Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade
Thursday, December 17th, 2009Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade is a documentary by Lincoln Ruchti about the early days of arcade video games (Defender, Ms. Pac Man, Donkey Kong etc). Not to be confused with The King of Kong although both films feature Billy Mitchell but in King he is a costar and in Chasing he is one of many people the film focuses on.
In 1982 Life Magazine did a recap on things that were popular and they got the idea to spend a few pages on the arcade games kids were playing. They gathered the top players from the US and Canada for a photo and article. Chasing Ghosts goes back and talks to most of these people and covers the rise and fall of arcade games in the early 80s.
Life gathered these players in Ottumwa, Iowa which is home of Twin Galaxies. At one time there was a Twin Galaxies arcade in Ottumwa but Twin Gallaxies also the name of the organization that is in charge of keeping track of video game high scores. It was created by Walter Day who is also featured prominently in the film. Twin Galaxies is still around today keeping track of high scores. To get a high score verified it has to be at an official event, or watched by a judge. The film shows Robert Mruczek who is the Chief Referee at Twin Galaxies. Even though he works in accounting where he works as much as 60 hours a week he spends a lot of his time watching recorded performances that people send him.
Billy Mitchel and Walter Day
It wasnt just the graphics that sets todays games apart from their early 80s relatives. Back then you would play until you run out of lives and then its game over. As the film says it wasn’t until 1984 and the game Moon Patrol that inserting another quarter allowed you to continue your game. So it took a lot of skill and time to master the early arcade games and where most people play a little and move on these guys (who were kids at the time) spent tons of time figuring out patterns or coming up with loop holes to beat the machine. They would obsess over them and in some cases push each other to get better and higher scores. Once they became champions they did get some attention via tv appearences and there was even plans for a kind of videogame tour that never really worked out. Chasing Ghosts remineses with them and then runites them for an updated version of the Life magazine picture. A few of the people are not doing the greatest but most are succesful in their carears and some are unique. One has over 100 pet spiders and Mr Mruczek collects pin up porn and lives with his parents and cat. So the personalities of the players provides entertainment as well.
The film does a good job capturing the early arcade game culture and its fun to hear the stories by the players and some of their quirks/personalities adds to the charm of the film. Chasing Ghosts is a must see for classic video game fans. After screening at various film festivals (including Sundance) it turned up on cable tv (Showtime) and as of now it hasn’t been released on DVD for more info on the film visit chasingghoststhemovie.com
