Dolphins get high off pufferfish and wallabies ransack opium from the poppy fields. So what did we do? We tapped into our innate animalistic tendencies and got high to play arcade games. Sober or no, the arcade is an iconic spot.
For the purposes of this article and accurate retelling, Critic Te Ārohi remained sober (sadly) for this experiment while two anonymous test subjects partook (enthusiastically) in the practical side of things.
We all love those ‘Cooking While High’ YouTube videos. Stuff like this is the heart and soul of social media; it allows us to understand these experiences without necessarily having had them ourselves. And so, $40 was withdrawn and sacrificed in the name of journalism. The plan was simple: each test subject would take roughly 2 grams worth of weed each, while Critic would take notes as they made their way through as many games as we could afford (fourteen) to find out which were the best to play while high.
The arcade was immediately over-stimulating when Critic Te Ārohi frog-marched our test subjects in – colourful flashing lights, loud noises, and little kids running around didn’t mix awfully well with the weed trip. Nevertheless, the two loyal subjects prevailed. Thus, the games began.
King of Hammer II Thunder
The mid-est of mid
This game is one of strength. You take a large hammer and smash it onto a big button as hard as you can to propel the flashing lights as high up as possible. The more power you use, the more tickets you get. Starting off with this game was a mid idea to say the least. Not a very rewarding experience and not enough fun colours to make it worth the amount of money you spent on it. A lot of weeded-up power was put into that slam, and still only got about 10 tickets from that thing. So did we win? No. But was it slightly better on weed? Eh, still no.
Rating: 3/10
Mario Kart
Yahoo!
An absolute classic experience. You race around a course as goofy-looking cartoon characters from Super Mario. Sick. The weedy experience did apparently make the big screen feel pretty intimidating, according to one test subject, but getting to drive with a physical wheel as you melt into that plastic chair is a whole new experience. Did we win? Yes! However, the “Game Over” display at the end was saddening, and slightly stress inducing.
Rating: 8/10
Guitar Hero
This rocks
Perhaps the arcade machine took the choice of band – “Rage Against the Machine” – as a personal attack, as it broke down half way through us playing Bulls on Parade, but even so, this one was pretty fun. It was great revisiting the cult classic game where you pick a song and play along with a toy guitar, flicking buttons and strumming to the beat as best you can to varying difficulties. Despite the intense concentration required to play this game, the changing colours were very entertaining. It may have decreased performance, but it did increase the fun factor. Did we win? In our hearts, yes.
Rating: Broken / 10
Jurassic Park Arcade
DINOSAURS!
Now this was something else. You sit in a booth and shoot at dinosaurs. The booth provides safety and privacy where you can enjoy yourself in a more comfortable environment, and the dinosaurs are dinosaurs (need we say more?). It was a little hard to beat, and admittingly, we did spend a bit of extra money to revive ourselves. But that fact is more of a testament to the entertainment factor that this arcade game provided. It was intimate, it was immersive, and our test subjects said it felt sick while stoned. Did we win? Yes. There were dinosaurs.
Rating: 10/10
OKC - NBA
Who am I? Kevin Durant?
A basketball game; shooting balls in hoops. This was a great screen break from all the dense stimulation you get staring into coloured pixels, and a lot more hands-on. The thing about being stoned is you really just wanna sit around. So, it happened, but there’s nothing to write home about. Did we win? Well, we probably won’t get drafted.
Rating: 4/10.
Halo - Fire Team Raven
Halo was not a religious experience
Another sit-down shooter game. Once again, the booth experience was very pleasant, but this game just didn’t evoke as much excitement. Not enough fun colours, not enough cool dinosaurs, and we didn’t win.
Rating: 6/10.
eClaw
eStupidGame
Claw machines. To be real, gambling is fun, but claw machines feel too skill based to give the same rewarding dopamine-hit like a slot machine would. They’re rigged, and no one can convince Critic otherwise. Especially when you’re high and just want the treat without the mahi. Claw machines are an absolute miss. Whoever invented these things is definitely a sadist.
Rating: -2/10.
Super Bikes 3
“Holy shit it moves”
This one gets a solid “hell yeah”. A racing game, similar to Mario Kart, except you get to sit on a sick ass bike that physically tilts as you move around the course. The sitting aspect was great. While it didn’t have the same fun colours as Mario Kart, it made up for that with the whole sick-ass-bike thing. Big fan of this one (and we won).
Rating: 7/10.
Transformers
Robots while we’re high
Yet another shooter game. The booths while high just hit right every time. Getting to sit down in those intimate spaces paired perfectly with the trip. The robots were sick, the gameplay was cool, and there was a special lever you could pull for a power up which really added to the experience. But, alas, despite our victory, there were no dinosaurs.
Rating: 9/10.
Happy Miner
More like Not Happy Miner
Claw machine number two. Another fail. Critic thought this one would be at least a little more rewarding. It was one of the candy claw machines, and the candy was moving in a circle on a conveyor belt as you tried to obtain it. The candy would have been a wonderful addition to the experience. Except we got no candy. But even if we had, there was a second step to this machine where any candy you did manage to airlift would be taken to a secondary mechanism, a coin pusher. Too many extra steps. Too complicated. “Guaranteed win” my ass. We did not win.
Rating: Pissed off / 10.
Full Tilt
A gear grinder figuratively and literally
This game was interesting. A ball is dropped at the top of a tower of cogs that you control the movement of at the base of the machine using a larger cog. The goal is to strategically manipulate the cogs in the right way so that the ball falls into a hole with a high ticket number at the bottom. The test subjects enjoyed the concept, it was just the right amount of hands-on-ness where you didn’t need to do too much and it still kept you captivated. Did we win? No, but it made one test subject want to sell their car.
Rating: 5/10.
Monster Drop
Two words: Pyramid Scheme
It seemed simple enough. A ball would be dispensed from above into a cylindrical tube when you press a button, and the goal would be to time that drop so that it falls into a hole with a high ticket number. We only got about 10 tickets from this machine and for some reason something about this particular button pushing mechanism felt too complicated. But, that’s probably the munchies talking from the previous lack of claw-machine-candy. Did we win? Who knows.
Rating: 2/10.
Wild West Shootout
‘BEER TOWN’
Yet another shooting game, this time without the booth experience unfortunately. But, this game had ‘BEER TOWN’ so the booth's absence could be forgiven. The standing-up part brought the rating down slightly, but the weed trip combined with western bad guys was wonderful, and ‘BEER TOWN’ is pretty funny. ‘BEER TOWN’.
Rating: 9.5/10
Power Roll
Short but not sweet
This was the final game of our experience. In this one, you launch a small ball up a hill in a sort of slingshot mechanism. The goal is to use just enough force to hit the jackpot or at least a solid ticket reward. This one had lots of fun and entertaining colours but didn’t last very long – not that there’s anything wrong with that, but also there is.
Rating: 4/10
This was quite the experiment. If only all scientific reports were a little more of an easy read, it’d make science majors a little less depressed. Or, less likely to resort to illegal drug use for that matter. It must be reiterated, this is no scientific report, nor a perfect experiment. But hey, if the Wallabies can do opium, what's the harm in a little animalistic-fun?
Our findings? 14 games in total, $40, and an hour of everyone’s time. This yielded 232 tickets which rewarded us with two Zombie Chews. Each worth 100 tickets. Tutti frutti (though not as fruity as we imagined) and Coca-Cola were the flavours of choice. Overall, the dinosaurs were awesome, and both test subjects said they’d do it again.