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'Textminator' Brings Texting Excitement to the Arcade

by Terrence O'Brien on November 25, 2009 at 08:43 AM

'Textminator' Brings the Excitement of SMS to the Arcade We are but one site, with a relatively small staff (albeit one of dedicated Web addicts), so every once in a while something slips past that makes us give ourselves a collective kick in the ass. 'Textminator' managed to avoid our radar when it was announced in August, but this arcade machine from LAI Games has piqued our interest enough to go back and cover it anyway.

With proper, full-sized skee-ball machines disappearing from arcades across the country, new games have had to step in and fill our ticket-earning needs (How else are we going to get our hands on that switch-blade-comb?). One such ticket-dispensing machine is 'Textminator,' a stand-up arcade game that tests players' text messaging skills. The game has two alphanumeric keypads and asks competitors to type out words in a race against the clock, or against a human opponent. In fact, up to four cabinets can be linked together for an eight-way texting showdown. And in case you were worried that standing at an arcade machine, thumbs flying, was too strenuous, a deluxe version with a raised platform and "sit-bar" is available.

We haven't seen one of these rear its head in our local arcade, but as the annual texting championships become the Super Bowl and World Series of the constantly connected teen, we could see 'Textminator' becoming a crucial practice platform. [From: Arcade Heroes]

Tags: arcade, fun, sms, text messaging, Texting, TextMessaging, Textminator, top, weird

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