GAME CLEAR No. 138 -- Gunblade NY

Gunblade NY (1995, Arcade)

Arcade Platform: SEGA Model 2B CRX
Developer: SEGA AM3
Publisher: SEGA
Clear Date: 7/23/23

If I were a good man, I’d understand the spaces between friends

It was around 9:30 or 10:00 PM on Saturday, July 22nd. I found myself on the platform of the Kosciuszko Street station in Brooklyn waiting for a train to take me a few stops closer to the last bit of fun I’d have on my short trip to New York. I had just bailed on a place called Wonderville. It’s an indie arcade and bar whose concept and existence I adore, but I was scared off by an overwhelming feeling that it was a place to bring a friend or a date. I had just parted ways with a couple friends who had a prior engagement, so I had neither.

And with a somewhat lengthy wait until the next train, those same old thoughts started to creep in. When you’re single and have solitary hobbies and no pets and live alone long enough, a sense of nonbeing can take over at times. Of course I know I exist, but how much does it matter? Those sorts of thoughts. Part of the reason I had booked this trip in the first place was as a sort of petulant lashing against losing all my PTO this year to other people’s weddings (nevermind that the next wedding on my schedule was in New York anyway…). As happy as I was and am for all of my friends getting married, attending all those weddings certainly has a way of reminding you of your own romantic futility. But I suppose I should be grateful so many people want me at their nuptials.

Anyway, here I was in New York on my own terms. I had seen as many friends as I could and done a great deal of tourism, especially considering I had worked Thursday and part of Friday. But no trip is done without trying to find some video games that are difficult to play in the home and that may not exist at all in Atlanta. That was next, Wonderville be damned.

See, right after leaving Wonderville, I searched simply “arcade” on Google Maps and found a number of compelling and open-late options. “Barcade” in Williamsburg seemed the most promising from the interior shots available. Its name struck me as generic, but I reasoned that perhaps it coined the term? In any case, it was a short ride away on the nearby J train, so that’s why I found myself brooding the minutes away waiting for it. Eventually, it came.

Upon reaching Barcade, the dread returned. Inside were people that were dressed better than me and who looked like they were with people they knew. I was some sweaty dork tourist trying to play some games. Whatever. Go in, idiot. After some hand wringing, I did.

A new problem arose, though, which was that I had $9 in cash and no debit card. This was not a free-play arcade with a cover charge as is so common these days, this was a bona fide token-issuing institution. As much as I enjoyed that, it meant my night would be short.

I put $5 in and took my tokens. I went for pinball first since they had some cool and highly functional shit. These were 3 tokens apiece, though, and I wasn’t doing so hot, so I gave that up quickly. I milled about playing a couple games familiar and unfamiliar before finding Gunblade NY in the mix. A SEGA rail shooter with humongous guns that takes place in New York, and I’ve never heard of it? Bingo. I put two tokens in and selected the Easy route.

The game is about blowing the hell out of terrorist robots as a helicopter door gunner. You have unlimited ammo and no reloading, so you literally just squeeze that trigger and point at bad guys. I did that pretty well, but I started to run out of pairs of tokens toward the end. I clutched it out with the last two tokens I had, which felt pretty nice. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was pretty lame of me to occupy this cabinet built for two for so long. As the credits rolled, I wondered if it would count for the blog. There was a whole other set of hard levels, after all. I decided I’d think about it.

I left Barcade and walked to the corner store for a Coke thinking I may just end my night then. It was midnight, after all, and I still had to get back to my hotel. I leaned against the wall with my beverage and looked at my phone. I had missed a text from the friend I’d left a couple hours prior asking if I’d made it to Wonderville. I explained the change of plans. Turns out the change was serendipitous and meant I wasn’t far from where his party had been. He said he was heading over.

I was a bit taken aback by this. By all but my closest friends, I often feel my company is tolerated more than enjoyed. Plans with one area friend had fallen through on somewhat flimsy grounds this trip, which didn’t help that perception. Plus, I was still reeling from some gaffes I feared I’d committed and words of appreciation I’d left unsaid while hanging with another. But here was a friend reaching out after a perfectly reasonable and satisfying farewell had already been bid. Something like that means a lot to a guy in my kind of shape.

We entered and reupped on coins thanks to my friend’s non-shortage of cash. I told him we had to, at some point, get some time on that Gunblade cab. I wanted to beat it for real. He was amenable. He’s not a video game guy. He’d play whatever.

So we did. We hopped around various cabinets waiting for Gunblade NY to open, including a particularly riotous go at Daytona USA. When it was finally free, we made our way over expeditiously.

In the interest of the blog, I threw my buddy in the deep end and chose the Hard route. We did reasonably well early on, but we started to take some damage as the levels wore on. Eventually, in the final level, my friend ran out of credits. I had the one I was on and one more in my pocket. Exactly like the previous time, I clutched it out on my last credit with my last unit of health. Pro gamer stuff.

The credits rolled and we laughed at the bad ending we got (presumably for letting some of the earlier bosses get away). We did end up getting a few more tokens and trying out some other shit, including the extremely cool shooting gallery game Quick & Crash by Namco, which had us fascinated by its exploding mug illusion – but that’s for another post.

After running out of tokens again, it was nearing 2:30 AM. I hated it, but I had to go. The next train my way wasn’t for quite some time, so we loitered for a bit chatting about various things before parting ways for the actual final time. My mood was lifted, though. No brooding on this ride.

When I got back to the hotel, I showered and packed so that pretty much all I’d have to do is roll out of bed to make my flight. The last time I remember looking at the clock, it said something past 5:00 AM. A few hours later, I touched back down at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Back to the doldrums of my woefully ordinary life. Hardly seems fair for someone who just saved New York twice.

Oh, well. At least a bunch of people I love live here. When all I need’s one, I guess that makes me pretty lucky.