Castlevania Dungeon Forums
The Castlevania Dungeon Forums => Hardcore Gaming 101 => Topic started by: Neobelmont on June 26, 2012, 11:21:35 PM
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I never really had the chance to fully have the arcade experience at it's height I would say that I was a maybe a bit too young, but what do I remember from my experience are somethings like how when you get challenged in a fighting game it's either do or die (in a sense of loosing your quarters). Meeting new people and that there were times when I would go to an arcade and meet some of my friends out of no where and we would just have fun playing fighting games, and there was something there for everyone. And while we may have online gaming that sense of meeting new people or even meeting your friends out of no where made it really fun like "sup let's play". Around where I live I have to take a bus to go to the arcade and well it's just not that lively especially compared to the ones in japan no bang.
Yeah I want to have THE arcade experience but that seem like nonsense :(
just look at this
Akihabara - Japan - Arcades! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZBabJAenIU#)
does anyone else feel the same way?
And what about the experiences that any of you had I just want to hear how arcades were back in it's prime or if anyone went to japan and played at an arcade there and felt a difference(it really does look different from the ones in the USA very bright).
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I miss when arcades had good games. None of them in my city have anything but the typical stuff (like pinball and skiball), flight simulators, or shoddy on-rails shooters.
I remember I'd go to the local arcade by my house every day just to play Dynamite Cop...
But yeah, I miss that much. I wasn't a big arcade gamer ever, though. DC was the exception, since I couldn't find the Dreamcast port anywhere.
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I miss when arcades had good games. None of them in my city have anything but the typical stuff (like pinball and skiball), flight simulators, or shoddy on-rails shooters.
I remember I'd go to the local arcade by my house every day just to play Dynamite Cop...
But yeah, I miss that much. I wasn't a big arcade gamer ever, though. DC was the exception, since I couldn't find the Dreamcast port anywhere.
When I went to an arcade I had alot of fun I recall my father and I having a blast playing what was it called house of the dead or something I believe a zombie game and a hard game too. Again I never really had the "Arcade experience", but I had fun when I did ( It's just that I went when it was starting to become lackluster). Just so many games to choose from.
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House of the Dead is the only zombie arcade shooter I can think of.
Yeah, I didn't get into arcade gaming til the industry starting dying out a little.
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I live right down the street from the Family Fun arcade, but I get my ass kicked so hard in the few games I know how to play. Can't deny that it's cool seeing those glorious HD cabinets though.
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I'd love to see arcades gain some real popularity again, but it looks like Dave and Buster's is the biggest it'll get around my way. I can only play so many shooting and driving games until I get bored there, and there are only a few classic machines (Pac-Man, Centipede, etc.), and absolutely nothing from the mid to late 80s and early 90s.
The only place I really go anymore is to a pizza place downtown. I guess they're in business with a guy who has about 15 or so games from his own collection, and it's $5 all-you-can-play...some games get rotated out occasionally. It's nice, and I like to patronize stuff like this, but I miss the full-blown arcade experience. I guess the guy had originally put about 40 machines in another place nearby during the city's summer festival thing last year, but was forced to take them out due to not securing proper licensing or something. I wished I would've been there for that. :(
I missed the golden age of arcades, but I was around to experience the beat-em-up and fighting game crazes during the 80s and 90s. I miss the whole arcade experience for sure.
Also, for anyone who hasn't seen this:
Luna City Arcade (Higher Res) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccshQxff7Ps#ws)
...and another vid with a brief walkthrough (which actually looked really similar to the first one but is actually a different place I guess):
Private Video Arcade 3, Gilbert , AZ, classic 80's video games (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhZGuU6SQxI#ws)
If I was rich, I'd love to try doing the same thing.
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House of the Dead is the only zombie arcade shooter I can think of.
There's also Konami's Evil Night (1998, released in some territories as Hell Night, supposedly), which IMO is a much better shooter than any of the HOTD games. Shame there's no console port.
And yeah, I miss the arcades—more specifically I miss Circus Pizza (some locations called Circus Circus), which was a Minnesota chain that bought old Rock-afire Explosion bands originally used in ShowBiz Pizza Place and ran during the '90s. Awesome pizza and arcade games and loads of memories with extended family. Suddenly the locations all disappeared when I was around 11 or 12 save for this one really dumpy location which lacked the animatronic band (though it had bumper cars), but eventually that faded, too.
Apparently some of the places were converted into Chuck E. Cheese's. Fucking hate that place, always have. Shitty arcade games and an environment that caters more to toddlers than anything else. They're still the same way or at least were ten years ago when I visited one. The only adult-oriented arcades like Dave & Buster's and Gameworks don't offer much beyond ticket-winning games and Big Butt Fuck Hunter. Both places have (had?) HOTD4, though, which was awesome, and I spent lots of money at both places on that game alone. Not a single classic joystick-and-button arcade game, though; no beat 'em ups, no nothin'. Occasionally a fighting game in some dumpy mall arcade (those are probably all gone by now), but not much.
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I miss the days when you could walk into a laundromat and find a Yie Ar Kung Fu, a Bubbles (Williams games), or a Sega Tubro machine.
I miss the days when you could go to a pool hall aimed at teens and find a Xevious, an Arkanoid, a Quartet, a Millipede, a Time Pilot, or a few other machines I can no longer remember (time's cruel like that).
I miss the days of Mortal Kombat versus Street Fighter II, the Lethal Enforcer 1 and 2 cabs (separate), Namco's good 80's and early 90's titles like Pac Man, Dig Dug, Mappy, Rolling Thunder, Pac-Mania, Pac-Land, Marvel Land, all the while at Aladdin's Castle TV's were on with 80's music videos blasting loudly (did take away from the game experience as you couldn't hear the machines). Running into crap titles like Time Killers, playing as the Ninja Turtles (I finally found a cab recently locally a shop has of Turtles in Time), being wowed by Pit Fighter the first time you saw it only to realize it isn't that great. Playing a Sunset Riders cab out in Austin, Texas awhile back got me remember this cab sitting next to both Lethal Enforcers machines, great times had. Going to the mall when UMK3's crowds had died down so I could spend a few hours lost in the game.
Or even going to a small store a few miles from my home and playing Joust or Asteroids when I was a teen, yeah I love the arcade scene. I bought all the Midway, Capcom, Taito, and both Konami arcade comps, along with the SNK stuff (still need more of those) so that the arcade could somehow live with me in spirit, it is also a reason I collect console games too, I am making up for a childhood I didn't quite get to live when I was a child (new games were expensive, and we weren't rich), I just wish I could've find a Gradius title in arcades, or even more stuff from Konami as their arcade titles in those days never failed to produce quality.
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I miss em too. One of the best parts of my life was when I worked at an arcade. Me and 2 of my friends worked at the arcade in our local mall in its hayday. It was always busy and the mall did really well that meant there was always ppl in the arcade. It was great. We hung out at an arcade literally open to close and usually one of us was gettin paid to do it lol. Workin there I could put stuff on freeplay on play whatever I wanted. Thats how I got so good at Tekken Tag and Street Fighter 3 Third Strike.
I really miss those simpler times. It really was one of the best times in my life
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I don't believe I've ever had the full-blown arcade experience. We use to have several in town but I don't think they're there anymore. And the last time I went to an arcade was almost ten years ago. But yeah it sounds like the arcade scene here in the west is dying out while they continue to be popular in places like Japan. Oh well...everything has it's golden age for a time then disappears. It must be a 'times' thing. Everything changes with the times.
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I live right down the street from the Family Fun arcade, but I get my ass kicked so hard in the few games I know how to play. Can't deny that it's cool seeing those glorious HD cabinets though.
No way the family fun arcade in california next to that sushi place and car wash and Ihop in Granada hills ? :o very competitive place I'll tell you what. Had fun with blazblus CS and KoF :)
Also glad I am not the only one who feels this way :) what a year or two can do man...
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Growing up in the 80's I can remember my first experience with arcade games like Green Beret, Bubble Bobble, Outrun, Ghost N Goblins... and even Haunted Castle which I only ever saw maybe twice in the arcades. The 90's were also great with the influx of Capcom and Neo Geo games, and I remember piling in plenty of 20ps for TMNT and The Punisher arcade games, as well as Aliens Vs Predator.
Too bad those days will never come again..... oh wait, I forgot - that's what MAME is for! :P
But seriously, yeah, it was awesome going into a video game parlour and finding all these great games. The new console generation doesn't click with me as much as the arcade experience did - you were actually relatively active in arcades, whereas you're mostly on the couch with your PS3/XBOX360/etc...
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There's supposedly a digicade bar/restaurant/whatever in or near Tacoma,WA. I might go check it out some day. Bunch of pinball museums that let you play pinball games for free or for a small donation.
But screw the arcade. I miss the times when 7-11 had cabinets. Used to hang out at the 7-11 after school in 9th grade playing World Heroes 2 or Cabal. Man those were the good old days.
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There's supposedly a digicade bar/restaurant/whatever in or near Tacoma,WA. I might go check it out some day. Bunch of pinball museums that let you play pinball games for free or for a small donation.
But screw the arcade. I miss the times when 7-11 had cabinets. Used to hang out at the 7-11 after school in 9th grade playing World Heroes 2 or Cabal. Man those were the good old days.
I've seen some video of places like that and I'd gladly pay $10 to be able to run around for 4 or 5 hours and free play decades of classic pinball machines. With the internet the video game experience gets more and more social like it used to be in the arcade, and great arcade style games are being created and recreated all the time.
But let's face it, unless you're ungodly super rich there's only so many pinball machines you could ever fit in your home, and even a cheap one will likely run you around $1000. And there's just no duplicating the feel of a physical cabinet no matter how good game physics get.
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There's supposedly a digicade bar/restaurant/whatever in or near Tacoma,WA. I might go check it out some day. Bunch of pinball museums that let you play pinball games for free or for a small donation.
But screw the arcade. I miss the times when 7-11 had cabinets. Used to hang out at the 7-11 after school in 9th grade playing World Heroes 2 or Cabal. Man those were the good old days.
Not so much the 7-11 but the laundrymats capcom vs street fighter and tekken tag. Wonder if the place is still even there
Also the mini store things I remember after school some of my friends and I would just put in quarters playing marvel vs capcom 2. Now adays the machines just rot there wonder if I could buy them for cheap :rollseyes: . the other machine was either a Capcom vs snk or a neo-geo thing maybe they switched them I cannot remember. It is right next to the gamestop I go to but, years do pass by I think I was in middle school when we played there I think I was only 14 or 15.
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I found out about a nearby arcade that would be fun to check out. Right now they mostly just have '80s games; apparently '90s ones are harder to come by due to a lot of closing down arcades dumping their machines and that. I also got this discouraging information from them:
"Right now we are looking for more fighting games for Rusty Quarters, but they are very very hard to come by, especailly Capcom games. They actually have a thing called a suicide battery in their boards. if they're not changed out every 5 years, when the voltage drops under 2V, the battery goes bad, erasing all game data from the board... we learned this the hard way."
Bummer. What the hell?
Anyway, maybe they'll get some baaaaaadaaass beat 'em ups someday. Think I'll go pay a visit. One of the owners posts on a nostalgia-centered website and he's big into horror movies, so that'd be fun to chat with somebody who knows his stuff somewhere other than the Internet.
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Capcom CPS2 boards came with suicide batteries, folks are always having to phoenix the boards all the time, but not sure if they are putting in better batteries or not. Capcom was very foolish to put these batteries in their boards to begin with.
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No way the family fun arcade in california next to that sushi place and car wash and Ihop in Granada hills ? :o very competitive place I'll tell you what. Had fun with blazblus CS and KoF :)
Also glad I am not the only one who feels this way :) what a year or two can do man...
That's the one! It'd be a damn long walk, but by car it's maybe five minutes away.
Sometime I should fire up those games again. I had a blast with practicing KoFXIII.
Capcom CPS2 boards came with suicide batteries, folks are always having to phoenix the boards all the time, but not sure if they are putting in better batteries or not. Capcom was very foolish to put these batteries in their boards to begin with.
Oy shit, that's tragic. It's like a premonition of today's Crapcom.
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That's the one! It'd be a damn long walk, but by car it's maybe five minutes away.
Sometime I should fire up those games again. I had a blast with practicing KoFXIII.
Oy shit, that's tragic. It's like a premonition of today's Crapcom.
That is freaken crazy :o :D :D :D Hecka small world we live in huh never thought a dungeonite would go to the same arcade as me ;D I have to take the bus in order to get there.
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There is a place here called retro arcade. 10 bones for a wristband which gets you in from 11am to 1am. All the classic cabinets and they even play 80s music. Its rather sweet, but the feeling of community just isn't there like it was back then.
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Unfortunately I was only born in 1986 so I'm just a bit too young to remember the legit arcade experience my brother and cousins do. I have a vague memories of stumbling into arcades, but when you're a prepubescent teen going against someone who is like 16-18 they're going to absolutely MAUL you in something like Tekken, where I was still struggling with the idea that there was more to the game than tapping buttons.
The closest I've come was, when my family took us to Disney years ago, they had some place where it was a ~$15 fee to get in, but they had just about every single fu***** arcade I've ever seen and they were on free-play. Mario bros, Pac-man, all the other classics, all the Tekken series, the Soul series (including the brand-new SC2), beat'em-ups like Double Dragon and the Turtles games, even a shit-ton of light-gun shooters. My family had to drag me out of that place. They couldn't understand how I could have sat there playing arcades like that, but what do you really expect from a gamer when you show them Eden :P
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A friend of mine once told me about a huge arcade he hit up at Disney World. I'd love to go there someday, but it would feel kinda pathetic to travel to the opposite end of the country and pay all that money to sit in an arcade room for several hours, lol. Once I'm there, I won't wanna do anything else. :p
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A friend of mine once told me about a huge arcade he hit up at Disney World. I'd love to go there someday, but it would feel kinda pathetic to travel to the opposite end of the country and pay all that money to sit in an arcade room for several hours, lol. Once I'm there, I won't wanna do anything else. :p
Your buddy is talking about the same place I remember. I *think* it was--aw f*** it lemme just look it up right now. Yeah that's Disneyquest. And it was (last time I was there) about $15 per person, but ALL the arcades were on free-play. And considering the pass lasted until closing time, you save a helluva lot more than $15. Again though, we went before I was even in college, so before you decide to hop over I'd call them and ask a few questions.
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Yeah, this was like 2003 or '04 that my friend went. Would suck if it's gone. But he related how amazing it was that you only pay an entrance fee and then everything's on free play. Sounds like Gaming Mecca to me.
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Yeah, this was like 2003 or '04 that my friend went. Would suck if it's gone. But he related how amazing it was that you only pay an entrance fee and then everything's on free play. Sounds like Gaming Mecca to me.
That's probably around the same time I went, since I graduated HS in '05. Hell who knows; I might have played your friend XD
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I haven't been there in a while, but I vividly remember either Enchanted Village or Wild Waves theme parks in Poulsbo, Washington had a giant arcade. And the Seattle Fun Forest had an arcade too, but now that place (the whole Seattle Fun Forest) is gone. Nostalgia...
My dad has Commando. He used to have Ms. Pacman, Robotron, and Bagman, but they broke. He has a couple pinball machines. Used to have a bunch but again, they broke. Or something. One of his buddies is a pinball technician.
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I regret never having gone to the one arcade that existed within a reasonable distance from me.
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I am thinking of buying a joystick for my fighting games and arcade games and one day I want to be able to make my own arcade cabinet.
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@NeoBelmont hell yeah rock that bro!, you may wanna check out this site.
http://www.mameroom.com/home.asp (http://www.mameroom.com/home.asp)
I found it a while back. I think these guys are out of Ohio...but not sure. Anyways, yeah i got one from here,custom built. Very sweet if you ask me! YOu really can go balls to the walls customizing it. I mean their are two player sit down, 1 player, 4 player cabs, all sorts of goodies. I have a 4 player one and though a bit pricy totally kick ass and worth it imo. I also considered making another one at some point to host shooter or racing games. There's a gallery on the bottom right of the page....wayyyy at that bottom. YOu should check out some of those to get ideas on what you'd want. Plus you can customize controls any which way. I thought at the time their side art was limited so i bought my banner(the picture at teh top of the arcade)elswhere.
Here's one i wouldn't mind building if i had the $$$:
(http://www.mameroom.com/examples/DougMartin2.jpg)
I think he did a nice job. Well i do have a 4 player one but so far neglected to get bezel(the picture that goes around the screen), or side art(art on both lef and right side of the cab). I actually made my own side art cuz i didn't like what i'd seen online at the time in terms of choices. I probably should get it made at some point. Hurting in the wallet though.
When i get to it i can show a pic of my cade. Also i can tell you a thing or two about front ends,wiimote's as lightguns, and various other goodies to enhance your cade if you build one. Just pm me if you interested?
Anyways here's the side art i never got around bing made into side art. But at least the options are always their. 8)
I did these collagues 5 yrs ago or so from various pics from the web, back when me and my sisters boyfriend built the 'cade!
(http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/x337/Laslunder/FinalSideArt2of2Final-Done.jpg)
(http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/x337/Laslunder/FinalSideArt1of2Final-Done.jpg)
I should probably post 2 pinballs machines screenshots my dad's owned since i was a kid. 9ball(has a wizard on it) and Raven(some female rambo girl!!). Sadly they have some issues from sitting out in our garage too long. But i think there's totally fixable. all the parts are still in tact though.
Sorry bout the big picture sizes. Also you can shift right to left to view the full picture, otherwise some of them get cut off.
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Here in Houston we used to have Planet Zero Arcade and that had Castlevania the Arcade.
But everything changed when their land lord attacked...its closed now.
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total bummer their dude. Yeah there is an arcade down the street from me(the only one withing a 50 mile radius probably. It has that and minigolf ,go karts,and such. Nice place. I took my neice their once or twice.Yeah i hate to say it but the emergence(and imo anti-social non well being) of online games like CoD,halo,wow and any of that is kinda helping kill the arcades. People should get out more and do stuff. Going to arcades was more fun imo than sitting around playing mulitplayer online games. Sorry but in that regards gaming never got so lame. I don't get it??? arcades are great. Ya know their beatable in about a half hour if your good, and there's plenty of day to do stuff. But these kids today with their online 24/7 Wow and crap like that, i can't see the point at all. These people should stop glueing themselves to that sort of thing. I too am like alot of people an wonder what the hell happened to most of the arcade places. They were far more fun imo.
And the castlevania arcade with Trevor Belmont and you use the whip. Yeah it's kick ass. My neice friggin' loves it. They had it at New England six flags last year. I haven't been their this year though.
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@NeoBelmont hell yeah rock that bro!, you may wanna check out this site.
http://www.mameroom.com/home.asp (http://www.mameroom.com/home.asp)
I found it a while back. I think these guys are out of Ohio...but not sure. Anyways, yeah i got one from here,custom built. Very sweet if you ask me! YOu really can go balls to the walls customizing it. I mean their are two player sit down, 1 player, 4 player cabs, all sorts of goodies. I have a 4 player one and though a bit pricy totally kick ass and worth it imo. I also considered making another one at some point to host shooter or racing games. There's a gallery on the bottom right of the page....wayyyy at that bottom. YOu should check out some of those to get ideas on what you'd want. Plus you can customize controls any which way. I thought at the time their side art was limited so i bought my banner(the picture at teh top of the arcade)elswhere.
Here's one i wouldn't mind building if i had the $$$:
(http://www.mameroom.com/examples/DougMartin2.jpg)
I think he did a nice job. Well i do have a 4 player one but so far neglected to get bezel(the picture that goes around the screen), or side art(art on both lef and right side of the cab). I actually made my own side art cuz i didn't like what i'd seen online at the time in terms of choices. I probably should get it made at some point. Hurting in the wallet though.
When i get to it i can show a pic of my cade. Also i can tell you a thing or two about front ends,wiimote's as lightguns, and various other goodies to enhance your cade if you build one. Just pm me if you interested?
Anyways here's the side art i never got around bing made into side art. But at least the options are always their. 8)
I did these collagues 5 yrs ago or so from various pics from the web, back when me and my sisters boyfriend built the 'cade!
(http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/x337/Laslunder/FinalSideArt2of2Final-Done.jpg)
(http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/x337/Laslunder/FinalSideArt1of2Final-Done.jpg)
I should probably post 2 pinballs machines screenshots my dad's owned since i was a kid. 9ball(has a wizard on it) and Raven(some female rambo girl!!). Sadly they have some issues from sitting out in our garage too long. But i think there's totally fixable. all the parts are still in tact though.
Sorry bout the big picture sizes. Also you can shift right to left to view the full picture, otherwise some of them get cut off.
Heck yeah :D
Except it would be very expensive, not only that I do not have the room for one, yet again one day...one day when I have a house it can't be that hard right?
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Sadly I didn't get to experience a whole lot of older arcade games being born in 1991, but most of the arcade games I ended up loving were from the 90's. The ones that stick out the most to me weren't even in an arcade, but were in pizza places. One pizza place has a Pac-Man machine to this day that I play every time I go in there. The other pizza place was actually a Pizza Hut. They had a Neo Geo machine there with Bust-A-Move and Blue's Journey. Thanks to that pizza hut, I love Neo Geo arcade games. Especially Bust-A-Move. Bust-A-Move is my favorite puzzle game, and it's honestly best played on an arcade machine. I was extremely sad when the Pizza Hut didn't have it anymore.
However, there was an arcade that used to be in our small crappy mall. They had a DDR MAX machine and Marvel Super Heros vs Street Fighter. The best place to play arcade games in my city was at this miniature golfing place that was part golf, part arcade. Back in it's good days, it had Neo Geo machines, Virtual-On (I love freaking Virtual-On), Tekken Tag Tornament, Gauntlet Dark Legacy, Ms. Pacman, Galaga, and a DDR machine. They always had a new DDR machine up until Extreme 2 (They started with MAX2), then they got some crappy off-brand DDR machine that isn't really DDR. Then they got rid of the Virtual-On machines, Neo Geo machines, and the Tekken machine. I was done with that place after they took away EVERYTHING I liked except for the Galaga and Ms. Pacman machine, which is still there the last time I checked.
Ever since then, I've been to a Dave and Buster's around a year ago. They actually had a MAME-like machine there that had tons of classic games on it. They also had a classic Centipede game. Other than that, most of the games at Dave and Buster's were things I just wasn't interested in. I need to find a good arcade with classic stuff. :'(
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There's nothing like a good trackball to play Centipede or Millipide, though I prefer a control-pad for Missile Command. A short, completely politically incorrect little arcade game from the early 80s you should play if you get the chance is "Jungle Hunt". Check out the cgr review of the Atari2600 version, which I really need to get at some point Classic Game Room HD - JUNGLE HUNT for Atari 2600 review (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMwZ9zZNaPY#) the 2600 is still such a fun machine if you like mindless old school arcadey type games.
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Jungle Hunt can be easily obtained for the PS2 courtesy of Taito Legends, it and Zoo Keeper, another classic arcade game.
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Jungle Hunt can be easily obtained for the PS2 courtesy of Taito Legends, it and Zoo Keeper, another classic arcade game.
Sweet, I might pick that up. I beat the game in one of those multiple arcade machines a while back. Got the top score (I guess it wasn't very popular with the other players) and followed the traditional arcade rules by putting "ASS" for the initials iirc.
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One of my most shameful memories was putting like $12 into an Area 51 arcade and putting "FUK" as the high-score many moons ago when I was still in grade-school. The owner was so pissed he actually reset and then wiped out the machine's memory.
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One of my most shameful memories was putting like $12 into an Area 51 arcade and putting "FUK" as the high-score many moons ago when I was still in grade-school. The owner was so pissed he actually reset and then wiped out the machine's memory.
Ah yes, the days when you could only enter 3 letters for your highscore was the bane of many an arcade owner, I'm sure. I remember Bubble Bobble even had a cheat if you put in SEX as your highscore then started a new game, you got a powerup item straight off on the first level of your new game - SEX got displayed as ??! though.
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Some Taito games will change the word SEX to H_!, something to do with pervert in Japanese.
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Silverwood Theme Park in Idaho has an arcade. Old school stuff.
Mario Bros. (not Super)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Frogger
Galaxian (I think)
Rolling Thunder
Contra
Bunch of stuff I can't remember, as well as those ticket vending games, like Skeeball. There's one Bop-A-Mole arcade game by Taito (or was it Namco?) there too. And a bunch of modern pinball machines, like Addams Family, Indiana Jones, Roller Coaster Tycoon (if you didn't smile at that one, you're braindead), Arabian Nights, and some others.
My buddy was a nice guy, played that skeeball racing game. A kid was waiting to play it late at night, he wanted to win a medium-sized toy but that required 5 players. I didn't want to play cuz I'm a selfish ass, but I convinced one of my other buddies to join. Another kid joined and the one kid's grandpa joined in, so they got 5 total. The race started, the first buddy kicked everyone's ass. He stood up, turned to the first kid, said "pick which one you want", told the attendant to let the kid have the prize, then walked away. I'd have been like, "You want which prize? Ok, give me that one. ... HAHA SUCKER I WON! THANKS FOR THE PRIZE! MWEHEEHEEHEE! .... .... Don't cry! Here, I was just joking! ... ... Fucking kid stole my prize."
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There's also Konami's Evil Night (1998, released in some territories as Hell Night, supposedly), which IMO is a much better shooter than any of the HOTD games. Shame there's no console port.
And yeah, I miss the arcades—more specifically I miss Circus Pizza (some locations called Circus Circus), which was a Minnesota chain that bought old Rock-afire Explosion bands originally used in ShowBiz Pizza Place and ran during the '90s. Awesome pizza and arcade games and loads of memories with extended family. Suddenly the locations all disappeared when I was around 11 or 12 save for this one really dumpy location which lacked the animatronic band (though it had bumper cars), but eventually that faded, too.
Apparently some of the places were converted into Chuck E. Cheese's. Fucking hate that place, always have. Shitty arcade games and an environment that caters more to toddlers than anything else. They're still the same way or at least were ten years ago when I visited one. The only adult-oriented arcades like Dave & Buster's and Gameworks don't offer much beyond ticket-winning games and Big Butt Fuck Hunter. Both places have (had?) HOTD4, though, which was awesome, and I spent lots of money at both places on that game alone. Not a single classic joystick-and-button arcade game, though; no beat 'em ups, no nothin'. Occasionally a fighting game in some dumpy mall arcade (those are probably all gone by now), but not much.
Damn I miss all the arcades around my house. While I don't mind Chuck E. Cheese's(they actually had a better game selection back in the 80s than they do, well, now, which like nothing with the exception of DDR and maybe a few riding type games). Showbiz Pizza was where it was at, though. Damn, I remember the one I used to go to had a pretty damn nice selection of games(mind you, it was the mid-80s), though I recall they even had a mini-theater that play old school Popeye cartoons and Three Stooges shorts. As a kid that loved all that, it was fucking A! Not to mention Rock-afire Explosion tend to cover some cool songs(I think they even did A Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin). There was also another one in Whittier(went a few times for birthday parties, and it was close to my grandparent's house) called Captain Andy's River Towne. I recall it having some good games.
A few malls I used to love going to as a kid had their own arcades, which have now since vanished completely(they closed in the early 00s, and oddly enough, both their names were "Tilt"). I think Redondo Beach still has their Fun Factory, and if anybody has ever went there, is a big warehouse filled with arcade game and such. I hear it still open(my sister went recently and said it nearly looks the same since the last time we all went, which was sometime in the late 90s). My parents used to take me there ever since I was a kid, and it pretty much looked the same. During the 90s, in particular, I recall everytime my family would go there, I'd always run to the X-Men arcade game(y'know, the beat-em-up one based on the Pryde of the X-Men cartoon where you could play as Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus or Dazzler). I also believe I first played Super Street Fighter II over there. Crazy memories!
I'm not sure about this one, but I last time I went to Ontario Mills Mall, there was a pretty keen arcade there(lots of old school arcade games).
But screw the arcade. I miss the times when 7-11 had cabinets. Used to hang out at the 7-11 after school in 9th grade playing World Heroes 2 or Cabal. Man those were the good old days.
Damn, 7-11 back in the day, must've been 87, I remember getting a slurpee and VIVIDLY remember the three arcade games they had, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Chinese Heroes and Alien Syndrome.
Not so much the 7-11 but the laundrymats capcom vs street fighter and tekken tag. Wonder if the place is still even there
Also the mini store things I remember after school some of my friends and I would just put in quarters playing marvel vs capcom 2. Now adays the machines just rot there wonder if I could buy them for cheap :rollseyes: . the other machine was either a Capcom vs snk or a neo-geo thing maybe they switched them I cannot remember. It is right next to the gamestop I go to but, years do pass by I think I was in middle school when we played there I think I was only 14 or 15.
Damn, you're making me recall some of my memories. There were two laundromats my mom used to take me to when we lived in Bakersfield. One was in a shopping area a few stores down from a Pic' N Save and K-Mart(back in the day when they used to have their own little restaurants inside them) and also remember in the parking lot there was a Bob's Big Boy. That laundromat had two cabinets, one was Ms Pac-Man with Galaga(you switch between the two via a button), and the other was Centipede. There was another laundromat we'd SOMETIMES go to that had the game Phoenix. I also remember fondly the swapmeet we'd go to had a trailer filled with arcade games. Recall some that I never really saw or heard of since then. There were some pretty famous games like Phoenix(yeah, too), and Tempest, but other ones like Kangaroo and Ladybug.
Talking about swapmeets, some used to have interesting selections. During the 90s, I remember one of the swap meets I went to had this game I, for some reason was fixated on. It was called DJ Boy. Lookin up pictures of it on the internet now, it's kinda a goofy beat-em-up title.
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Sadly I didn't get to experience a whole lot of older arcade games being born in 1991.
Even worst, my dad ever said "Why pay to play in a arcade if you have a video-game? So no, I dont will give you that money" sounding like Julius from Everybody Hates Chris, so I played very few times in a real arcade, but I like them and their nostalgia, yeah, I really miss them, plenty of good games and all :-\
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Even worst, my dad ever said "Why pay to play in a arcade if you have a video-game? So no, I dont will give you that money" sounding like Julius from Everybody Hates Chris, so I played very few times in a real arcade, but I like them and their nostalgia, yeah, I really miss them, plenty of good games and all :-\
I agree somewhat, though going to an arcade, especially back in it's golden age, was magical. Something about all the bleeping arcade musical sounds all in unison, and the sounds of bucks being exchanged for quarters, buttons being pressed with fury and joysticks being jerked around(LOL, you know what I mean), it's magic. Especially when the arcade is full with young people. It's a world of it's own.
I think one of the allures with home consoles back in the 80s was that, "Wow, we can now play arcade games.... AT HOME!". And gaming at home IS fun(I'm not complaining, because it IS EXTREMELY enjoyable), but being among other gamers, out in the open, in a city of cabinets, maybe with the scent of pizza in the air or the ocean's salty breeze blowing in from the boardwalk, it was soooo cool. I'm glad I, at least, got to experience that whole scene.
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With these new futuristic videogames with cameras that sends your motions to the game and all, they could create a game that you control your avatar with movements and can play games with the gamepad, like a "game inside another game", I think that in 5 years or less that can become reality and the videogames can come with that pre-installed, like that PSN room thing.
Thinking about that now, its sounds similar to Matrix xD
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Speaking of that, I remember the Amiga title Gloom Deluxe. The level Wheel of Death (you won't remember it if you played only the Gloom97 SE because that particular level was cut) contained a secret room in which you could win an extra life if you approached an arcade machine and won a game of Defender.
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Well, I do kind of miss playing Virtua Fighter and Street Fighter 2 in the arcades. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game was pretty fun too imo. House of the Dead and Marvel vs Capcom 2 were probably the last arcade games I played (and it was always a blast to play MvC2 at the time).
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Bunch of stuff I can't remember, as well as those ticket vending games, like Skeeball.
For some reason one of my most favorite ticket-vending games was this one where you had smack crocodiles as they shuffled forward out of their protective little cave. The crocodiles would taunt you, yell out "ouch!" when you bopped them, and would get super-pissed if you did well (in reality it was a bonus round) and try to swarm out.
Josh Whacking Alligators (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_krfKIA_mM#)
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Went to "Barcade" last week for a friend's birthday.
A neat retro bar in Jersey City, NJ.
I walked in, and that 'musty arcade musk' fragrance is still there. You know, that mix of wood and circuit board? It's totally there, as are about two to three dozen machines playing retro titles (mostly 80's stuff, though I think the most modern game was either Punch-Out!!! or Rampage).
So nice a feeling, that was... :D
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SNK is my favorite company, so I've always been drawn to arcades. I miss the atmosphere of the '90s, and arcades aren't exactly the same as they once were. (If you ask me, I first blame internet-influenced personalities, followed by EVO.)
I still find nostalgia in the arcade cabinet alcoves of pizza buffets and the like, though. ;)