The games I played: The most fun 20c could buy

Apart from the Pong things, there really weren't any home consoles when I was a kid, and to get your video game fix, you had to go down to the spacies parlour. Every town had at least one, full of big boxy machines with all sorts of intoxicating noises and lights 

I'm not sure this was a wise move on my parents' part, because these were invariably incredibly seedy places for a kid to hang out. There were drug deals around the side and blow jobs down the back, and I didn't care about any of that and would happily hang there out after dark, or as long as the 20c pieces lasted.

Funds were limited, so this was a serious business, which meant I was never much one for the basic speed of Space Invaders or Galaga, (although the endless skies of the wonderful Time Pilot could keep you going for a while), and I was never into the racing games, because they would be over far too soon, and there was no bang for the buck.

But the platform games like Rastan or Double Dragon or the deeply underrated Black Dragon, they could be stretched out and that that 20c further. A few dollars pumped into one machine could make you an expert, and get you through several levels, or even to the end of the whole thing. 

(Although, to be fair, all you really had to do to survive in Double Dragon was that sweet backwards elbow, and you were 90 percent there.)

There's plenty of retro parlours offering up these games these days, but they're always so tidy. Not like back then, when the lights of these insane video game boxes were so enticing, and the beeps were loud enough to drown out the dodgy noises from around the back.