(Kind of almost but not really the) Best. Place. Ever.

   I don't get to see my friend Joe nearly as much as I should.  This is a guy I met when I was roughly 3 to 4 years old and have been friends with all my life.  This is a guy I intend to stay friends with for the rest of my life.  We grew up, for the first part of our childhood, in the same neighborhood of townhouses.  In fact, we both had end units, and we could walk to each others houses via a creek running through the neighborhood.  It was pretty sweet.

   Our childhood consisted of making up rules for the game we invented, "Supercars" (a game consisting of matchbox cars and hours of the phrase 'Let's pretend...' that kept us from actually playing at all), trading Star Wars toys, and mucking around in the creek looking for things that we did not want to touch and yet felt compelled to touch.

   He lives in White Marsh these days, while I reside in Elkridge.  This is a 30 minute drive or so, and with his normal schedule and my television crappy schedule, sometimes it's hard to find the time to get together.

   Interesting note.  We both have girlfriends named Nichole.  Except his spells it Nicole, no H.  I believe that is the more common spelling, and is used to avoid the phonetic pronunciation, "NI-CH-OLE".  I was trying to convey the "CHUH" in the middle.

   This will lead us to the Best. Place. Ever., I promise.

   Starting now.  So we made plans to hang out and go to Hersheypark last Sunday.  I had taken the day off and everything.  We were ready to ride some rides, eat some over-priced food, and revert to the children we once were.

   This, however, did not occur.  Due to unnamed complications, we were not able to go, so we planned an alternate....    plan.

   A few weeks earlier, Joe had sent me a text message while at an arcade.  Not any arcade, but 

one with a whole room full of old school arcade games from the 80's and early 90's.  None of these newfangled, 2 dollar a life games the kids are playing nowadays, where everything is a shoot-em-up or driving game.  I'm talking the old, 25 cents a pop, 2-D, side-scrolling, simple graphics, might-work-and-might-not games of my youth.  The ones they had in Playland in Ocean City, the ones they replaced with the aforementioned crappy new games that I do not

 care for, thank you very much.

   This was now our destination for our make-up play date.

   That didn't come out right.  But it stands.

   The place, as I'm sure you are now simply chomping at the bit, is called Crab Towne USA, and is located in the bustling suburb we Marylanders know and love; Glen Burnie.

   It is a local dive, basically, serving crabs and other random foodstuffs.  What follows is one of many awesome reviews Crab Towne has received:

I drove over 45 mins yesterday to have crabs and was treated veryl poorly. I have had crabs here several times in the past and was satisfied. I have never tried the all you can eat menu. Yesterday I ordered the all-u-can eat and left the restaurant very unhappy. The service was embrassing. The waitress we had left to go home and left us to another waitress. My god daughter had to go up to the register to ask if I could get more crabs, the first batch was awful, only 4 crabs could be eaten, the rest was empty and had a awful smell as though they were old. I asked for no seasons and I feel that caused a problem, because as we watch other customers be served, they were served well. I was given on beer and not aked if I would like another one, There was a motorcycle couple in there that keep crabs in front of them. There was a mixed

 couple in there and they kept crabs in front of them. THIS PLACE IS PREJUDICE. MY PERSONAL FEELINGS.

   Yes, the place is prejudiced, because a MIXED COUPLE received crabs and you did not.  Even though you AKED.  This review was copied and pasted from a website, not a word was changed.  I know.  Awesome.

 

  So we decided to go.  The allure, for me, was two-fold.  One, the games.  A whole big room of old games and old pinball machines.  All, with the exception of only a scant few, costing no more than 25 cents.  The second allure was the beer.  I could get a beer and go play the games while drinking the beer.  My excitement was palpable.

   The beer selection was minor, but who am I to complain, really?  I selected  Corona, although Joe was insistent that I drink a tall Budweiser can.  I felt I should oblige him, as the man has not had a drink for many years, but I do not like Budweiser and therefore did not.

   We didn't eat there, both because we had gone somewhere else to eat beforehand and because of the many awesome reviews.

   Walking in, you are greeted with the scent of Old Bay and the sight of at least a dozen or more

 people playing Keno and some sort of computerized horse racing game.  These people looked very, very happy to be there.  The main room has all tables and benches and all, with plenty of counter space to choose from as well.  You can pretty much just pass right by and head to the register, where we had to get quarters because the machine they have is broken.  Take an immediate right, and you're in the game room.

   First impression, you will be awed and amazed by the general disrepair of the room.  It looks kind of dirty, but that only adds to the old-timey charm.  By old-timey I of course mean the 80's.  Also, you will notice that several of the games do not work.  This is done on purpose.  Making several games not work makes the games that work that much more fun and exciting to play.

   I would be remiss if I do not mention several things specifically.  The first game I played was Dig Dug.  This is an excellent game featuring a little guy that digs holes in order to kill tiny dragons and little ball guys.  Killing these enemies is done with a pump that shoots out and attaches to them.  You hit the button repeatedly, blowing them up bigger and bigger until they pop.  It actually comes across as quite painful.  Once every enemy is done, you go on to the next level.  Make sure you head right to the top after killing the second to last enemy, because the last enemy will try to escape, robbing you of some very important points if they escape.  I believe I made it to level 8 before both getting killed and losing interest.  Just like when I was a kid!

I would be remiss yet again if I do not mention specifically by name and fuzzy picture one of the

 best side scrolling fighting games ever produced by modern man.  The picture can be found to the right and the game goes by the name of Final Fight.  This game rules.  You can choose from three players; Cody (the blonde haired street fighter), Guy (basically the Ryu character - ninja dude), or Haggar (the big wrestler dude and my favorite character to play).  The idea is to fight through each level and not die.  This is not going to happen, as they throw as many enemies as they can at you, resulting in inevitable screen lag, putting the entire melee into slow motion for a bit here or there.

There were more gems than just those two, obviously.  The original Tapper was a pleasant surprise.  When I say original, I mean the one where you are serving real beer, not root beer.  The good stuff.  The one where the little evil guy who shakes the cans is shaking cans of Budweiser, not soda.  I don't want to brag, but I got the #1 spot there.  Unfortunately I had to go with AWE as my initials, because I hit the button on A and didn't know how to take it back.  Damn shame, that.

There were so many different games, it was hard to really pick the stand-outs.  I did anyway, though, because I'm the kind of guy who likes a challenge.  Plus, I like to party.  I found two games right next to each other that garnered my interest.  The reasons might be obvious.  The Batman game is pretty cool, but the real winner is Superman.  Another good side scrolling adventure where you punch and kick your way through levels, each contact made is punctuated by a great fist-to-face sound.  There are also levels you fly through using either punches or heat ray vision.  Very, very good stuff.

On a side note:  A place such as this is bound to have the original Donkey Kong.  They did.  It's right beside this sentence.  

This is nothing unusual, but what I wanted to point out is the depiction of Mario himself.  It's pretty similar to every other picture of Mario you have seen throughout the years.  

What's really great about Mario, is that he bears a startling resemblance to our IT guy at my work.  It's gone so far as people talking like Mario when he is paged over the intercom.  It's also amusing because our IT guy is constantly Out Of The Office, as evidenced by his numerous emails pointing out his being Out Of The Office.

I would like to cap this all off with two more examples of why Crab Towne USA is awesome.  Two pinballs machines that I thoroughly enjoyed playing, even though I won no tickets or got a high score.  Or even near a high score.  The first one was the KISS pinball machine.  I know KISS has a hand in every kind of merchandise humanly possible.  KISS toilet paper might be may favorite.  This was good too, though.  You can tell it's an oldy because of the lack of bells and whistles.  The machine still had things that made noise a lit up and sparkled and sprung and all, but it wasn't overwhelmed with different tracks and holes and levels and flippers and all.

The second was the Star Wars pinball machine.  I took a picture of this one, but it was all blurry and not worth posting.  It's unfortunate too, because many will remember this machine in that it was one of the first amped up games, at least that I recall or cared to play, I suppose.  There is a mini-death star you have to hit the ball into to blow up, a small R2D2 you can make shake around, and if you light up C3PO's eyes you get an extra ball.  Sweet ass sweet.

I know I went on far too long for such a simple subject and even simpler place.  I did not know it existed until recently, so this explains my excitement.  I don't think I had talked about it here yet, but I had - and have - an idea for an arcade bar as well.  This wouldn't be a restaurant, but a two level pub, basically.  The downstairs would be for drinking and chilling, maybe watching sports or getting your groove on on the dance floor on the off nights we get a DJ for the younger crowd.  Upstairs would be a good sized bar, and filled with the kind of games found at Crab Towne.  

I know, good idea.

So when you get the chance, and if you happen to be in the Glen Burnie area, I suggest stopping by and playing you some games.  I do not suggest getting dinner.