The Gamer's Quarter

[dessgeega]

Yowzer, I was just randomly browsing your site and I saw the contact addy
'points but no money'. This caught my eye, as the 'points but no money'
phenomena cropped up in a game I used to play in the arcades religiously,
Point Blank 2,

I'm sure you know it well- pink and blue guns, quickfire challenges,
2-player fun and cool sound/music.

Now this was back in the day when every Friday night, my band and I (four
guys) would hit the town, exploring alleyways and deserted building sites,
half-finished houses, parks and gardens, smoking joints of a coarse brown
weed and jesting amongst ourselves. Usually at some point we would call upon
the Warner Bros cinema to taunt the employees there. This might involve
anything from friendly chatting to throwing popcorn in the manager's hair
(good times). There was Point Blank 2, Silent Scope and a couple of fruit
machines.

After a few months of intense competition amongst ourselves we'd all gotten
shit-hot at the game apart from James, who has a slightly damaged right eye
and therefore could never reach the level of play that eddie, tony and I
did. I don't know if you've played Point Blank but every eight levels there
is a bonus stage wherein treasure chests spin round in a circle, and you
have to shoot one to revel the MYSTERY BONUS inside. This could be either
coins (contributes towards your points), a life, coins AND a life, or
nothing at all. There didn't seem to be any way to predict or memorise which
chest would yield which bonus as they span.

One Friday night tony shot a treasure chest to reveal only coins, but no
life. James piped up in his american accent (expat dad in HK) "Got some
money," in a helpful, supportive voice. This became a catchphrase for a
little while, whenever anything went wrong but there some tiny amount of
good still to be salavged from the situation. "Got some money," we would
say, cruelly mocking James's american accent and tone of voice.

Good times, good times.
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