Fire up the DeLorean cause we’re going back in time for this month’s update. Younger folks will probably want to skip to the end for something relevant to them, because what I’m going to talk about might as well be as ancient as the walls of Troy.

When I was growing up we had these gathering places called “Arcades”. Basically it’s where you went to play video games with other like minded folks, and get into all sorts of trouble along the way. Sparing you the details of the era, the culture and the reasoning why we all did what we did back then; let’s just say it was a fond memory for all of us growing up during that time. So for those soon to be or already there middle age dinosaurs reading this site, I have a couple of videos down below to stir up the memory banks.

Galloping Ghost Arcade is one of the last remaining holdouts here in the United States that preserves (for the most part) the arcade feeling most of us had growing up. There’s significantly less smoking (as in none), drug dealers and prostitutes then what I was use to in Los Angeles growing up, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an authentic as it gets. Anyone within Chicago or visiting from elsewhere might want to bookmark the location for a visit. The documentary I linked above was filmed not too long ago to the best of my recollection (2019 or 2020) and the place is still going strong even with the world turning upside-down recently.

I’m a sucker for technical minded stuff in general, so I was happy to find a YouTube channel dedicated to repairing old arcade cabinets and pinball machines in detail. Joe’s Classic Video Games is an actual store located in Rock Hill, South Carolina and he constantly tries his best to fix and revive various machines way past their prime. The videos are a bit on the engineering side, so those super nerds out there might find more enjoyment out of them than most; but I would advise still checking out the various content on the channel. There are some casual walk throughs and plays of retro arcade games as well. I will add him to The List so feel free to check out other stuff there as well.

Now let’s dive into the super obscure stuff, I’m linking above the original director’s cut of Privateer 2. This game was one of my first space flight sims and is absolutely amazing to see how many high profile actors were cast in this dinky production! If you played the game and never knew this existed; you should be in for a treat. Especially since it was released last year and is completely amazing it exists in any form at all considering the original film was destroyed. For practically everyone else who never played this game (which I’m assuming is 99%) you can still watch it as a weird sci-fi movie and hopefully piece together the story. The actors themselves had no idea what the plot was either, so it’s funny that it ended up being somewhat coherent after everything was said and done!

Let’s bring in some stuff for the gacha crowd and my loyalists from the YouTube channel. I’ve linked above a preview video from the great (and sadly retired) Koolio Gaming who was one of the inspirations to start my own content. Final Gear was a game I tested almost two years ago (I think I tried it out in December 2019) and I really liked what I saw back then. Because I’m a real big fan of mecha games and like the intricacies of gear stats, I told myself I would come back to it if it ever got a dedicated English community. Unfortunately that never came to pass (that I know of) so the game was put in indefinite hiatus for me. Recently I discovered however that a global version is now in the works and soon to be released later this year; so hopefully I can return to it again and see if global is uncensored and worth checking out again. You can pre-register here if you like and check it out on launch day. That’s it for the month’s update, I’ll see you for the spooky stuff in October!