mndtrp

Aside from those mentioned, I played a lot of the following two:


Snow Bros


Strider

TimeandTide

I remember my dad taking me to a local arcade on the day that Donkey Kong was released. The crowd was so big around the machine I never even got a glimpse of it that day.

Used to blow a few dollars on Q-Bert at a Shopko way back when.

My mom and I would occasionally get lunch at a cafeteria on an Air Force base I lived on and I'd spend an hour or two either playing or watching other people play Dig Dug, Burger Time, Joust and Dragon's Lair.

I used to ride my bike to a local deli/newstand and pump quarter after quarter into Galaga.

Had some good--and frustrating--times playing Tron (that music!) at the AFB's youth center.

Other games I played the hell out of: Centipede, Ms. Pac-Man, and whatever that top-down spy car game was that featured oil slicks and things.

wishbone

Spy Hunter, another great arcade game.

TimeandTide

YES, that one!

kahuna

Q-Bert & Ms. Pac-Man a couple more of my favorites.

brayzie

Going to Aladdin's Castle and wandering through the maze of arcade machines as a kid was pretty awesome. I usually gravitated to the ninja games like Shadow Dancer. Ninja Gaiden though was probably my favorite. It was really hard but I remember it being really gritty and dark. You fight you're way through gang members and psychopaths in hockey masks, and as you progress the villains get more and more twisted looking and you start seeing pentagrams etched into the walls and streets.

As great as the subsequent eras of console gaming have been, they still haven't matched the experience of going to the arcade as a kid.

Oh yeah, Golden Axe II was fantastic. Played it when I was like 11, and it was like the sequel to Conan The Barbarian that we never got. Amazing graphics and action.

Aliens by Konami was another one I really liked. Captured the mood of the movie really well.

Simpson's was another game by Konami that captured the mood of the source material.

@Fumanstan
Bullwinkle's was awesome. I remember trying to save up tickets to buy the better prizes behind the register, and anxiously waiting in the waiting area and watching the old cartoons play on the TV screens.

OldBoy

i loved Lethal Enforcers!!

musick

strip malls, malls, convenience stores, restaurants .... yep I spent a lot of quarters/tokens on those arcade machines

printerati

I can't find any images of the original location (which looked like a castle and was demolished when I-595 was built), but I spent many, many hours at Grand Prix Race-O-Rama in Ft. Lauderdale when I was young. I was too young to ride the go-karts, so I spent no shortage of tokens on:

- Tron
- Galaga
- Qix
- Tempest
- Mappy
- Discs of Tron
- Centipede
- Pac-Man
- Rally-X
- Star Wars
- Punch-Out!!
- Robotron 2084
- Gyruss
- Elevator Action
- Asteroids
- Pengo

...and several others I would have to look up. Good times. I always bought the arcade collections for the consoles back when I cared about console gaming, but they were never the same.

OldBoy

We had Aladdin's Castle as one arcade in our location. There was another one too, but forgot it's name. AC was in the mall and had air hockey which i loved as well...

Shagrath

I spent a good bit of my childhood in Aladdin's Castle. Later on, we moved and there were two huge arcades (Space Station, and one right near my house named Merlin's).

Now the only machines I see/play are the ones in my office. We've got about a dozen machines, and then a few more littered across the campus (all free-play).

Obi-Wanma

I just came across this in my local paper. Popup Arcades around Detroit. 5 bucks all you can play. Thinking about checking it out:

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opi...roit/20367253/

Daryl

As a kid in the late 70's and early 80's, I spent a lot of time in arcades, but the two memories that stick out are:

1. The bowling alley that was just outside the subdivision where my school was getting Pac-Man.

2. Coming to school one day and having 2-3 kids hold court over the whole class explaining this new game with Pac-Man, but as a woman. Then convincing my mom to take me to the new Aladdin's Castle that weekend at Arborland Mall right across from the bowling alley so I could see this game myself

Somewhere in one of my banks filled with coins, I still have an Aladdin's Castle token

Draven

Tons of time in arcades as a kid. Three distinct memories stick out:

1) When Mortal Kombat first came out, we ended up taking a family vacation to Vegas and stayed at Circus Circus. Since I was way too young to gamble, I spent 3 days in the arcade playing pretty much nothing but MK against some amazing players. I remember one had placed really high in a SFII tournament. When I went back home to sleepy little Sioux City, IA I waxed the floor against everyone.

2) In middle school my friend used to get his whole allowance for the year at one time. His parents were pretty hippy-dippy and did it so he'd learn to manage his money. They were tough too...once it was gone, no more money for things like movies, fast food and games for the rest of the year. I think it was upwards of $1000 (so like $20 a week). I remember once he bought a birthday party at the arcade for just the two of us. We were there all day

Side note: He was a bastard with Dhalsim in SFII. I remember once a guy wanted to fight him for real in the parking lot after a match because he was such an asshole with that character.

3) My wife really loved Area 51. We were friends in high school but played it a lot together at movie theaters and such. I don't know why, she just always loved it.

TheBang

I recently started a new job at the Univ. of Hawaii, and have been walking past the "Game Room" in the basement of Campus Center. The room was closed all summer, and I was hoping for some stupid reason that it would open up once the school year started (it didn't, of course).

It got me thinking about arcades though, and all the memories and nostalgia from them, and lamenting the loss of that particular institution.

As I thought about it more and more, I realized just how ubiquitous video game cabinets used to be. Just thinking back, I remember playing video games in the 80's and 90's at:

Grocery stores
Discount stores
Movie theaters
Convenience stores (7-11, etc)
College student centers
Pizza places
Bars
Water parks
Ice skating rinks
Roller skating rinks
Amusement parks
Pool halls

But I miss the culture of hanging out in a dark arcade with like-minded people. Standing in line for the fighting games; the unwritten rules of decorum.

I ran across these interesting sites while googling today:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/16/37...amusement-only
http://arcadepreservation.wikia.com/...servation_Wiki

I can't believe a place like this still exists today:

http://www.nickel-cade.com/

(You pay a door fee, and then all games are a nickel)

Rob V

Dude, Wrestlefest was amazing back in the day.

My buddy and I played Yie Ar Kung Fu and Karate Champ like it was nobody's business as kids. A few years back I put together a MAME cabinet and we played those games (as well as Burgertime) until well past 2am.

Edit - around 13 years old, my neighbors dad serviced arcade machines. He had 3-5 of them in his garage at all times. Another favorite was Popeye... not sure why in retrospect.

Obi-Wanma

I have a Wrestlefest machine in my basement. It's fun, but it, along with many games of that era, loses something when your continues aren't limited to the number of quarters in your pocket.

Rob V

There was another wrestling game that didn't use WWF Superstars... it was more generic... but it was awesome too.

Edit - found it - Mat Mania

stingermck

My favorite arcade memory will always be, playing Operation Wolf at the gas station near my house. But I was really young and short, so my dad would have to hold me so I could reach the Uzi

E Unit

I miss Tempest so much. For years I wanted to buy one of the arcades of it. So many great memories of a lot of games mentioned in the above posts. My mom would drop my best friend and I off at either the mall or an arcade place near my house. She'd give us $10 each and pick us up in 4-5 hours. So many things we did as kids that I'd never allow my kids to do now. Of course, arcades would still have to exist as well, aside from the very few who indulge in the retro status. But they were fun times.

stingermck

I went to Asheville, NC recently and they have a Pinball Museum. for $13 its all you can play, all day. Half of the place was pinball machines from the 60s to 90s. The other half is all digital cabinets from Pacman and poll position up to area 51 and Street Fighter 2. Even a few meme cabinets for even more games. I played until I was exhausted.

Highly recommended if you travel near the area.
http://ashevillepinball.com/
http://www.cmt.com/shows/cmt-southbo...eo/#id=1739316

Krayzie

The Time Crisis series and Silent Scope series were my favorite. Time Crisis actually had a new release a year or so ago.

I remember playing Operation Wolf at the arcade and losing at the airplane boss because I threw a grenade and killed the hostage lol

Also remember playing a lot of Gauntlet, Simpsons, TMNT and X-Men.

Noonan

Oh yeah...I spent many hours in front of fighting game arcade machines.

Used to have my mom drop me off at a local video rental place. In the back they had a small room with a popcorn machine and few games. Spent enough time there to know all the workers by name.

And the actual arcade, which was around my whole childhood. Between Street Fighter, Tekken, Mortal Kombat 1-3, the D&D games...lets just say I spent a ton of time there. This was back when parents felt safe enough to drop their kids off at a place like that for hours at a time.

I remember the day MK3 hit. Friend and I skipped school to head to Aladdin's Castle at the mall (opened around when I started high school). Stayed there all day and actually had some people watching us later on, once we were good enough to beat the story.

Krayzie

Ah, this reminds me that I forgot about Virtua Fighter and Virtual On.

Deadman31

I remember going to roller skating rink and playing Jungle Hunt a lot.

My uncle had a warehouse full of early arcade games and pinballs. He had some kind of vending company and we used to go once a month and play for a few hours.

My parents owned a bar and they had one of those old bowling games where you slide the disc to knock the pins down.

And of course there was movie theater where we played the shit out of Ninja Turtles, X- Men etc.