does anyone still go to arcades?
 

the best arcades are in gameworks or dave'nbusters. everywhere else is dead. anyone miss the arcade scene back in the days?

GameWorks and Dave n Busters suck in my opinion unless your favorite arcade game is Daytona USA. Though the fully stocked bars are hot. There was an arcade in the Dallas area (still kind of is, but too far for me to frequent) that rocked so hard. They specialized in Neo Geo and REAL arcade games. I rocked my Twinkle Star Sprites skills at the arcade throwing down any who would challenge, played Dungeons & Dragons Shadow Over Mysteria all the time. PLANET HARRIERS. Watched the INSANE Capcom vs. SNK 2 tournaments, rocked some Bobmerman, some delicious shooters such as Dimahoo, Giga Wing, Mars Matrix, Gun Bird 2, 1944 Loop Master. Oh man. *tears up*

I forgot to mention the arcades in Vancouver when I was in Canada. Total old school stuff much like the above arcade with full beer service, signs outside stating "No Children Allowed." I played some beautiful games there most notable was Bubble Symphony the insanely awesome sequel to Bubble Bobble. Old school. Loved it.

Speaking of old school arcades, there's an arcade auction tomorrow morning in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area which rules. You get to spend the first couple of hours playing all the games and most of them are old school hotness, along with the occasional surprise. Last time we went there was this bad ass game called "Dolphin Blue" that was essentially "Metal Slug" jacked up on steroids (and finally off of 16-bit hardware). Awesome game.

They have nickel arcades around here where you can play old old games. It's pretty cool, but I haven't been for years.

is it still any good? i'm going to be in Dallas for a week and will need some stuff to do to kill time

Who/What/When/How?

And where's the Arcade you mentioned in your previous post. Are you old enough to have enjoyed Alladin's Castle at Red Bird Mall? Now THAT was an Arcade.

There's an "arcade" at Irving Mall, but it's mostly fighters and music games. Worth spending a couple of bucks now and then.

There's an arcade in old-town Fullerton here in Orange County, adjacent to a coffee-shop that has only old-school arcade games. It's '80s retro-chic, and has games from 1980 - 1988, or so. They play '80s music and have silly '80s posters up. It's kinda cool to sneak into when you go to the coffee shop to check out a band or something.

Tomorrow morning in Mesquite. Giant warehouse with aisles of arcade games.
You have to get there between 8am-10ma for the free play session. Here's a map:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp...homesubmit.y=0

I was talking about the Irving Mall arcade, they were SO much better when they were in North Dallas, I actually haven't been there in a long time. I think the last time I went there I was trying to check if a couple of arcade boards I had would work in his cabinets.

Probably still worth checking out if you're not too far from Irving.

We've got a free arcade at work. The lobby's got a few fighters (Mortal Kombat II, Guilty Gear 2, SF: The Movie), a Neo Geo /w a couple games on it that get rotated (Metal Slug X, Strikers 19XX, Samurai Showdown, and a couple others), NFL Blitz/NBA on NBC, Sega Tennis, and quite a few more. In the employee breakroom, we've got a SF III: Third Strike machine that's in constant use, as well as a Disks of Tron, and a cabinet that we can put a console (Dreamcast/Gamecube) and run whatever on.

Do you work for a game company or something?

I went to a Korean Arcade while I was in L.A. a few weeks ago.

They had this crazy game where you were babies competing in all sorts of weird track-and-field-esque events.

... and they had the recquired "DDR" game. ;)

is killer instinct still in arcades anywhere? i've seen the original sf2 in dnb.

Goldberg - where in Korean town was the arcade? I wanna check that out.

I work at Full Sail, which is a school that has a bachelor's in Game Design & Development. I'm one of the teachers in the game program, teaching C++.

My favorite arcade is Arcade Infinity in Rowland Heights, Ca. They have every single hot fighting game there, a HUGE SFIII 3rd Strike set up, and even tons of Japanese Imports. For a long time they even had Ikaruga! The latest game i've enjoying there right now is a Shooter that's almost like a 1-on-1 arena fighter (much like Virtual On).

One of the local Cinemark's has that in the lobby. Weird stuff. That's pretty much the only time I play arcades anymore, is in the lobby of theaters when I'm waiting for a movie to start.

Last time I was down in Orlando, I went to DisneyQuest at Downtown Disney. 5 stories - old and new arcade games plus some virtual reality stuff. Basically just pay a $30 entrance fee and you can play all you want all day long.

Pretty cool place, and I imagine it's pretty hard to beat...but I have to admit, I only lasted about two hours before I left. Just can't get much interest from arcade games anymore. Spent most of my time playing in the pinball area. Still love pinball.

Scandia in Rohnert Park, California fufills my fighting game need when I am up north. The place is a family fun center type of place, with all your regular things expected from a place like that, such as minature golf, batting cages and so on. Their arcade is actually not to shabby. It's a mix of old games and newer more expensive games such as DDR, Intial D and so on. They have stuff Sunset Riders, a Street Fighter Anniversary cabinet, Marvel Vs. Capcom 1 and 2, and SNK machine with Twinkle Star Sprites, X-Men Children of the Atom, and much more. Lots of good stuff :)

Though I don't go there often, the Metreon in San Francisco houses an arcade I go to now and then. They are a bit overpriced, and you have to spend 5 dollars minimum to get one of those card things they make you get at Dave and Busters/Gameworks. I only go there to play Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, and a couple of other Capcom and SNK games.

There is a place nearby called Starbase, that I have heard good things about, but I have yet to visit.

I stopped going years ago but I used to go all the time.

Today you cannot find a pinball machine. All the video games are some type of shooter or fighter and what is left is skeeball for tickets.

I remember wasting hours in real arcades!

I was staying at the Raddison Whilshire (corner of Wilshire and Normandie) downtown, and we went to eat at a little restaurant and the arcade was in that same "strip mall" area... about two blocks east of the hotel on Wilshire (northeast corner).

The restaurant we went to had a great pork cutlet for $8. ;)

I still dream of the arcade in Tron. Every time I watch that movie I wish I could be in there with a pocket full of quarters...

As a teen, my brother got a Tron arcade machine, the tank game, for $20 from a second hand store. We kept in the garage. It only worked for about a year, then it died.

Well, to be honest here in PR, the only arcade that gets a lot of credit for being good is the one and only: Time Out. I think that's OK and some games are good, my fav. is this one (can't remember the name) something about wings of steal or something like that, anyway, but it's like a cockpit and you go on missions....it's pretty good. But there's this one machine that has the Classic PAC-MAN. I LOVE that game, but I never make the Score Board.

I think the problem for arcades is that other than the oddball machines like those ski simulators, arcade machines don't have anything people don't have on their home consoles.

I still haven't been to Gameworks.

The only place I know of anymore with arcades is Golf N Stuff...they have a sweet F-Zero GX machine

I still go to play pinball. Can't really get excited about arcade machines anymore, but I'll always love pinball.

I don't. I was a big arcade dweller during my fighting game phase, but I found that I no longer have the time/energy to devote to improving my Tekken skillz.

After they started charging $1 or more for one play of a game, I decided I was no longer interested.

Amen! However I do remember paying a buck to play the Jurassic Park sit-down game at my little cousins birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese many moons ago. That game was awesome.

Count me in as someone else who will stop at an arcade only if they have pinball. Man i love pins.

I will go to a arcade (or a truckstop) to play Derby Owers Club, which is a horse racing simulator. As well, when Im in Vegas, we take the kids to the arcade at the Excallibur. They love it there.

I stopped a long time ago
games got too expensive

I find the arcades around here get around that psychological boundary with the "credit card" theory: they have cards you "charge" and it's much easier to swipe a buck away than it is to put a buck in quarters into a machine.

Of course, the bigger arcades like Dave and Busters have maily sit down or lightgun machines that are difficult to emulate at home. The rest of the stuff, my PS2 can beat. Although I would love to have an Fzero GX machine, if only to be able to use the memory card feature...

Still go.

DDR pads in my price range suck, so gotta hit the real thing.

I got to Castles and Coasters here in Phx. 2 tokens for DDR, (they had a fan there last time we went) and a whole row of Pinball: including LOTR, Star Wars, Simpsons, Terminator, etc. Upstairs has all the classics. TRON! Joust, Galaga, Asteroids, Defender, Missle Command, etc.

No Tempest tho. :(

I
 

would love to go to arcades...if any still existed. All of the following cynical opinions are just that, cynical opinions of mine....no flames please as none of the comments is intended to be construed as trolling or the like...

The only thing that thrills me about the Dave & Busters/Jillians/ESPNZONE, etc concept is the fact they serve beer/booze & food. Being able to drink and play is a cool concept.

That being said, the games are too expensive, the charge-card gimmick is a price-desensitizing scam, and, hey, I'm sorry, but I'm interested in games that can last longer then 30 seconds and don't necessarily involve me paddling in some canoe, or playing race-horse-jockey. Granted, I do think the 'motion-sensing' boxing and police-officer-shooter are kinda cool...but then there is the cost factor.

IMHO nowadays, mall arcades generally have no variety, and the machines are poorly maintained. If a game is actually functional, it tends to be either a Tekken XXXMCLM or Virtua-Soul-Struggle clone, or some Go-nuts-with-a-broken-plastic-gun shooter clone.

Pinball is the one saving grace in a lot of these places.

I would love it if there was an actual arcade with a bunch of old-school games. I could easily see myself dropping lots o' cash into old machines.

Now that I have a real job and cash (unlike when I was younger), it would be an awesome feeling to just blow a roll or two of quarters if for no other reason than I can now and couldn't back in the day.

Regardless, I could see myself easily dropping rolls of quarters into Tron, Tron Discs (environmental), Star Wars, Battlezone, Omega Race, Tempest, Moon Cresta, Spy Hunter, Mr Do!, Gyruss, Hogan's Alley, Karate Champ, Yi-Ar Kung Fu, ahh man I better stop 'cause I could just keep going on and on.

sigh....

i've still never been to a better arcade than Funspot in New Hampshire. used to go up there every year as a kid. unbelievable. 3 floors. tons of classics, plus mini-golf, bowling, ski-ball, etc.. actually made a point to drive up there for a day a couple years ago. i highly recommend it to anyone if you're ever remotely in the area..

I play a few games at the local Funstation from time to time, but the old arcade magic is long gone. Happily, my wife is on board with my plan to finally build a MAME cabinet.

No. Haven't been in years.

Hell, I RARELY played even when I was little and you could play Street Fighter II for 25-50 cents. Much less now when newer games a $1 or more.

I just never got into it. Would much rather pay a one time fee and game at home. Especially now that console graphics are equal to arcade games in most cases. At least when I was young the arcades blew away the NES/SNES graphics.

Re: does anyone still go to arcades?
 

Heading out to Funspot tomorrow for the 2009 International Classic Arcade and Pinball Tournament with my brother. Really looking forward to this, not so much for the competition, although we're both going to sign up for it, but just for a nice atmosphere of 4 days of nothing but video games, some brews and a good time.