show them off at California Extreme, a Silicon Valley exhibition of coin-operated amusements. As I've said before in these pages, it's like the Brigadoon of arcades, here one day and gone the next.
You'll be able to experience California Extreme next July; until then, tide yourself over with this gallery of the craziest, most obscure or just plain awesomest arcade games of the sexy '70s, excellent '80s and gnarly '90s that we found at this year's show.
Above:
Crossbow
Arcade gamemaker Exidy probably didn't need such a literal title on this machine; one look at it and players could have probably figured out pretty quickly that it involves shooting a crossbow even if it hadn't been titled Crossbow. Crudely drawn medieval warriors march across various battlefields, and you're playing the part of the hidden sniper. Take out enemies before they get to your pals. You've really got to lean in and put your face on the crossbow and use the sights if you want to actually hit them. So they actually could have titled this Eye Infection.All photos: James Merithew/Wired.com
See Also:- 5 Things I Learned at California Extreme
