Can you believe that Konami actually introduced Dance Dance Revolution all the way back in 1997? Maybe you have not played the game in a long time, on account of it being “old hat” and all that. But perhaps, if you were ever to go back to one of the arcades we all seem to lose touch with as we get older, you would see one of those gleaming, lovely machines that have taken so many quarters and granted so much joy and accomplishment in return. And you would miss the old days, just for a moment. Now, this is not the rational sort of missing, like when you miss your true love or anything like that. This is missing an idea of something you may or may not have had.
And unless you are a truly strong person, you will most likely surrender to this sentimentality. And if you have quarters on you, they will enter the machine. Its flash and pumping speakers are just too much for most people to ignore, especially if they have so much as a fleeting, glancing memory of the fun people used to have on those very machines. There is just something wildly addictive about prancing around to the beat of a bubble gum dance song that will probably never even be well known in the United States.
So, ten years later, has the world really changed all that much? Are we in a different place, that we now hate to do physically active things in our video games? Of course not. The same adrenaline courses through our veins today that always has, and will probably always do so to some extent. So if ever you find yourself walking by one of the old arcades, all weird smelling and most likely covered with corn syrup from a million spilled sodas that nobody cared to clean up, remember where you came from. And heaven help any quarters you’ve got.
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