Celebrity Byte

Shia LeBeouf rolls up on the Hollywood scene at a premiere in Los Angeles. Photo by Charbonneau.

When did you first get into gaming?

Nintendo and Genesis was what I started on. Sonic was big for me. Super Mario was great. I didn't really get past those games for a while because we didn't have cash to buy games until I was 13. Madden was out at that point. Nintendo 64 had just come out. And then things started coming out like Rainbow Six on PlayStation.

So where did you do a lot of your gaming?

At the arcades. It was all about Killer Instinct. If you knew the 54-hit combo, you were the sh%!. That was it. I was big into Mortal Kombat. I loved fighting games. When Tekken came out, that took over everything for me. At the arcade near my house, I could have spent $50 and played from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m.

Even if I wasn't in the movie I'd want to be in this game because I'm a game nerd and a Transformers nerd... and a nerd in general.

Shia LaBouf as Sam Witwicky in Transformers: The Game.

By that point you could have bought the home version, right?

It was just fun to be at the arcades. We'd have air hockey tournaments. We'd all go into Killer Instinct mode. When the consoles started getting bigger, they shut the arcade down because it stopped making money. It sucked when the little arcades started going away. That was like our little congregation. That's where we always used to go.

Did you ever play the console versions of these games?

Yeah but it's a different vibe than at the arcade. I got them when they came out on home consoles. But you don't have the cheat codes on the side, and you're not standing next to the other person. It's an experience playing at the arcade. It's way different at home.

Continue to Page 2 >>