3rd Party Fantasy

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#44 Its not the defeat, it is the blood loss

Evil Emperor Nick

on March 1, 2006

Recently I was looking through my desk drawer and I came across my old dance sound track which I had won playing video games a few years back when I was swept up in a lifestyle of arcades and small yellow tickets. It brought back good memories of dance games and Dave and Busters; good times, good times.

Dave and Busters in an international restaurant/bar/arcade establishment. Some have called it the adult version of Chuckie Cheeze, and were appropriately beaten afterwards. I love dance games, not DDR so much but PUMP it up: The international Dance Stage, I was particularly partial to half English half Japanese non-sensible songs by Banya, one of which included lyrics like “Are you Party now?”. I and a group of friends used to play it very frequently at Dave & Busters, which by chance only had Pump and bizarrely not the more popular DDR.

Now of course dance games don’t involve so much ‘dancing’ as frantic systematic stomping, however since all other games require only enough hand eye coordination to insert 50 dollars in quarters in order to beat them this appears quite impressive. As time went on we picked up trick moves as well such as hitting panels with knees, dancing backwards to a song we memorized, or leaping of the machine and back in perfect time to hit the next beat. These moves were practiced only at 2-3 AM when no one was around as initially these resulted in limping away from the machine.

My favorite part however was that this dance machine was located ten feet away from the bar. Which meant that every single drunk person in the place come over to try their hand until the feel off the machine. Often times two very drunk individuals would try and each man two of the machine for squares usually resulting in something closer to soft porn then dancing. By comparison a hand slap down on the pad made us gods.

Then one fateful day when security was slacking during the summer a group of 13 years olds slipping in with their parents whom bankrolled them to dominate the machine for the whole night. Alas a few weekends of practice proved no match for lifeless EQ geeks in a sugar high running among that night. Feats were performed doing double pads on insane that we casual dancers could not hope to match. We forever swore off the Dance Machines but continued to frequent Dave and Busters.

Then the second blow came. My mother had an office party at Dave and Busters, my father would not go so I went in his place. During the evening I tried to lure her into a game of Battle Tech Experience. Battle tech is a giant mecha simulator which is played on a local server from actually replica cockpits complete with advanced (For 97 when it was made) read outs and controls. Together my mother an I formed a fairly impressive team. Using my inexperienced mother as bait I waited till experienced player killers singled her out as the easiest kill and then engaged and destroyed them. My mother deftly managed to get her mecha a circle which proved a surprising sound defense. Meanwhile approached players busy taking pot shots at her and finished them instantly with my trademark alpha strike to the head instantly shutting down the opposition. For nine of ten minutes in the simulation we reigned supreme. Waves of frustrated pilots game time and again gunning for us only to enter into in-fighting or to be destroyed by my elite skills.

Then without warning a volley of short range missiles slammed into my side. As my readouts went to static a whirled my mecha around in time to take a volley of heavy lasers and particle cannons in my still armored left flank. Red lights clicked on across my readouts, smoke hissed from my mecha, monitors went black and controls refused to respond. Through smoke I finally got a look at my attacker as it came around for the finishing blow. The macha was black and hidious, covered with skulls and walking tribute to digital death. Sure enough it was my mother, still locked into a circle but having successfully pivoted her torso to fire. She unloads her mecha’s full payload into me and my mecha is no more. As I sit in the dark of the cocpit I hear snickers of glee and cries of jubilation. I leaf that night a wiser and more bitter man then I had come, secure in the knowledge that no once can be trusted.

You know looking back those weren’t such good memories at all. Hmmm, well anyway beware techno zombie 13 year olds everyone for they have skills in place of lives, I’m off to give my mom a big hug……………yes a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig hug……..