Arcades Need An Age Limit

Okay, you know what really annoys the hell out of me? Kids. No, not kids as in everyday kids. Those are fine. What I'm talking about is the kids you find in arcades; they're just annoying as hell. Why? This is why: They don't know what the fuck they're doing.

Okay, so I go to an arcade to have some fun, cash my five dollar bill into quarters, and then when I go over to my favorite arcade game, The Fast And The Furious, I find this: Some five year old kid is sitting there, occupying my seat. I really wouldn't mind if he was actually playing the game, but he's not. He's just sitting there, turning the wheel while making "Whoooshing" sounds. I want to play the game, so I ask the kid if I can play. He says, "No, I'm playing!" I sigh and try to explain to him that he's not playing. The damn leaderboards are even up; how the hell are you playing with the leaderboards blocking your view? This either goes one of two ways: The kid finally gets a clue, leaves, and I get to play in peace, or, the kid gets up, leaves, and two minutes later he comes back with his mom and I get bitched at for harassing her son. What a load of shit.

Alright, so now I'm finally playing a race. I'm kicking back in my nice hard plastic seat, listening to the shitty music that the game has to offer, and of course, enjoying every damn minute of it. I'm mid-way into the race, and at this stage I'm either in third to first position depending on the map, when all of a sudden some little fucking kid comes out of no where and hits the N2O(Nitrous Oxide) button on the machine. My car suddenly thrusts forward at full speed while I ask the kid, "What the hell did you that for?" Next thing I know, I crash into a wall. I'm now in eight place. I'm pissed. The kid, with a big grin on his face, responds, "It makes you go faster!" No shit. There's no point to using nitrous during the race at all. All you need to do is stay clear of traffic, keep your velocity consistent, slow down on turns, and you should get to first place by the middle of the race. Unlike most people that play the game, I don't like to waste my N2O until the very end of the race when I have to go head to head against the computer controlled cars. Why? Because the only way to win against them is if you spam all of your nitrous while doing wheelies for an extra boost in your speed. This method almost always lands you in first place, if you do it correctly that is. And of course first place equals a free game. This is why I only need five dollars, because I get first most of the time, unlike all the kids that cash out a twenty for quarters and manage to waste it all within five minutes of playing. Kids...

The arcade game has a feature that lets you create an account that is attributed to a PIN that you create as well. The account lets you customize your cars once before every race(letting you add/upgrade perks such as nitrous, spoilers, tires, engines, neon lights, and decals), unlock new cars with money gained from races, and of course, displays your custom name/alias on the leaderboards for everyone to bask in your glory. Why am I telling you this? So you know what I'm talking about in the next scenario when I mention it.

Anyway, I always like human challengers on this game because it really gets boring playing against the computer all the time. I love it when little kids challenge me even more, because they get so frustrated when they lose. We both shove our quarters into the machine, and enter our PIN numbers so we can use our custom cars. I always choose my custom Dodge Challenger equipped with some nice tires, a spoiler, the second or third engine(the one that sticks out of the hood), and of course N2O, for those do-or-die situations. It's the only car that I have customized on my account, and I like it that way. The kid who is challenging me looks over at my car, chuckles, and shows me his "bad ass" Nissan 350Z, fully equipped with all the perks. Sure the acceleration, speed, control, and aerodynamics(amount of time your car stays in the air when you jump ramps/cliffs) are all at their best for his car, but damn, his car looks like shit. Here's a description of what that car looks like when you max out all of the upgrades: It has a big ass engine sticking out of its hood, neon lights under it for more awesomeness, spinning rims because those are really necessary, shitty decals that cover the car's paint-job, and of course let's not forget the five story spoiler on the back. Yeah kid, awesome car, I wish I was playing with that.

The race starts and the kid automatically uses up all three of his nitrous so he can thrust himself all the way to first place. He's doing really well, all until he crashes into a pedestrian car because he's driving on the wrong side of the road. Of course, he doesn't know that because he can't see shit in front of him with all the crap he has on his car. I speed by him, but I don't say anything. I stay calm and laugh to myself on the inside because I think it pisses them off even more. They're already bitching at the game because they're in last place; I don't need to shove in in their face. I end up winning the race in first, and most cases I still have nitrous left over. The kid is pissed, so he jams more quarters into the machine wanting a rematch and we repeat the process until he either runs out of quarters and leaves or gets so pissed that he just leaves in the middle of the race. Either way, I get some kicks out of his reactions.

Kids. They shouldn't be allowed in arcades, not if they're under twelve years old. I think kids above twelve have some decency and understanding, but hey, I could be wrong. I was actually told today that Japanese arcades actually have age restrictions. How I sometimes wish this was Japan...