Sunday 24 August 2003

Bizarre Camberwell

We used to have a videogame arcade called "Magic City". It was a tremendously silly name, but from it's opening in the mid 90's until it's closure just months ago it provided many great memories.

I remember the four-way Daytona USA challenges where we'd bet money that, for the day, was completely absurd. Thankfully despite being shit I reguarly benefited from the catch-up logic of the game and managed to win. The greatest victory was one where I engineered a massive last corner crash and stormed home to win the money.

I fondly recall firing the puck of their inappropriately placed Table Hockey game out the door and halfway across Burke Road. How we laughed - especially as it almost decapitated a group of irritating schoolchildren. Well, some other irritating schoolchildren anyway.

It was there that I clocked Virtua Striker 2 countless times.

You could tell it was on the way out a year ago when they took half the machines out and put a big wall in the middle of the place. Then suddenly, as I walked in to continue my love affair with the Rescue 911 pinball machine that had such a low replay score that you could spend half a day playing on $2 it was all walled up. The days of high-class videogaming in Camberwell are over.

After a few months there's a sign announcing that a cafe (shock horror!) will replace Magic City. And what are the geniuses behind this project going to call the new upmarket eatery for the local yuppies.... It's going to called, umm, "Magic City". These people really have no imagination.

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