The rise and fall of the arcade...

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Carlos
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The rise and fall of the arcade...

Post by Carlos »

I'm a little bored right now, so I devised this little questionare...

1. When was the first time you remembered being in an arcade and what did you first play?

2. What is your fondest arcade memory/memories?

3. Are there any arcades left in your area and if so, what's the latest game they have?


I guess I'll go first....

1. The earliest memory I have of being at an arcade was Showbiz pizza. I remember that was I was really into donkey kong, paperboy, mario bros., popeye, and some submarine game where you look in a periscope and shoot torpedoes at other ships.

2.
* I also remember my parents taking me to Dave & Busters often, and I would play the Nintendo games like Baseball
* Going to Crystal's pizza on weekends and playing Double Dragon and Duck Hunt with my dad.
* There was a local arcade called Fun Factory where I remember playing Super Mario Bros. 3 for the first time.
* The first time I saw the TMNT arcade game and all kids there fighting over who got to play.
* The first time I saw Mortal Kombat and getting scared when I saw Scorpion perform his fatality.
* Spending close to $50 in quarters at the arcade at Cesar's Palace trying to beat Wrestle War, and finally doing it to the applause of other kids there
* Having a local video game store that had a Street Fighter 2: Championship Edition machine when it first came out. It was great because not many kids knew about out it, so there were never long lines to play like there were at the arcade.
* Discovering the wonderful world of SNK fighters with Fatal Fury and Samurai Showdown 2

There's tons more, but I won't bore you anymore with that, lol

3. All that we have here is Game Works at one of the malls, but they haven't had any new games in years. I think the last new game they had was House of the Dead 4. There's also a Dave & Busters at one of the malls, and the last new game they had is the Aliens: Extermination shooter (which is tons of fun BTW). Local movie theater has a small arcade with the latest being Indiana Jones pinball. Years ago, we had an arcade full of Capcom and SNK fighters, but it couldn't compete with Tilt and went out of business. The Tilt bought all the fighters, and then sold them, and replaced them with lame dance and music games (I only say lame because half the machines were off of broken). A few months ago, we were told they were getting the fighters back along with SF4 and Tekken 6, but it never happened, and they were closed down last time I was at that mall.
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Jakenut86
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Re: The rise and fall of the arcade...

Post by Jakenut86 »

1. My earliest memory of arcades is going to the arcade that used to be here in town (Now a resturant) and playing some 2D sidescolling fighting game, cant remember the name of it.

2. My fondest memory...hmmm...I'd have to say it would be playing this motorcycle racing game and actually getting so good at it that I kept getting free plays and played for over hour on 1 credit, then getting told I had to let other people play :)

3. Theres no Arcades left in my area, but when we go visiting my girlfriends parents there is an arcade called the factory. They have some pretty good games there, the racing game, a beachhead game, and a white water rafting game among others.
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Re: The rise and fall of the arcade...

Post by Zap! »

SegaBoy wrote:I'm a little bored right now, so I devised this little questionare...

1. When was the first time you remembered being in an arcade and what did you first play?

2. What is your fondest arcade memory/memories?

3. Are there any arcades left in your area and if so, what's the latest game they have?


I guess I'll go first....

1. The earliest memory I have of being at an arcade was Showbiz pizza. I remember that was I was really into donkey kong, paperboy, mario bros., popeye, and some submarine game where you look in a periscope and shoot torpedoes at other ships.

2.
* I also remember my parents taking me to Dave & Busters often, and I would play the Nintendo games like Baseball
* Going to Crystal's pizza on weekends and playing Double Dragon and Duck Hunt with my dad.
* There was a local arcade called Fun Factory where I remember playing Super Mario Bros. 3 for the first time.
* The first time I saw the TMNT arcade game and all kids there fighting over who got to play.
* The first time I saw Mortal Kombat and getting scared when I saw Scorpion perform his fatality.
* Spending close to $50 in quarters at the arcade at Cesar's Palace trying to beat Wrestle War, and finally doing it to the applause of other kids there
* Having a local video game store that had a Street Fighter 2: Championship Edition machine when it first came out. It was great because not many kids knew about out it, so there were never long lines to play like there were at the arcade.
* Discovering the wonderful world of SNK fighters with Fatal Fury and Samurai Showdown 2

There's tons more, but I won't bore you anymore with that, lol

3. All that we have here is Game Works at one of the malls, but they haven't had any new games in years. I think the last new game they had was House of the Dead 4. There's also a Dave & Busters at one of the malls, and the last new game they had is the Aliens: Extermination shooter (which is tons of fun BTW). Local movie theater has a small arcade with the latest being Indiana Jones pinball. Years ago, we had an arcade full of Capcom and SNK fighters, but it couldn't compete with Tilt and went out of business. The Tilt bought all the fighters, and then sold them, and replaced them with lame dance and music games (I only say lame because half the machines were off of broken). A few months ago, we were told they were getting the fighters back along with SF4 and Tekken 6, but it never happened, and they were closed down last time I was at that mall.
1. It was in 1978 or 1979 in Majors dept. store. No idea what the first one was, but I remember playing a car game that had to be Sprint.

2. I ave so many memories. How ablout playing Centipede around 1982. I was around 9, and two teenage girls about 16 were in front of me. When the guy in front of them was finished, one looked at me and said to the other girl "Let him go first, he's just a kid." I ended up playing for about a half an hour on one quarter. :) This wasn't at an actual arcade, but at a mom and pop grocery store that had two or three arcades. Mr. Do! was next to it.

3. No arcades at all near me in at least 10-15 years.
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Re: The rise and fall of the arcade...

Post by Erosion_Of_Sanity »

I was born in the late 80's so it wasn't really until 1994ish that I discovered the arcade. I used to visit this amusement park with my family quite often in the summer, and I would just spend the entire day in the arcades playing games like Mortal Kombat, Terminator the Arcade Game, and various Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. There is also this place called "Bonkers" that had a huge arcade; I had my birthday there a couple of times. Mortal Kombat II was probably the game that got me hooked (to the arcade scene and MK in general :) )

I will never forget the day I walked into a local sub shop (Giovanni's) and saw that MKII arcade cabinet. I must of bugged the shit out of my mom for a good 20 minutes for two quarters lol.
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Rob
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Re: The rise and fall of the arcade...

Post by Rob »

Earliest arcade memories...

Circa 1985. My brother holding me up in the air to play Arkanoid and Galaga, as I wasn't tall enough to see the screen. Playing Ms. Pac Man at the corner store that my dad would go to. Wal Mart opens in 1987, and they had about eight arcade machines in the breezeway. ALL of the games were ones I would play endlessly depending on my money: Golden Axe, Legendary Wings, Final Fight, Bad Dudes, Altered Beast, and a couple of others I can't remember off the top of my head. The period of 1986-1990 is my golden age of arcade games.

Around 1990 we got our first dedicated, non-Showbiz Pizza arcade called Fun, Fun, Fun. It's still there today, and on the weekends the people are lined up out the door waiting to get in there. When they first opened, me and my friends would get 20 bucks off our parents and spend all Saturday there. I remember when the Simpsons arcade game came out, I'd spend all day on that machine. I went in there recently and The Simpsons arcade cab is still there, all the way in the back. It seems they've gotten away from true Arcade games, most are the "prize" machines and skee-ball rollers. I did get to play the newest House of the Dead game, but at a dollar a play it isn't as fun as it could be.

My fondest arcade moments? Probably when Ninja Turtles: The Arcade game came out. I was in a NJ arcade, visiting my aunt for the summer, and this giant arcade was a block away. I was there the first day they had the Turtles game, and I was the first kid to sink a quarter into it. One by one, I had three other kids surrounding me and we were kicking ass. It was a cool sort of camaraderie, we all introduced each other between stages and hi-fived each other amidst shouts of "rad!" and "awesome!", and when one of us was low on quarters we helped our turtle brother out with some tokens. We ended up beating that game, and we all actually ended up hanging out together for the rest of the summer. I actually cried when I had to come home, as I never got to see any of my arcade rat buddies ever again.

My other fond memory is when Lethal Enforcers came out, me and my dad shooting perps with those big black revolvers. My dad would shoot one of the innocent bystanders and giggle maniacally, and I had to explain each time he shot one he lost a "life". But he didn't care, he just wanted to shoot old people. qleft1

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Re: The rise and fall of the arcade...

Post by Jakenut86 »

Rob wrote:But he didn't care, he just wanted to shoot old people.
:laughing4: Get them old people before they can pinch your cheeks :laughing4:
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Re: The rise and fall of the arcade...

Post by Carlos »

Rob wrote:But he didn't care, he just wanted to shoot old people. qleft1
Reminds me of when I used to play Duck Hunt with my dad and he always shot the dog, lol.
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Re: The rise and fall of the arcade...

Post by hoaryhag »

I remember playing all kinds of games at the skating rink when I was a kid. Gauntlet was one of my favorites. There is a game in there that I have been trying to find out the title of for awhile cause I wanna find the pcb and play it again. It was a warrior dude fighting a bunch of huge monsters and he would morph and was riding a cat, a tiger or some such. He would jump on a monster's head with his flail and do a circle and pop the monster's head off. Man I was so young that's about all I can remember except that he was small compared to the huge monster's on the screen that were almost like the ones from the kids book Where the Wild Things Are. It was a pretty bloody game. If anyone knows what this game is please let me know, I wanna find it bad. I've even gone through a bunch of games on KLOV trying to find it, to no avail as yet.
I remember when X-Men came out, I loved that game. It was at Mr. Gatti's a really good pizza place and they had skeeball and some videogames they would change out every so often, but I think X-Men and TMNT stayed there until they closed down. Everyone would go straight to those games. We also had a big arcade in the mall called Aladdin's Castle and they had a TON of arcades, it was awesome. That has been gone for longer than I can remember. There may be a few arcades left in one of the kiddy pizza places in town I have never been to and there are a few that I don't care to play in one of the movie theaters, but for the most part the arcades have died here. :(

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Re: The rise and fall of the arcade...

Post by Carlos »

Mr. Gatti's and Aladdin's Castle. Two places I miss very much.
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Re: The rise and fall of the arcade...

Post by Darryl B. »

1. Lordy, who knows...I was a wee lad then...probably being at a game room in Houston and playing Asteroids, Space Invaders or Sea Wolf, some of the very early ones with no color!

2. I'll have to dig up an old post elsewhere and link to it...lotta stuff there!

3. Since I'm still in Houston, one of the hugest towns in the country, there's several of them around, but I don't know what's the latest and lamest (oops, what, me bitter? :P ) that they have.

EDIT: ok, here's my answer to #2. Pretty long though--look for the post of the guy named "WitchfinderG10525020", second from the bottom--but some of it's funny, like how I didn't know for the longest that I kept on dying at Joust :D
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Re: The rise and fall of the arcade...

Post by fidgedextro »

1. When was the first time you remembered being in an arcade and what did you first play?

I grew up in the Catskill Mountains resort area and since my parents worked at one of those big hotels, I literally had access to an arcade for as long as I can remember. I was born in 1963, so my earliest memories are of pinball machines, miniature bowling games, and all kinds of forgotten classics. I was there when they first wheeled in PONG, CHECKMATE, GUN FIGHT, NIGHT DRIVER, BREAKOUT... So many others. During the summer of 1978, I got a job working at the arcade and witnessed the arrival of SPACE INVADERS, which made more money per week than I did. For nearly the next 15 years (until I moved away), I had the chance to play every classic and many not-so-classic videogames.

2. What is your fondest arcade memory/memories?

Overall, just visiting pizza places and various arcades in search of new games to play. Maybe my favorite moment is when I blasted away through every screen on SPACE INVADERS until the game started over. And then I would stop with a score of 9990.

3. Are there any arcades left in your area and if so, what's the latest game they have?

I currently live in Winter Park, a city located just outside of Orlando, FL. There's a place called Rocky's Replay filled with classic videogames, pinball machines, etc. I don't pay much attention to the few new arcade games because they're usually just graphically updated variations of MORTAL COMBAT, POLE POSITION, and various sports games. I stick to classics like ROBOTRON 2084 (because this is the only place that still offers dual-joystick gameplay), MR. DO, TAPPER... Now if I can just find someplace that has Bally's ROAD RUNNER, a 1971 driving game that used a mirror and an actual three-lane racing track where you had to avoid crashing into little Matchbox-like cars. I'm sure I've lost my skills, but back when I was only 8 years old, I had that game mastered to the point where I could play indefinitely. For a brief moment in time, I was an arcade star.

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Re: The rise and fall of the arcade...

Post by Darryl B. »

fidgedextro wrote:Now if I can just find someplace that has Bally's ROAD RUNNER, a 1971 driving game that used a mirror and an actual three-lane racing track where you had to avoid crashing into little Matchbox-like cars.
Wow, that'd be monstrously hard to find nowadays...even in the previous 15 years!

Sounds like growing up was pretty damn awesome for you there!
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Re: The rise and fall of the arcade...

Post by fidgedextro »

Yes, ROAD RUNNER is a truly obscure game that I've never seen for sale anywhere. They took it out of my old aracde in 1974, and it's pretty much disappeared. But I do feel lucky to have experienced the growth of videogames from their very beginning. And while working at that hotel, I got to play the games for free. Classic gaming heaven.

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