The search for Arcade Boy.

"I found myself on a hunt to track down somebody I played at Street Fighter Alpha 3, 10 years ago, half way up a mountain range in India!" (Lee Bradley)

So the story goes, a British man was in India on his way to Tibet when he found a makeshift "arcade" in the Himalayan hill station of Darjeeling.

"When I say “arcade,” what I really mean is a collection of old televisions wired up to PlayStations, arranged across a battered formica tabletop. Covering the entire back wall was a massive cabinet stuffed to bursting with pirated PSOne games, complete with poorly photocopied boxart. For just a few rupees the young boy that ran the arcade would grab the game of your choice, pop it into a PlayStation and keep you topped up with cups of Darjeeling’s finest. After days of travelling, catching snippets of sleep on noisy, dusty trains, this was exactly what we needed." (Lee Bradley)

The best part of this story? If Lee Bradley finds the kid who ran the arcade someone is going to give him the best gift anyone can give. A Sega Dreamcast and games.

"As a result of that post a mysterious benefactor contacted the editors at Bitmob and offered to send a Dreamcast and a box of games to the arcade." (Lee Bradley)

I hope they find that guy so they can provide some awesome arcade gaming to travelers. Who wouldn't want to play some Marvel Vs Capcom 2 after traveling through the Himalayas?

Full Story

http://www.bitmob.com/index.php/mobfeed/The-Search-for-Arcade-Boy.html

6 comments:

Tom Charnock said...

Haha! What a refreshingly different post. Good find Caleb - I was gonna post myself today but I'll hang fire so this stays at the top of the page for longer. Top stuff mate.

Caleb said...

Really?

It's a nice story and all but the connection to the Dreamcast was tenuous at best.

I just thought it was funny that some guy in India will get a Dreamcast in the mail from some random blog reader.

Tom Charnock said...

Tenuous + Dreamcast = the DCJY mantra!

fatherkrishna said...

Yes different is good.
Tenuous is very acceptable!
A gpod tale, although if I was in the Himalayas I think I might be looking for Nepalese Temple Balls rather than videogames...

Barry the Nomad said...

Unique article! Reading it reminded me of a Sega encounter that I had in SE Asia. I was on a month-long trip through Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. I had my eyes peeled for Sega or Sonic goods, but came up with nothing. The closest thing I found was a tour bus featuring a huge red Sonic on the side (photo link):
http://yfrog.com/5iayutthayabuswithaddsc00jx

Sonic & Knuckles lovechild?

NebachadnezzaR said...

"Tenuous + Dreamcast = the DCJY mantra!"

Precisely! :D

Great story, really.

And Barry, that's pretty cool too!