Thank god those days are over. Nowadays, all you need is time, dedication, and, preferably, a 3-D accelerator card. So I do - right to the video arcade. Fortunately, I'm not here for food, souvenirs, or any form of human interaction. I'm here to spend a shitload of quarters.
Game designers are clever.
They took one look at the legions of twitching teenagers feeding their allowances to PacMan and Space Invaders , realized that half of them don't yet have driver's licenses, and flooded the market with auto racing games. If you haven't tried or at least seen Pole Position, Sega Rally, Indy 500, or Crus'n USA , you haven't been in an arcade since the Reagan administration - the first one. For me it's been a few years, so I haven't tried half the games at Pier 39. This doesn't matter. Within about a minute, I've got a death grip on a plastic steering wheel, dilated pupils, and adrenaline coursing through my veins.