The Kids have it so easy. Back in the days when Hip Hop was Hip Hop and computer games were new and exciting it was almost impossible to find out what was happening in each respective “scene”. I’m talking late 80’s and there was NO coverage of hip hop in the UK. Nothing. Zilch. The only way we, the kids, could find out what was happening in Hip Hop was via Tim Westwood’s Capital Rap Show which was on between the prime time hours of 2am and 4am every Friday night. There were no magazines, millions of intercunt sites, 24 hour specialist TV stations or radio, not counting Tim of course. The same could of been said of computer games. Although the art of the veejo game is still shunned on mainstream TV there are now specialist shows on satellite and there are more mags and books and interweb sites than you can shake a Konix Joystick at. For both genres all the bases are covered a thousand times everyday.
As gamers we survived on one magazine, Computer and Video Games, to bring us arcade and multi-format news. The other magazines were great for computer games but there was no arcade or console news so we were largely fucked on that front. Arcades for me had their magic years in the late 80’s and early 90’s. This was when Sega was at its prime and arcade games looked like the works of gods compared to our monochrome speccy graphics. I could only worship for the odd couple of hours once or twice a month or until my 10p’s ran out. Entering the arcades was ecstasy and I would stand and watch the Out Run and Space Harrier machines shunt all over the shop as they chewed 10p after 10p. Each visit to the arcades was like a journey to paradise and once our money was done we would come away with nothing but memories. With this in mind you can imagine how precious the gift that came with one issue of C+VG was – a tape of the Out Run and 720 arcade game music. To play the tape would invoke all the memories of being “there” and having this object created some tangible link to the arcade game we were still playing in our minds. I found this tape the other day – somehow it has remained with me and I am so glad. Just looking at it makes me feel good. So here it is, to be forever immortalised on the interspazz that The Kids take for granted. Enjoy.