Air hockey Air Hockey!

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

I just noticed that there was an "Air Hockey" tag in here and you bet your sweet ass you are gonna hear all about how much I loved these.

Listen: if you ever wanted to watch four screeching monkeys throw shit around and jump up and down like possessed trampolines (but were too cheap to pay for a ticket to the zoo), all you had to do was tagging along with my family as we played these.

But we didn't just "play" air hockey, we LIVED IT.

As overdramatic as that sounds, it's totally accurate — it was our collective "release valve", and we took full advantage of it.

We battled, we cheated, we engaged in endless arguments about the rules, we got smacked by flying pucks square in the face way more often than I care to admit... and we had a grand time of it.

We even managed to come together as a unit - a very rare event indeed - and convinced mom to buy us a table version to play back home, which still sees some use to this day.

FUCKING AIR HOCKEY, MAN! There's nothing quite like it.

What's your tale with it?

 

[lestagio]

Air hockey has NO REASON TO BE SO FUN. I grew up in the age a bit after arcades— they were still around but not as prevalent because my SNES games were as good. BUT they would have air hockey and pinball and I loved those to death because you can't get that same experience on a video game. Me and a friend were always SUPER competitive and would SLAM the puck back and forth, lol. It went flying into people quite a bit.

I haven't been to a modern "arcade" in quite a few years, but I take it that they haven't gotten any better and now just consist of boring, shitty video games for the most part. And of the modern ones I've been to, I haven't seen a single pinball machine. BUT I've seen air hockey and I just play that with someone.

Derailing a little bit here but we need to bring back pinball machines. I haven't played in years, and I'm probably horrible at it (I never was very good at all), but christ are they fun! The only ones I've seen in recent ran like 4-5 dollars per play which is the biggest fucking scam I've ever heard...

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

The only ones I've seen in recent ran like 4-5 dollars per play which is the biggest fucking scam I've ever heard...

No kidding — that's criminal.

I don't think I have ever played on a real pinball machine, but these always seemed fun to me!

 

[ArchienineZXAdventArchienineZXAdvent's icon]

I played it rarely, it was fun but since i barely go outside i don't play it too much.

 

[Sheepy765]

I enjoy it, though finding a table that doesn’t force me to pay first is rare.

 

[Scotty Scotty]

We used to have an air hockey table, but we hardly ever used it.

 

[Nuxx.exe]

Have you seen the newer Pong machines? I know they're not the same design principles, but it's like advanced Air Hockey

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

Have you seen the newer Pong machines? I know they're not the same design principles, but it's like advanced Air Hockey
View attachment 216577

That looks cool!

If anything's gonna convince me to play Pong, that might as well be it.

 

[Advil Lavs]

I love air hockey too. It's fun, even the mobile version that came out when apps were the popular new thing was really fun to play with friends.
I guess I don't have cool stories about it aside from the occasional time me and my friends were getting too serious about winning.
I haven't played air hockey since I was a kid though.