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Twin Galaxies World Record Attempts
by Patrick Scott Patterson
The Backstory - Written March 1, 2008
Way before I ever collected arcade video games or even thought of owning a business anything like Hyperspace Arcade, I was known around town as one of the best in playing video games.
I played my first video arcade game in 1981, a Pac-Man machine at a coin laundry in my hometown of Garland, TX. I was only 6 years old at the time, but quickly became hooked and able to play. A few months of playing Pac-Man at the laundromat, my dad took me to an arcade across the street, where I saw oh so many games for the first time. A who's who of classic games filled that arcade, a Garland, TX called the Electric Cowboy Casino, such as Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Galaga, Defender, Asteroids Deluxe, Gorf, Omega Race, Rally X, and oh so many more.
I was hooked.
By 1982, I was truly hated by the teenagers that frequented the hot arcade game spots in town, as at the tender age of 7 years old I could step up to almost any game in the arcade and quickly knock their high scores right off the game. It's no wonder nobody told me there was someone in the world keeping track of high scores.
I never heard of Twin Galaxies until 1987, when I found a 1982 issue of Life Magazine at a garage sale. I also spotted them in the Guinness Book of World Records, but shortly after that, the records stopped appearing in the book. I only assumed that, like so many classic arcade game things had done, that Twin Galaxies had folded. It mattered little, as by 1988 I was hooked on games on the Nintendo Entertainment System at home, though I'd still go by a local corner store near my school and nail a Pac-Man kill screen a couple of times a week for fun.
It wasn't until 1998 that I logged online for the first time and discovered that Twin Galaxies still existed! As I searched the database for scores on games I had used to be good at, I saw many that I could beat or come close to beating once upon a time. I considered going for some of these old records, but there was no place to play a lot of these machines anywhere near me by that point, and I was pursuing other interests in life at the time that left me with little time to do so anyway. Besides... I was really, really out of practice, right? No way I could get back into form.
Even though today I fix and restore classic arcade video games every day of my life, I never find much time to play them. The idea of busting old records still came into my mind from time to time, but I still never really thought about getting back into practice to do so until the film King of Kong came out on DVD, finally giving me time to watch it.
Google King of Kong if you don't know what it is. It was the fact that Steve Wiebe, a person who was really good at Donkey Kong back in the day, could get back on the bike, so to speak, and be one of the best in the world on that game that got me to realize I could do the same. Why can't I get back into practice and do the same thing on games I was good at, and get my name onto lists that they should be on?
So I am.
It will be challenging, especially with the time taken running my own business and raising a 2 year old son. But it will fun as well.
This area of the website will be updated at I chase after scores and records on a few arcade games, NES records, and some other stuff, as I show the world that I can not only fix them and restore them, but I can also play them just as well.
I hope you'll come around for the updates as they take place and see how I do.
CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE THE STORY
Website Content © 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Hyperspace Arcade Services. All game names, graphics, and logos are copyrights of their respective owners.
by Patrick Scott Patterson
The Backstory - Written March 1, 2008
Way before I ever collected arcade video games or even thought of owning a business anything like Hyperspace Arcade, I was known around town as one of the best in playing video games.
I played my first video arcade game in 1981, a Pac-Man machine at a coin laundry in my hometown of Garland, TX. I was only 6 years old at the time, but quickly became hooked and able to play. A few months of playing Pac-Man at the laundromat, my dad took me to an arcade across the street, where I saw oh so many games for the first time. A who's who of classic games filled that arcade, a Garland, TX called the Electric Cowboy Casino, such as Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Galaga, Defender, Asteroids Deluxe, Gorf, Omega Race, Rally X, and oh so many more.
I was hooked.
By 1982, I was truly hated by the teenagers that frequented the hot arcade game spots in town, as at the tender age of 7 years old I could step up to almost any game in the arcade and quickly knock their high scores right off the game. It's no wonder nobody told me there was someone in the world keeping track of high scores.
I never heard of Twin Galaxies until 1987, when I found a 1982 issue of Life Magazine at a garage sale. I also spotted them in the Guinness Book of World Records, but shortly after that, the records stopped appearing in the book. I only assumed that, like so many classic arcade game things had done, that Twin Galaxies had folded. It mattered little, as by 1988 I was hooked on games on the Nintendo Entertainment System at home, though I'd still go by a local corner store near my school and nail a Pac-Man kill screen a couple of times a week for fun.
It wasn't until 1998 that I logged online for the first time and discovered that Twin Galaxies still existed! As I searched the database for scores on games I had used to be good at, I saw many that I could beat or come close to beating once upon a time. I considered going for some of these old records, but there was no place to play a lot of these machines anywhere near me by that point, and I was pursuing other interests in life at the time that left me with little time to do so anyway. Besides... I was really, really out of practice, right? No way I could get back into form.
Even though today I fix and restore classic arcade video games every day of my life, I never find much time to play them. The idea of busting old records still came into my mind from time to time, but I still never really thought about getting back into practice to do so until the film King of Kong came out on DVD, finally giving me time to watch it.
Google King of Kong if you don't know what it is. It was the fact that Steve Wiebe, a person who was really good at Donkey Kong back in the day, could get back on the bike, so to speak, and be one of the best in the world on that game that got me to realize I could do the same. Why can't I get back into practice and do the same thing on games I was good at, and get my name onto lists that they should be on?
So I am.
It will be challenging, especially with the time taken running my own business and raising a 2 year old son. But it will fun as well.
This area of the website will be updated at I chase after scores and records on a few arcade games, NES records, and some other stuff, as I show the world that I can not only fix them and restore them, but I can also play them just as well.
I hope you'll come around for the updates as they take place and see how I do.
CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE THE STORY
Website Content © 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Hyperspace Arcade Services. All game names, graphics, and logos are copyrights of their respective owners.