Game Master

Summerville detective holds video-game records

 BY EDWARD C. FENNELL
 The Post and Courier

Originally Published In The July 12, 2007 “Your Lowcountry” Section Of The Post and Courier Newspaper

   How appropriate is it that Blaine Locklair is the local man from Twin Galaxies?  In one of Locklair’s worlds, he’s a Summerville policeman — a soft-spoken detective and crime-scene investigator with a wife and child at home.

    In his alternate world, Locklair battles “Space Invaders” and “Pac-Man,” dodges lightsabers and careens at unbelievable speeds around California racetracks.

   Locklair has a collection of 20 arcade video games in his garage.  But he doesn’t just own video games, he owns more than a dozen world records for scoring on a game called “California Speed.”

   Locklair, 35, also recently became a volunteer feature writer and scoring judge for Twin Galaxies, an Iowa-based international publication that for 26 years has been gathering and publishing world-record scoring on pinball and video games.

   The newest edition of Twin Gal­axies lists Locklair as the holder of 12 first-place record times for driving various courses of “California Speed.” He also holds a second place and a third on other courses offered by the game.

   “His skill level is very profound,” said Walter Day, president of Twin Galaxies.

   Locklair said he knows how to divide his time between his worlds: one with his job, his wife, Angie, and their 2-year-old son, Ryan; and the other, his game world.

  “When you’re a police officer, there is no play time. But once I get off work, it is time to be a dad and a hubby, and after that, there’s time to play a game and be involved in the hobby,” he explained. Video games have been a great after-work tension reliever for Locklair. “It’s a great hobby,” he said.

   Summerville Police Capt. Jon Rogers has known Locklair for about 11 years, the same number of years that Locklair has been in law enforcement. Rogers said ev­eryone at the police department is aware of the detective’s abilities with video games and electronics.

    Locklair is the man the depart­ment turns to when it has com­puter problems.

   Day said Locklair shatters the mold when it comes to video-game scoring. He said the public’s image of scoring phenoms is of “16- and 17-year-old whiz kids who are geniuses on a supercomputer.”

  Locklair is a novelty. “He’s not a kid but a normal adult, and also a police officer and a family man,” Day said.

  Locklair said that since he’s been judging video-game scoring, he concluded most record holders are people who don’t do drugs and who drink very little or not at all, and have some college education. “They usually are very kind peo­ple, very good people,” he said.

  A graduate of James Island High School, Locklair earned an asso­ciate degree in criminal justice from Trident Technical College. He worked in the college’s public safety office and for Isle of Palms police before becoming a Sum­merville police officer four years ago.

  Locklair caught the video-game bug early in life.

  He remembers the first com­mercially distributed video game from the 1970s, a very simple form of electronic Ping-Pong game call “Pong.”

  “I started when I was about 5, when ‘Pong’ came out and you could play it on your black-and­white TV at home,” he said.

  As the phenomenon exploded, arcades popped up everywhere and were filled with eager players and watchers.

  “Arcades became a big thing for me,” Locklair said. He recalled time, and a lot of coins, spent at Wizard World, near the intersec­tion of Yeamans Hall and Remount roads in Hanahan, at Putt Putt Golf and Games on Rivers Avenue, Barrel of Fun at Northwoods Mall and Aladdin’s Castle at the former Charles Towne Square Mall.

  What made the arcades so much fun, he said, was not just the games, but watching experts play. “It was one of the defining things of that era. People could go and see other people play, not just play them­selves,” Locklair said.

  At first, Locklair was one of the kids pushing his way into the crowd to watch. But soon, he was the one playing while other kids clamored to see him.

  “That’s when I realized I was getting good,” he said.

  When Locklair began collect­ing arcade games, he “wanted the mainstays for the 1980s” and more, such as “ Pac- Man,” “ Ms. Pac- Man,” “ Centipede,” “ Star Wars” and “ Tron.”

  Locklair said it was after seeing a copy of Twin Galaxies that he real­ized he had better scores for “Cali­fornia Speed” than were listed. To get himself in the record book, he played the game while a video camera recorded the action, and sent the tape to Twin Galaxies.

  He said that becoming a writer and a judge for Twin Galaxies gives him a chance “to contribute to the hobby and to meet others who play the game. It’s great for me to be involved in this.”

 For more information, see www.twingalaxies.com.

High Scores Arcade © 2007

"Arcade and Pinball Anthology"