The Chippy | GamesYouLoved
There was this chip shop in south London. It’s not the chip shop I’m going to talk about, but it’ll do for the beginning of this story. I was visiting a relative, my Aunt to be precise.
Her son, a lot older than me was an Amiga freak, just like me he’d taken to all things Amiga. I like to think I had the upper hand on the gaming knowledge since I had a Master System and Mega Drive (borrowed) along with other relics from the 80’s.
Article by Daniel Major – aka https://twitter.com/guyfawkesretro
One enjoyment on this monthly trip into the big, weird place they called London was this chip shop. They did amazing Savaloy’s that were battered.
Along with hefty portion of chips smothered in salt and onion vinegar washed down with a Tizer (I love a Tizer ) there was an arcade cabinet in the corner, next to the picture of a half naked woman eating a Pukka Pie, as was tradition in the early 90’s.
It was CABAL. An amazing game, full of action and explosions. It was the whole reason I looked forward to my trip.
As normal, I turned up with my fiver to last me the day hanging around with my cousin and the bald chubby guy who ran the chippy establishment. My cousin had been berating me all morning, winding me up and saying things like ‘CABAL has gone, it fried itself’.
I was not impressed, nor did I believe such blasphemes chit chat, the only reason I was here was to play CABAL and maybe eat too many chips. We arrived as usual, I had my money in hand ready to order the usual and slid over to the cabinet to get me some TAD Corp Japan action hen to my absolute horror and dismay, it’d gone. Vanished. Off to arcade heaven apparently. It’d been replaced.
But replaced with what, exactly? I crack open the Tizer, chomped on the battered Savaloy and looked on in horror as I see a big green guy, orange hair and all fighting against a sumo wrestler in what looked like a bathroom with loads of rope in it. What the hell was this. I wanted my CABAL back.
Then. I studied it. Listened. Waited for the demo screen to roll over. The music… that man punching the other dude who doesn’t actually appear in the game. My cousin jumped in, with his friend who were so excited they kept missing the slot, attempting to put some money in.
It was loud. Hey both nervously chose there characters. Some chap in a red dressing gown with golden hair called Ken, another guy with a white Dressing gown looking like the Karate Kid.
That music. The aeroplane zooming across the screen.
JAPAN!
ROUND ONE.
FIGHT.
I was hooked. What was I witnessing? It was big, loud and fast. It didn’t look like anything I’d seen before. The punching noises. The uppercuts.
ROUND 2.
FIGHT!
I was now so hyped I was squishing my chips into a well formed potato shape, as nature intended.
I didn’t get a go that day. My time wasn’t here, but another Chip Shop near my home.
There was cab office I’d hung around in, odd, yes – but they had many, many arcade machines including Road Blaster and Joust, eventually CABAL mad it’s way into the office.
I was in the very smelly cab office one afternoon, I’d been sent out the bakers for some rolls and decided that I was going rebel and pretend I wasn’t interested in corn beef rolls. The usual crowd wasn’t here. This was odd to me, as the cab office actually made up for the lack of local arcade.
A driver had told me that they’d taken delivery of ‘the latest thing’ next door in the chippy and they were in there. To be honesty, the chips were crap and they didn’t sell Tizer so I rarely wondered in here. I decided to investigate further and to my amazement, they had it. They had Street Fighter 2.
My mum didn’t need those rolls for lunch. She could wait. I had enough to whip in for two goes on the machine. I wouldn’t be in trouble if I explained to her that ‘Oh, yeah the rolls, erm, well I beat Blanka instead’.
I did beat Blanka. My mum didn’t get her rolls. I was grounded.
But I’d found my new favourite chip shop.
Article by Daniel Major – aka https://twitter.com/guyfawkesretro