LAS VEGAS — The Arcade Hall of Fame held their annual induction ceremony of new members last Friday which honoured one of the greatest names in arcade game history.
Boasting an unprecedented amount of high scores on arcade video game machines across world, the legendary “ASS” was finally rewarded with an induction into the prestigious AHOF.
“ASS is one of the most prolific video game champions to ever come out of the arcade world,” spoke AHOF president Ron Davis. “It doesn’t seem to matter where you went, what you played — if you were at the arcade you’d always see “ASS” right up there at the top of every leaderboard . . . he was a legend.”
“ASS” was joined by fellow 2013 inductees “POO,” COQ”, “TIT” and “FUK” (in the ‘builders’ category), all of which continue to hold top 10 spots on the majority of Space Invaders and Street Fighter games in existence.
“I can’t believe these legends weren’t already in the hall,” explained Todd O’Neal, an excited video game enthusiast who was on hand for the event. “I grew up idolizing ‘ASS’ and ‘COQ” . . . it’s who we all wanted to be growing up.”
The AHOF, which runs out of a garage just outside of Las Vegas, Nevada, was formed in 2010 with an original class that included the great “AAA,” “NOB,” and “GAY.” Every year, three to five new members are inducted at a ceremony held at a local arcade which is routinely attended by dozens of esteemed and non-esteemed guests.
Many popular fan favourite arcade legends such as “XXX” and “VAG,” among others, continue to wait for their call to the hall, although “GOD” has been rumoured to be a lock for 2014 due to his dominating Galaga scores.
Although “ASS”, who did not attend the ceremony in person, might be happy about the induction, not everyone believes that the hall is actually fitting of the label ‘the highest honour in arcade gaming’.
“It’s got a total West Coast bias and focuses way too much on high score rankings,” complained one of many angry, aging arcade video game enthusiasts blogging about the announcement. “I mean, my friend Tony in Baltimore was one of the best Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man and Professor Pac-Man players the world has ever seen but does TONY get recognized? No. Meanwhile players I’ve never even heard of like “DIC” and “JAY” and “TON” are all in there.”
While AHOF president Davis does admit that there are some problems with the voting system, he believes that all the greats will find their way into the hall eventually, but to induct too many in one year wouldn’t allow the event to be held yearly since “there aren’t really a lot of new players in arcade gaming.”
Despite these criticism, the hall has no plans to cease operations and will continue to honour the best and brightest arcade players to ever play the games and can still make a claim that most other hall of fames cannot. According to Davis, the AHOF are still free of any players with allegations of steroids or illegal performance enhancing substances, due to the fact that all arcade gamers know that “winners don’t use drugs.”
