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I grew up being left alone in malls and family funplexes with an arcade always close at hand so it's a part of gaming culture that is near and dear to me but I'm curious to know if anyone else had similar experiences of losing weekly allowances to to get to the next stage of Capcom's 1942, or play through six-man X-Men the Arcade Game or hell even doing a little ski ball and turning in tickets for cheap prizes you could have bought at half the price it took to earn the proper amount of tickets?
I'm from the 80s, of course I did.
So did I. From about 4th-8th grade, we'd have a class trip to Enchanted Castle every year. It was such a blast.
Would sometimes go to Showbiz Pizza/Chuck E. Cheese w/ my cousins, where my Uncle would drink a pitcher of beer while we ran around playing games.
There were some places in my old neighborhood as well. Not as big or varied as Enchanted Castle/Showbiz/CEC, but they had some great games as well.
I'd usually play an arcade game at either the Pizza Hut, Walmart, or the theater. I can remember playing Mega Man, Area 51, Gauntlet Legends, one of the old X-Men games, and Crazy Taxi. I always loved the racing games in particular because it came with a car seat and steering wheel.
In norway, like once in an actual arcade. I didn't grow up in a town that had one, and the closest town/city big enough to have one was like 4 hours away. I usually play on any stray arcade machine I find in various obscure locations.
In Japan, I went to arcade halls like every other day. I crushed some swedish guy in soul calibur 3 there.
There was a Cyber Station in the mall near me I used to spend almost every day in -- it was awesome. :D
There was a whack-a-mole game I used to cheat in, the X-Men and Simpsons arcade games I blew too many quarters in, a T2: The Arcade Game machine I was terribad at, MK 1-3 machines, hmmm . . . there were several racing games I never bothered to try too, which is too bad thinking about it now. There was a lot more stuff, but I don't remember the other machines that well.
OH!
There were Metal Slug 2 and Raiden II machines too! Those weren't in the arcade, but in the mini-arcade Wal-Mart had in the entryway. Those were awesome! :D
The question alone makes me feel old.
Yes, I've played in arcades. Chuck E. Cheeses are actually pretty nice around here, actually. Well maintained machines for a quarter each... most arcades are way too expensive these days. I haven't been to Nickel Nickel in a decade or so, but that place was pretty great.
Of course I played in arcades before. There was one at the mall which had some good games, but sadly, like many others, it disappeared.
We have a Gatti Town, which is basically a Chuck E. Cheese for all age groups and also they have bumper cars and the bumper cars can spin in place and they were awesome. When I was in the eighth grade for our graduation we had a lock-in party where everyone got $20 in credits and the bumper cars were free all day and I was in heaven.
I used to always play in the Pizza Street arcade as a kid. We had a lot of soccer parties there. They didn't have much there, but they did have Metal Slug for a while, which was fun.
Chuck E. Cheese was also something I went to occasionally for other people's birthdays. I always played a Ninja Turtles game there.
There's also a Cool Crest by my house where I used to play DDR in middle school. It was a sorta big arcade, but didn't have very many games that interested me strangely enough. I always just went there for mini golf.
Nowadays, I sometimes go to Power Play, which is a huge arcade that has lots of fantastic arcade cabinets both new and old. I need to go there again soon.
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Originally Posted by Pike
+1. I remember quite liking the Simpsons arcade game. One of the few licensed video games I remember fondly. Turtles in Time was p. good as well.
I also like playing Street Fighter II & Mortal Kombat in the arcades, even though I could never get used to doing the moves w/ a joystick.
Those games were awesome. I never got to play them at the arcade, though. Just the home console versions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Colonel Angus
Pizza Hut was always a great place for cool arcade games like The Simpsons, TMNT, or X-Men. When I was in high school there was a mall that had a pretty big arcade. I spent as much time there as I could playing all sorts of things, like Gauntlet. Also the horror shooter games. Two friends and I used to own those games, after putting a $20 in the change machine and swapping out every time someone died.
The Simpsons, x-men, avengers, street fighter 2, mortal kombat... These are what gobbled every quarter I could find. Our mall had an arcade called Pocket Change and my mom would drop us off there for a couple hours and go shopping.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pike
Heck yes I did! My hometown had an arcade that was open year round. It is probably still around but last I went they got rid of a few games and that was two years ago. Recently I've been to barcade that has all the retro games you could ever want. There's two barcades in NYC.
One of my earliest gaming memories was playing Kung Fu on an arcade machine in Spain when I was five. This machine was in the hotel lounge and was popular as hell at the time. Literally, anyone who played would have a crowd of people come over and watch to see how they did. I remember being particularly poor at it but was in awe of some of the other players. I was very happy when my older self completed the NES version of it quite a few years later.
Other crackers I played on Arcade was Ghouls and Ghosts, Street Fighter II (obvs), Operation Wolf, Time Crisis. I will occasionally indulge my nostalgia if I'm around arcades these days but it's very rare. Home consoles now are so powerful there really doesn't seem much point.
Happy times though.
Hell yeah I did. I am old enough where I can think back to a time where it was easy to find an arcade, not even counting places like Chuck E. Cheese's (back in my day it was called Showbiz Pizza)! Anyway, there was a mall that is actually close to where I live now. It's been closed and transformed into a strip of normal stores for years now, but they had a killer arcade back when I was in my late single digit ages/early double digit ages.
My main game there was The Simpsons Arcade game. I loved the hell out of that game. During the peak of the Terminator 2 craze, I played the hell out of the light gun game, as well. Of course they had all the popular fighting games and some obscure games, as well. My great grandmother used to take me there all the time. Sorry if I am just kind of rambling and sound disjointed, but I haven't thought of that arcade in years. Man, what a good time.
You used to be able to find a Pac-Man machine pretty much anywhere.
Those were some good, good times.
I grew up around a lot of arcades, being from Columbus, Ohio. :jess:
I can think of at least 15 that existed just in Columbus alone. Now all of them are gone except the one downtown that has like 50 arcade machines there. The laundromats have some too. One down the street has MK3, Tekken 2, Daytona USA, and some others. The laundromat in Central Point still has the SF2 arcade machine after 20 years!
Cedar Point has an arcade too, but that one is 2 hours away. They actually have a 6-player X-Men arcade machine there. I play it every time I go. I think KGB (used to be Sega GameWorks) is still around too, but I have never actually been there.
Arcades were my first introduction to Capcom's games. Westland was my arcade of choice because they had SF2, Super SF2, and SF3: New Generation. Along with many others. Time Out had some Cap stuff too, but got rid of all of it in favor of Namco games (Namco owned Time Out). Then the Time Out at Eastland got torn down and replaced with emergency doors. That really made me sad. Then Westland Mall started going into severe disrepair (a new mall opened up 8 miles from there), and most of the machines in the arcade there were in terrible shape. I think Super SF2 was the only one that still had a somewhat usable stick......for the player 2 side, anyway. Then a couple months later, the machines were cleared out and the arcade was closed for good.
Oh, another really good arcade I visited was the one at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. Mo-Cap Boxing, Mace: The Dark Age, and Soulcalibur II in the same arcade? Hahahahahaha......haha....... :love:
Does anyone remember the table Pac-Man games? I think Donkey Kong was like that, too.
I played Dungeons And Dragons - Shadow Over Mystara when I was a tiny kiddo in arcade! I could clear it in one playthrough without dying! Also did some Street Fighters and King of Fighters! :bigsmile:
I missed those good old days where kids will gather there and have a good time rather than trolling the internet and worshipping another troll off YouTube. :(
Played in an arcade recently. smurfen Dave & Buster's, bud!
Canada still has Arcade!!??
There's an arcade here in Wellington NZ but I haven't been, it's always full of youths and they scare me :(
Youths nowadays are scary. They get into fight easily and take pics/videos of you to shame you on the internet. :(
When I was a youth, the only fight I get into is inside Street Fighter and what happens in the Arcade stays in the Arcade. It does not goes to the internet for judgment. :bigsmile:
Genuinely an insightful and important critique of the state of our societies these days.Quote:
Originally Posted by Christmas