Nice Goldberg.

I remember one afternoon some buddies and I teamed up and played TMNT from beginning to end. Good times, good times.

Around here, we have "Nickel Arcades" where you can play classic arcade games for a nickel apiece. I haven't been in a long time, but it's a lot of fun.

There's barely any arcades around here. A laundromat around here has an MVS system and they had one of the newer Metal Slugs a couple of years ago (4 or 5). Our university had some arcade cabinets in one of the commons rooms but they were a bit neglected and out of shape. The movie theatre around here has a TON of racing and shooting games, but that's it.

I have spent a decent amount on playing Derby Owner's Club. That's a great game.

For us it was TMNT and The Simpons*.

* I just loved the final boss in The Simpons arcade game... he was such a push over.

I always liked the smell of the arcade...strange I know...

I think arcades went downhill when all the games became racing and fighting games.

We have an arcade by my house called Tornado Terry's. It's mainly used for birthday partys. All of the games are set to free play. You just buy a an armband good for an hour at a time. No more quarters The other larger arcade in our area is Game Works. Its mostly the big games like House of the Dead, 6 player racing games, DDR, etc. They don't use quarters either. The game machines all have card readers. None of the old school tricks work anymore.

I miss them too Pig. One of my best memories is from my freshman year in collage. An arcade that was walking distance from my apt. had a grand opening and for one day, tokens were a nickel each. I changed $20, my spending money for the month, and played for the rest of the year off of that.

First arcade game I ever played was Samurai Showdown II. Awesome game, good times. The thing that pissed me off about fighting games in arcades was when someone would challenge you without asking you and then kick you off the machine, this happened to my sister and I was pissed off (she was just learning the SSII and trying to beat it to get the ending), I jumped in and kicked the shit out of him with Haomaru. Felt pretty good. I actually played MKII a little bit, but I could never manage to win at it as much as SS or SF.

Some of my non-gamer friends actually invited me to Dave and Busters (I was surprised) for some beers and to play games. It was pretty fun, but we mostly played multiplayer games like gun-shooters and racing games. They were too afraid to play any dancing games. Arcades do still exist but you have to dig pretty deep to find one (and the crowd is a lot different from the Street Fighter days).

You would not believe how many quarters my friends and I threw into Double Dragon in the summer of '87 (we were 13 back then). The corner gas station (that is long since gone now) had this arcade game and we spent many a summer afternoon there. Then the 7-11 down the street got Double Dragon II (the next year) and we switched to that... and developed a bad Slurpee habit to boot.

I remember the days of going to a local place called Walkers Pinball Place. I'd go there with my older brother and we'd play Jungle Hunt, Track and Field (a comb worked great for this game) and Dragons Lair among others.

Years later I used to hang out at the local 7 Eleven and play Street Fighter 2: CE. I used to whip everyone except this one guy.......beat him maybe once or twice.

Wow.....I really do miss those carefree days of my youth.

DW

\

As the manager of an arcade/family amusment center I thank you!

What a great thread!!! Keep those stories comin'!

I remember when me and my friend worked at the local comic shop we would put all the new books out, and wait for the boss to come in so we could run over to Nathan's and play some games. The good old days, all you needed was hot dog and a joystick.

I started out in gaming by tagging along with my older brothers to arcades. In an apartment building we lived in, we had a burger/hot dog joint next door that was also an arcade. They had a Pac Meal which included food and yellow quarters for games.

Later years of elementary school and middle school went downhill when the local mall arcade got bought, moved locations and become more about ticket machines than games. There were still some good ones and knowing one of the managers had its advantages when I worked at the mall in high school. I'd trade him free Subway sandwiches (my place of work) for free gaming. Mall closed at 9 p.m. and my friends, him and I would go until midnight or later some nights.

I just remembered that a cabin that we rented over the summer had a game room full of classic games. They still took quarters, that kinda pissed me off because we paid good money for that cabin. It took a few minutes but I eventually remembered some of the tricks. I was able to teach my son the Pac-man patterns that I remembered and get him hooked on Galaga. I've actually thought about buying an old Galaga game for the home.

I miss those days as well. Street Fighter II was such a phenomenon and when Champion Edition came out and you could use the same character your opponent was using as well as the bosses that was amazing. Quarters would be lined up all on the top for next.

I remember one time I had to go out and get a newspaper really quick and I went to the place with Wrestlefest, of course I had to play. I ended up getting to face the Legion of Doom on my one quarter, and I got in a bit of trouble for taking so long haha.

Another game my friends and I used to play all the time was the Dungeons and Dragons game that four people could play at once, similar in style to Golden Axe. We would always try to beat it on one quarter and we did so pretty often.

My favorite game was Samurai Shodown II. I remember one time I had like a 14 match winning streak with Kyoshiro. Making you lose your weapon if you got hit by a special was a pretty innovative gameplay mechanic for fighting games.

Those days are greatly missed.

I played this game so much as a kid my parents bought one for me. I still have it in a closet and play it once in a while. its still fun as hell.

I miss them as well. Luckily there is still one really solid local arcade, not more than 20 minutes from where I live. Also I recently discovered 2 others in areas that I frequent, so it's nice to pop in on the weekends and enjoy some arcade gaming.

I do wish there were more arcades, similiar to when I was younger. When they were in every mall, in every block, and video game machines set up in every liquor store or 7-11

Another huge arcade fan here. I hope they make a comeback someday if for no reason other than that I prefer arcade games: give me an hour of content that I can replay time and again (ideally co-op) over all the padded 20-hour adventure games and 40-hour RPG's in the world.

To really date myself...

I used to go down to a local pizza place. They had Pong and Break-out. Breakout would give me a free game once in a while so I always played it. There were some really rough looking games, that I'd play. Boot Hill, Demolition Derby, Gridiron, Depth Charge, Head On, Indian Battle.. 1977 was a good year!

Then later next door at the Long's Drug store, they got a Space Invaders machine. I was hooked. Friends and I would talk about strategy and rainbowing. Can't even remember how we came up with that. There weren't any video game mags back then. Then came Asteroids and Lunar Lander. I wasn't into Asteroids and played Lunar Lander more. Too many buttons.

When I graduated high school, we had a grad night coordinated by this big party planner, and the first part of the night consisted of what was essentially a giant carnival. There were all these different entertainments, including Gradius. Now, I used to play Gradius in the arcade for hours. So my friend and I started playing. Of course, it was free play, so we could go on and on no matter how often we died. At one point, a girl in my class came up to me and asked me to dance. I said, "Can't you see I'm playing Gradius?" And she laughed and then said, "No, really, come dance with me." And I said, "No, SERIOUSLY, I'm playing Gradius. Go away."

Now I know why I never got laid in high school.




No, the chick was actually anorexic and very unattractive. If a hot chick had asked me, I would have dropped Gradius in a hot second.

Suprmallet = teh h4rdc0r3

Don't you try to get between me and my Gradius.

Oh, man good memories in this thread! I wonder how much $ I lost from my "dibs" quarters that slipped between the crack of the joystick panel and the screen.

OK, this is strictly for my NY heads, especially the ones out in Queens and Long Island:

Remember "Our Place" and "Our Place II"? How cool was it to have or go to a brithday party there? Ahhh, memories. I can't believe I just turned 26!