I recently bought X-Men the Arcade game for the Xbox out of nostalgia for what I could only categorize as the greatest arcade game ever made. I dare say most men between the ages of 25-35 would share my enthusiasm and agree that there was not a better game to drop some quarters into at the local arcade.It's not that the X-Men arcade game was the greatest arcade game ever designed. Wrestlefest holds a special spot in my heart, while others loved games like Area 51 or Time Crisis. No... while the game was fun to play, the graphics were great for their time and it was relatively simple to play, that's not what made it amazing.
What separated it from other stops in the arcade was that six people could play at one time. There were huge two screens for this one game! Sure, there was a smaller version with four control stations but it just wasn't the same. Better yet, on the six-person console, each station was an assigned character. If you were standing at the left-most station, you were the boy scout, Cyclops. You couldn't be anyone else.
And with that memory, I recall another one. No one wanted to be at the controls furthest to the right...
Dazzler.
Who the hell was Dazzler anyway? If you were a young pre-teen boy like me all you knew was she was not cool enough to be in the Fox Saturday morning cartoon and that said it all. Granted, neither was Nightcrawler, but he looked so awesome and you could do wicked jump kicks, so who cared!
Dazzler also didn't appeal to the older games either. If you were the guy who wanted to be the hot chick you picked Storm. Look at the outfits and there is no comparison! Storm looks like at her tamest she's playing to a burlesque house.
On the other hand, Dazzler wore full body "tights," an open member's only jacket and lesbian haircut.
I find it ironic, that after what has to be at least ten years since I last played this game, I found myself in a game of six where I had no choice.
I was Dazzler.
And as I sat there, ignoring my wife and son, doing weird acrobatic moves as I through sentinels across the screen and occasionally threw some form of exploding bubblegum at enemies I could only think of one thing...
Nobody moves the blob.
