Arcades are dying. I wouldn't really consider this a revolutionary statement if I was just saying, for example, that the people who go into arcades are dying, because, well, those chili dogs add up. But sadly, the game center as nerd communal space is becoming a thing of the past. With profit margins becoming ever more razor thin, developers have been investing their time and energy on platform and PC work. The exception to this rule, of course, is DDR. But to me that's because it sucessfully combines the growing trends of being Asian and of being gay.

What did arcades provide? Well for one, it's pretty easy to feel attractive in an arcade. In fact, if you're feeling like an underachiever in any capacity, it's the place to be. But more seriously, arcades were the turkish bath of gaming culture: a place for random encounters between consenting men. I think we're all guilty of practicing in some capacity to not get shown up when we went in to play Street Fighter. And if you're not, are you sure you're at the right site?

the AAP can never top this, the greatest song about video games ever made. AND it's in German. Ich bin eine nerd.

But beyond the competition, arcades create an experience I have yet to have anywhere else. When you enter, you're coming into a darkened cave; the lights are dimmed to cut down on glare. Every game around you is trying to be louder, brighter, and more attractive than the rest. The result is strobing multicolored lights, defeaning music, 30 sales pitches all at once. For many this was enough to drive them out of these dank caverns never to return. But for those of us like me who had the innate urge to waste their lives and their health, it was a simultaneously terrifying and fascinating experience. I could look around the room and see that no one there was likely to go anywhere, that this place was profiting off of the latchkey kids who were raised by TV, the legions of acne farming future heart-attacks. But ooh, pretty colors and sounds! I'm staying.

Andy Hofle is probably one of these kids, except he was hypnotized by games made while I was perfecting the fetal position. Through the Arcade Ambience Project, Hofle has begun the process of recreating the aural experience for those who weren't there to witness it. Using sound effects and music from games popular in alternating years starting with 1981, tracks are cut and pasted together. The result is an hour long wall of noise that successfully (depending on your definition of the word, of course) reproduces the golden age of arcades. So far, Hofle has made mp3s for 1981 and 1983 available for free download on his site. His stated purpose was to create tracks to play on his downstairs MAME cabinet so his guests would get the true experience, but the author has managed to do something even more dramatic. These mp3s are cultural documents, proof of a sense of pride and heritage from a culture that has been the bane of girlfriends, parents, and normal human interaction for decades. They are without a doubt worth your time. You've probably heard all these bleeps and bloops from games like Asteroids, Pac-Man, and Centipede before, but listening to them all at once reminded me of what it was like getting excited when I went to the mall just because I could spend time in the arcade. The work created here is the equivalent of pouring out some liquor on the corner for those little blue ghosts. We'll probably never see an era like this again, and Andy Hofle has done us the service of preserving the moment in a way that will survive the wave of closings we've been seeing the last few years.

While not something that is going to make it in my playlist next to These Arms Are Snakes any time soon, Andy Hofle's Arcade Ambience Project makes for incredible listening and even better reminiscing. Now if i could just remember not to shower...