PC gaming is incredibly adept at replicating the past, whether in the breakneck momentum of a boomer shooter, or the flickering polygons of a PS1 survival horror throwback. But one experience that's particularly difficult to revive is the feeling of encountering a brand new arcade cabinet for the first time.
Imagine being a kid in the 1980s and slotting your first ever coin into Donkey Kong or Asteroids or Missile Command, hovering your fingers over the controls with no idea of what's to come, no frame of reference for how this machine works. Gaming is so neatly categorised now, so heavily formalised in its genres and mechanics, that I find it difficult to imagine what that must have been like.
