Anyone who grew up with a controller in his sweaty little hands had at least one moment when a video game touched him emotionally. For some people, it was Sephiroth turning your girlfriend into a shishkabob. For others, it was Snake visiting Arlington Cemetery. But my most mind-blowing gaming experience was when I beat the Double Dragon arcade machine.

Actually, scratch that. I finished it; I don’t think I really beat it.

It was my freshman year of college. One rainy Saturday afternoon, my roommate Joe and I were contemplating the possibility of doing some actual work. Instead, we headed to Cutler’s Records, which had a row of classic arcade machines in the back. Our plan was to use only three dollars in quarters to win Double Dragon (and possibly pick up the new Britney Spears album while we were there).

We watched as the lovely Marian was gut-punched and dragged away by the Black Warriors. Then a garage opened and our two protagonists emerged: Billy and Jimmy, karate masters with tempers as fiery as their mullets. Joe and I cracked our knuckles and proceeded to crack dozens of digital skulls. The fighting raged through the city streets, a factory, a forest, and finally the headquarters of the street gang, which appeared to be some sort of Pagan temple.

Joe and I weren’t particularly adept, and the quarters balancing on the screen started to disappear at an alarming rate. But finally, we entered a room and saw Marian chained to the wall. At this point, we were low on health and cheering each other on loudly enough to scare everyone out of the World Music section of the store, which was probably just as well. A couple of jump kicks later, the last bad guy hit the floor and disappeared. We’d won.

Then, we saw this…