FAST CARS AND ICE CREAM >>>
Back when arcades were overrun with burnouts, jeans tucked into their high-tops, I'd seek out the Elevator Action arcade game at Space Port on "The Ave." Between classes at UW, I played an agent whose goal was to dart through a building grabbing secrets from behind red doors. I dodged, shot or kicked spies and rode the elevator to my getaway car in the basement. The colors were dull, and movement was a bit mechanical. The tech part was shooting out the lights, flipping the screen to midnight blue.
Today, arcades are filled with 12th-level demigods and geeky hoodrats playing virtual anything. And thanks to the recently opened Dorky's Bar Arcade in downtown Tacoma, arcades are also filled with beer (although the beer is not pouring yet at Dorky's).
Dorky's opened over the weekend and already a challenge has been thrown down. Tacoma attorney Erik Bjornson - under the name "ACE" – has racked up 169,335 points on Dorky's Spy Hunter game. For those who actually studied during the '80s instead of hanging out in arcades, you migtht not know that this driving combat game puts the player in a spy vehicle complete with machine guns and missiles in the front, and oil slicks and smoke screens out the back. And when the road ends and water begins, the automobile of this vertical-scrolling driving adventure turns into a speedboat - all with the Peter Gunn theme in the background.
"Are any members of your hipster entourage sober enough to beat my score on Spy Hunter at Dorky's?" Bjornson challenged the Weekly Volcano readers, calling them "hipsters" for the 1000th time.
If you beat his high score before Oct. 19, Bjornson will award you $35 worth of ice cream from Jeff's Ice Cream.
Bjornson's challenge might prove difficult in more ways than one. Everyone knows drunken hipsters hate ice cream.
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