I don't remember what games were there besides the one that I played which was Battle Zone, the vector graphics tank driving game. That much is burned into my brain pan. As I recall it was the one with the little periscope deal that you look through and the two joysticks to steer your tank not the other version which is just standard video game cabinet style. I imagine that was what drew me to the game, the little viewer hole.

The point of Battlezone was pretty simple. Basically you drove your tank around and tried to shoot other tanks. The more tanks you blast the more points you get. 

When you saddled up to the viewer you got a big eyeful of green on black graphics and little tanks drawn out of diagonal lines. It looks totally janky now but at the time I thought that it was totally high-tech. Which I guess it was. 

As a matter of fact the game was so high tech that what happened was, and I am still mortified by this today, is that I popped in my quarter and started playing and got so freaked out by what I was seeing that I just stopped, grabbed a complete stranger-teenager type and told him that I was scared and that he can play my game for me. He was all like "for reals?" while looking at me like I was the biggest dork in the universe, which I totally felt like. What can I say in my defense? I mean, I guess I was like seven or eight at the time which is pretty young to look at green and red vector graphics but that's not really a quality excuse. 

I remember being so mortified by my actions that I pretty much just left the arcade area with my head in my hands like a total mark. I rejoined my family at the table and played no more video games that day while my cousins Tom and Mario had a grand old time catching Pac-Man fever or something while splitting up the five dollars in quarters I was given by my uncle Verne so that I'd stay out of his hair while he and my Mom and Dad talked about some kook they saw on Real People the night before.

I still feel like that little wiener who was scared of Battlezone every time I think about that incident. 

I should travel back in time and slap myself into manning up and playing Battlezone like Frank Poncherello would have or at least to get me to play for a minute and get my quarter's worth of action out of it.

What would be cool would be to travel back in time and take the place of the kid who I asked to take my turn and instead of pretty much pushing me to the curb and diving for the periscope I could give my younger self some awesome advice about not giving into our fears and other stuff of that sort. At the very least I could yell at myself to get back up on the milk crate ( I was short) and play your game before I give you a smack up side the grape. 

I have played the game a few times since. I guess the need to play has been scarred into my brain. It's like I feel the need to face my fears every time I encounter a Battlezone machine , not that it happens very often. It was a pretty popular game for the time so you can still find the machine around from time to time.

 It wasn't like Pac-Man or anything in that you still bump into the game on a somewhat regular basis but if you hit up an arcade with a "retro gaming" corner you stand a pretty decent chance of finding Battlezone. If you do I recommend that you give it a shot and in the immortal words of Stockton's own MMA great Nick Diaz "Don't be scared Homie".