Panic Park
Last night, a group of folks from the Portland tech scene had dinner together at Kinta, an excellent Malaysian restaurant on SE Belmont. Everytime I eat at Kinta, I am hypnotized by the lights across the street at the Avalon Theater. The outside of the building advertises the best 5 cent video games anywhere. As it was a Friday night with no responsibilities, I couldn’t resist going over to the Avalon after dinner to explore. My wife had already taken the two younger kids home, and so I went to the Avalon with Aodan and Xander, and with Dawn Foster and Todd Kenefsky, who were equally curious.
Basically, you pay a small entrance fee, and then use nickels on a variety of games, most of which dispense tickets for prizes similar to Chuck E. Cheese. After using up a bunch of nickels (bags of nickels are sold inside), we discovered another room in the complex, mostly stocked with non-ticket dispensing video games. The highlight of the night was definitely Panic Park, an unusual Japanese video game that pits two players against each other. The controls of the two-player game are levers, which allow you to bump the other player. Unfortunately, the only video I could find of this game on YouTube (see below) does not include the controls, only the screen. However, you can make out the red and blue levers from the Coin Express sales page.
If you’re in Portland and you’re looking for some entertainment, I highly recommend a visit to the Avalon to play Panic Park. Just make sure that whoever you are playing with is about the same physical strength as you are, or you’ll find the game play horribly unbalanced.
Update (03/22/08): I found a photo on Flickr that shows two players competing in the game.
