Your arcade stories? (Old & new)

[Naniyue]

I went to pick up a pizza tonight, and found out that the places' old Donkey Kong cabinet had its guts replaced with one of those great multicades! Guess where I'm going after work.

I've been in a bit of an old arcade mood lately, so this was great timing. And then I figured those of us here could share their stories, new and old.

Here's an old one:
As a small child, we used to go this one flea market, and every, every time, I'd head for the little eatery with the Make Trax arcade game. What's worth telling about this is that the game was ALWAYS there, up until our last visit before they closed the market down, when I was an adult. Talk about a happy tradition!

Anyway, share your stories! I'd like to hear them!

[Matt]

To this day my most vivid memory of a family trip to Reno was the Aliens versus Predator beat-'em-up.

What I spent at the old UBC Student Union Building arcade could'd probably paid someone's tuition for a semester 15 years before then. (and oh my was that 15 years ago from now already)

The DDR machines there were practically a nightclub of their own. (as I half-heartedly observed from time to time from the light-gun corner)

There was this kid back in eighth grade whom I'd early on tagged as one of those big dumb jock kids I wanted nothing to do with. Ran into him at the Area 51 machine in the mall one weekend and we both played. It was a surreal experience blasting aliens and evil soldiers side by side with someone like that and I think I learned something really important that day.

Playing Dora in Golden Axe 2 (which became far more of a conscious decision than, say, Pastel in Twinbee who was always player 2) was probably a formative experience in how I understood gender and designer versus player gaming choices, though it didn't really come back to mind until much later when I started running into more dudes on Battle.net who played as rogue rather than warrior or mage.

[Kinsie]

I went to pick up a pizza tonight, and found out that the places' old Donkey Kong cabinet had its guts replaced with one of those great multicades!

Pretty sure throwing out an original PCB and replacing it with one of those commercial MAME ripoffs is legally considered sacrilege in several countries.

Now, if you really wanna have multiple games on one cabinet, there's really only one solution.

[Naniyue]

Heh, I remember a TG-16 one of those!

I loved using Dora's hind kick on bosses!

Yeah, long ago I had been made fun of a couple of times for choosing to play as a female character. Doesn't really happen any more, though.

Being a proud nerd myself, that jock thing must have really been surreal!

I used to frequent a bowling alley with two large game rooms, with many games inside those enormous flat screen TV cabinets, complete with benches and LOOUUUDDDD speakers!! It was with one of those that I was exposed to the first Samurai Shodown!

Most episodes of Game Center CX have a section where they visit some old arcade or game themed place in Japan. NA-TSU-KA-SHII!!!!!!

I swear the Neo Geo is still the only game system to date where the graphics and sound of every arcade and home version (except maybe region blocked blood color) were the same! Yeah, I know, same basic hardware. I'd love to see that happen again!

[Naniyue]

Remember seeing a game that you liked that finally dropped from 50c to a quarter?

[Dr_Cosmobyte]

Recently, when i was at college, there was a machine just outside on a Dinner/Restaurant of some sorts. I usually played lots of Mortal Kombat 3, but they recently closed the place.

My home town was small and the arcades, somehow, died soon in there. The only time of my life i really spent at arcades happened when i moved to another city.

[Sgt. Shivers]

I went to pick up a pizza tonight, and found out that the places' old Donkey Kong cabinet had its guts replaced with one of those great multicades!

If the cabinet and hardware were original that sucks dude!

We don't really have arcades but most movie theaters have arcade machines in them. Unfortunately a lot of them are disappearing and getting replaced with cheap crane games. At least one of them still has their original Daytona USA machine!

[Nevander]

I used to go to this skating rink in town where I live. It kicked ass. They had pizza, cool music, and best of all: some awesome arcade games. Among the games they had were some of the Cruis'n games; namely Cruis'n World. I'd go there just to play that game. Got pretty good at it too, but it still didn't help me get girls since they were all skating and I can't skate.

I think it's run-down and abandoned now. RIP memories.

[Naniyue]

GAA1992 : Well, at least you got to spend some time in them! Arcades were pretty much on the decline even just before the turn of the century. Heck, the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) had an arcade exhibit back in 1998/1999, and it felt nostalgic even then!

Sgt. Shivers : Not as many movie theaters left around here. Those that still stand have the same boring games.

Nevander: GOD do I remember those skating rinks! There was one near us in the mid Eighties. My sister would go to skate, I'd go to play games! It was the first place I saw the original Street Fighter with the two huge pressure-sensitive buttons.

Personally, I don't mind the multicade at all!

There actually is one existing fun center a few miles from me. They have both new and old games, and even a few pinball machines! I was so excited when I discovered it.

[Naniyue]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chasing_G ... the_Arcade

[R4L]

My girlfriend and I just went to Pennsylvania last summer and we stopped at one of those "bar & games" kinda places, like Dave & Busters, and lo and behold was a cabinet for Dragon's Lair. I've only played it on emulators, so playing the real quarter-crunching deal was fantastic. I forgot just how hard that game really is without save states, and I could only imagine the frustration a kid back then would have went through when that game cleaned them out of their allowance money.

[Naniyue]

Congratulations for having the "arcade experience" with Dragon's Lair! Now imagine that all you ever knew up to 1984 was Atari 2600 and arcade games like Pac Man, Dig Dug, and Time Pilot, and you'll know how many of us felt when we first laid eyes on the game.

I've seen ads for Dave & Busters, but I'm inclined to stick with traditional arcades and fun centers. . . or pizzerias . . .

[R4L]

Yeah, they aren't very great. The only good thing about the one we went to was that there wasn't a lot of people there. I wish they had Space Ace too. I have yet to see that cabinet in person.

Also, anyone ever see the Nintendo Vs. cabinets? One of the local skating rinks around my area had two of these Vs. machines. One was Super Mario Bros. and one was Excitebike I believe.

[wildweasel]

Also, anyone ever see the Nintendo Vs. cabinets? One of the local skating rinks around my area had two of these Vs. machines. One was Super Mario Bros. and one was Excitebike I believe.

I think some collection in Portland has a few - I didn't see them at Ground Kontrol, but they keep showing up at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. I was playing The Goonies on one of them until one of the buttons quit functioning. They were the "red tent" sit-down cabinets.

[DoomRater]

Someone listed one of those licensed Midway 12 in 1 arcade machines that were sold at Target on Craigslist for $100. I went and scooped it up thinking even if I wasn't satisfied with the actual machine I could gut it and put in a MAME arcade later.

My experience getting it was already super shaky. I was so anxious I ended up running down to try to get it right away even though it was threatening to rain. I needed a truck, so my fiance's dad had to drive the truck and bring tiedowns- and I was tempted to try and take it without thinking about the tiedowns! After we got there it became much more clear what kind of time I was in for- it's an emulation station with a CRT TV inside, and shelving space under the console. Too short for a grown man but too tall for a young kid. No coin operation. Emulation included a version of 3 player Rampage even though there were only two controllers, ensuring no one ever plays Ralph. Still, I came to buy an arcade machine, so I fork over $100 (which I needed to pay back to my future dad in law by splitting wood) even though I'm no longer 100% sold on it.

Once we transported it back and got it up into the upstairs of the garage, I needed a way to power it. I was offered a happy little extension cord. With this one cord I power everything up there, one device at a time. Long story short, I own an arcade machine that I'm still considering gutting at some point down the road when I'm no longer happy playing Root Beer Tapper and whatever else licensed stuff was on there, and maybe figuring out if there's a way to add more ROMs or dump the contents or otherwise transplant the contents somewhere else while I upgrade it.

Edit: almost forgot the guy I was buying this from had an X-Men arcade machine shell that he put his older computer inside of to turn into a MAME arcade. I would have been sad if the boards had worked. He seemed to be much more interested in collecting and restoring pinball machines and had quite a few vintage pieces in great condition. I'm just happy to have some stand up arcade machine in the gaming area of my section of the garage.