Show Notes: "I'll be back...Again, and again, and again"

T2: The Arcade Game for Sega Genesis may have been a dulled-down version of the arcade experience, but it is still very telling of society and culture in the early 1990s

Back in 1991 and 1992, Terminator 2: Judgement Day was a pop culture force to be reckoned with. T2 broke box office records and won awards, pioneered computer effects in movie-making and tells an incredible story. It was also masterfully marketed, sweeping across the interests of a rather wide audience, from teenagers watching Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 in a Guns N Roses music video to younger kids collecting and playing with the action figures.

And of course there was the videogames. Each home gaming platform had a Terminator 2 game, some sort of scroll-screen game that basically follows the scenes of the movie, but didn’t really stand apart from other action games. But one mark of a true 90s youth is the tale of when they first set eyes on the T2 shooting game in their local arcade. Maybe it was the design of the cabinet or the realistic graphics, sounds and gun kickback, but playing that game was intense to say the least.

TJ joined me to talk T2 at Banded Brewing in Biddeford, Maine a few weeks ago, but we focused on the Sega Genesis version of the arcade hit, which honestly didn’t pack the same punch as the cabinet version. However, it still stands as a noticeable landmark on 1990s pop culture horizon.

Paid subscribers get early access to Part 2 of my T2 conversation with TJ.