Some Games Should Stay in the Past

My super problematic childhood faves

A small pile of games made by American Laser Games, on both DVD and DOS CD-ROM formats. From top to bottom I’ve arranged them roughly in order of modern quality. Photo taken by the author.

In the early nineties, my parents ran a small business in the city of Reno, Nevada. As such, I spent a bunch of time as a kid hanging out with them while they worked. My patience with this was rewarded with frequent trips to casino-adjacent arcades that were meant to impress tourists.

It was an era when video game technology advancements still mostly happened inside large bespoke arcade hardware, but my favorite memorable “wow” moment from this time was more of a weird technology throwback.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw a large-format Mad Dog McCree machine standing outside a random 24–hour coffee shop at the Circus Circus hotel/casino. Its 40-inch CRT shocked my tiny 6 year old brain with its real actors and digitized scenery, its live action video laserdisc images standing in stark contrast to the pixel art games that it loomed over.

Laserdisc gaming had its first boom in the early 80’s thanks to Dragon’s Lair, and then a resurgence in the early 90’s thanks to Mad Dog’s success — and the many different home CD-ROM formats that could host ports of these video-heavy games.

Mad Dog McCree is a very simple game. You use a light gun to have shootouts with different guys in cowboy hats, who then crumple awkwardly to…