It's that time again kiddies... it's storie time! And unfortunately after many many hours of searching the net for pics to help I came up a little less than short... so I'm goin to do you a favor speshal friends. I have busted out paint and made pics to help us through our journey!!






















First some background on this storie. When me and wack0 were kids we used to love a video store, but not any video store!! This was ZAPPERS!















It was a video game rental shop! It had all the systems hooked up so you could play all the new games for only 50 cents before you bought or rented it. They had em all, Sega, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega CD, and the king of them all... 3DO!!!

























We would ride our bikes for miles and miles just to get to that wonderful place of love!! Past the Seneca Mall, past The Ground Round, Past the Denny's, and past Arbys all the way to the Home Depot Plaza or whatever it's called.
















They even rented Game Boy and Game Gear games!! Plus they bought your old games from you for cash or store credit! It was amazing!!! And to top it all off there was a McDonalds in the Home Depot on the other side of the plaza! It was heaven!! We spent so many summer days there as youths just playin games and eatin food. We would go over the shelves and pick out any game... ANY game we wanted to play and we for 15 minutes we got to sit on a hard stool and play. I can still remember the first time I picked a 3DO game to play...It was "Twisted... The Game Show!"


















I picked up the very Genesis looking controller not knowing what to expect from this new unheard of system but then it world was opened to the 32-bit revolution!! The game show host was a REAL guy! Not a cartoony looking guy or an animal or something but a REALLY REAL guy!!! And not like Sega CD... this was more like a VHS tape or something!! Then after I started to play I realized this was a game for 2 players and playing a game show alone is like playing a board game alone... shit! So I asked if I could pick something else and the nice gentleman agreed. I went over and noticed something strange. Night Trap was on 3DO. After playing and loving it on Sega CD and experiencing the VHS like quality of 3DO I had to play it!! Could it look better than Sega CD?? Could it be a more clear picture and crisper sound? The answer... YES it could!!

Just look at these differences!!

Sega CD Cover Art... Ok but not to special












3DO Cover Art... Sports Bra, do I need to say anymore?
























Sega CD screenshot... Not even sure what that is???














3DO screenshot... WOW! It's like I'm watching an episode of Night Rider on TV with picture quality like that!!!!














So the guy booted the game up for me and I started to play. After about 3 minutes some lady in the store started yelling because I was playing the game she saw on the 700 club. They told her that to ever see it could cause Satan to enter her veery being and take over her soul... and the fact that I had been playing it must have meant that I was the devil incarnate!! So he had to shut it off and I had to pick again. So after a few minutes of looking I picked what became my favorite 3DO ever made!! Captain Quazar!! It's a cool shoot em up game about a space ship captain or something like that... either way it was really fun and I spent about $4 playing it. Why didn't I rent it you might ask? Well I guess I just wasn't smart enough for that.






















To be honest with you I have no idea what games wack0 played while we were there but I know he loved Zappers as much as I did. We would talk about how when we got old enough we were gonna work there and how much fun we would have doin it!! Well now wack0 is in the air farce and may never come home but I did it! I am the manager of Play-a-Game.com and I am tryin to open my own video game store in which I will use many of Zappers revolutionary ideas to make a fun and enjoyable environment for all!!!

But back to the storie at hand... They also had a there video game preview running in the doorway of the store. It had a preview that made me happy to be a Sega CD owner... Wirehead! But it wasn't the Wirehead we all came to know and love, Oh no it wasn't. This was a different Wirehead. This was a game staring the guy that played Dr. Giggles and it had a cool interface.






















The scene they showed had a guy sitting at a table at a restaurant and the waitress comes over and asks if they are ready to order. The screen freezes and 3 choices appear on the screen. 1.) Order 2.) Don't Order and 3.) Kiss. Now of course watching this video we both wanted to see "kiss" and Sega knew that because that the choice the video showed. He stood up grabbed her in his arms and kissed her right on the lips!! It was hilarious!!! The next scene showed Dr. Giggles come out and shove food into Wirehead's mouth. Again 3 choices appeared. 1.) Heave 2.) Spit and 3.) Chew. We wanted to see him spit but we got to see him chew instead. He chewed up the food and started to choke. He fell on the floor and died!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Sega had done it again! A new hit game was on the way!

After we left we rode our bikes to Home Depot where they had a McDonald walk Thru!! We went inside and got some food. Usually I had a chicken sandwich, some fries and a pop that was a mixture of all the flavors into a orangish brown color that tasted a lot like orange Pepsi... if Pepsi made such a thing. And wack0 had a burger, some chicken nuggets and an apple pie! Around the time we used to go there were doin the Monopoly game and I can still remember how happie I was when my pop had a ticket on it for a free McChicken sandwich! I put it in my pocket and vowed to use it the next time we went... I lost it 4 minutes later.














Sometimes we would bring our friend Harry with us but usually just the 2 of us went. He always wore his big goofy helmet and wanted to only look at and play Game Boy games... to this day I think he was just a little to fixated on the Green screen bamma jamma. They were such good times!! I miss those days...













Zappers was owned by Video Factory which got bought out by Blockbuster so it closed soon after but I for one will never forget the fun times we had there playin games and eatin food!!

I am goin to leave you with some 3DO pics to try to help you realize just how sweet it was!!!