What were arcades like? I've never been in one. We

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Hedonistic paradises

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>>3581801
I always found them loud and obnoxious, but I grew up in the country and don't like a lot of city shit anyways.

A defender machine in a roadside diner on the other hand? Yes please!

>>3581801
Pricey.

In contrast, Raine was free.

Some had dick holes in the cabinet for a nice little BJ during play. Glorious times.

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>>3582648
Those were coin returns. And now I know why the coins would sometimes get stuck.

>>3581801
I was pretty young when I wandered into an Aladdin's Castle arcade at a local (now long since gone) mall. It was fucking magical. Too bad I had no money.

Went to a thrown together arcade at a county fair one summer soon aftet. They had it setup in a tent in part of a parking lot. I also had no money that day but while bugging a repair man on what he was doing, he gave me a dollar to go away. Ended up blowing it playing Toki:Going Apespit. Arcades were pretty much gone soon after that.

They were nice. Large dark rooms, dimly lit by the glowing screens of each machine.
A few quarters/tokens to play something you couldn't at home sometimes, the thrill of doing really well and having people crowd around in awe, people showing up and dropping in a coin and either joining you or challenging you.
Arcades were great.

>>3581801
There were/are many kinds of arcades.

>>3581864
I liked arcades but in the 70s and 80's you could play pretty much everything you wanted except overpriced gimmick games at a diner. Every pizza joint was 1/4 arcade anyway.

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Arcades were fucking scary places man. If you were a kid you had to grow up real quick. Someone pulled a knife on me for beating his ass in Fatal Fury. A group of older girls grabbed my dick and ass while I was playing Samurai Shodown. I was offered to buy drugs multiple times. Older guys threatened me so I'd give them money... If you wanted to play the latest and coolest shit, that's where you went tho. Mario on the NES back home couldn't really compare to something like GROWL or Space Gun.

>>3582774
>A group of older girls grabbed my dick and ass while I was playing Samurai Shodown
Sounds like you had a damn good time and lived in the ghetto.

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>at mall with mom in the 90's
>mommmm can I play in the arcade
>fine I guess, but you can only have 1 dollar
>mfw one game of Time Crisis 2 costs a whole dollar
>she probably thought I was gonna play 4 games of Pac-Man or Galaga with that dollar
>my 7 year old face when

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>that sad little kid staring at the attract mode because he has no money to play
>that kid was me

To this day the smell of stale cigarette smoke mingling with sweat reminds me of mortal kombat 2

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>local mom n pop pizza place had Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, Cruisn' USA, Virtua Fighter, and Killer Instinct in the back corner of the restaurant back in the day
>now they have Big Buck Hunter, Golden Tee, and a claw game instead

THEY TOLD ME THE FUTURE WAS GONNA BE COOL!

>at a hotel for some kids birthday pool party
>fuck swimming I'm gonna play Area 51
>game is out of order, repairman is busy fixing it
>aw man
>repairman sees me disappointed
>hey kiddo don't worry I'm almost done fixing it.
>finishes repairing the cabinet
>pushes the coin counter thing a few times to give me a bunch of free credits
>smiles and says have fun kid

thank you Mr. 90's Coinop Repairman!!!

official soundtrack of 90's arcades
https://youtu.be/Y1WlBBVPMJo

>>3582848
>not HELP ME HELP HELP BANG BANG BANG

>>3581801
I remember me and about 20 other kids standing around in awe watching this guy in his 20s absolutely destroy all comers in MK 2 when it came out and the level of violence was shocking.

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>>3581801
They won't be missed. Most were full of horrible games with noisy attract modes blending together (that usually had better console ports, i might add) and only a few really made good money. They were also dusty as fuck and usually run by total creeps. Cabinets are best by the handful.

Arcades are great. Grew up in arcades. Worked in one for a year (it closed, of course, combination of people breaking shit on purpose and stingy corporate overlords), and I try to go out to one every now and then, but its been a few years.

There is something magical about an arcade, nothing like it.

I don't like how people tend to think of it as something that "stopped", like "the arcade era" is gone. There are many arcade cabinets released every year that follow the classic design philosophy.

There is a Round 1 thats 3 hours from me, I've heard those are pretty amazing and have machines in great condition. Maybe I'll head out to one next year.

http://www.round1usa.com/arcade/

>>3581801
like a dave and busters except more fun

>>3581801
I only experienced 90s arcades, so they were filled with beat-em-ups and fighting games, pretty much everything I ever wanted. I remember beating SFA2 on one token and being pretty hyped about that.

If I ever buy a cabinet it'll either be MK2 or any mid-90s Capcom fighter.

>>3582840
I wonder where he is now. Dead in a gutter? Alive in a gutter? A youtube celebrity (in a gutter)?

>>3582889
in prison for abducting a girl and proceeding to gutter

>>3582869
Nice, I also worked at an arcade for about a year before they closed due to poor business. The only consistent group of patrons we ever had were the ones there for MVC2, though admittedly our selection wasn't that great in part because we had our own "stingy corporate overlords" to deal with.

>>3582889
>>3582902
thanks for ruining my childhood memories 4chan

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>~6 years old
>We're going on an overnight trip to an indoor waterpark!
>Last time we went on a trip the hotel had a bunch of arcade machines, but my parents wouldn't give me money to play them.
>This time I bring a bunch of coins from my piggy bank.
>I didn't want my parents to know about it because they wouldn't let me spend money on games, so I hid it in the nightstand drawer when we got to our room.
>We go have fun at the waterpark, and passed a big glass window I could see a huge arcade room. I specifically remember seeing a 4-player TMNT game.
>Get back to our room, thinking now I can go play games with my money.

>It's gone.
>My teenage brother and sister found it earlier, thought the last visitors left it.
>THEY SPENT ALL OF MY MONEY IN THE GAME ROOM! WITHOUT ME!
>I fucking cried. They both laughed at me. Didn't even do anything to make it up to me.

The worst part is that was the tail-end of arcades. My entire childhood I kept hoping I'd get another chance at one, but I never did.

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>Hear about a game called dragons lair from a kid who visited an arcade in another city
>"its like dungeons and dragons and there is a lizard man and a dragon and all kinds of traps and..."
>for 3 days over the schoolyard we had the game described to us. Imaginations ran wild
>A month later it made it's way to a local arcade
>The game was featured in the local newspaper and on the 6 o'clock news
>it was a month long wait before I could play it (literally hour long lineup just to get close enough to watch people play it)
>$0.50 machine in 1983
>I had $2 and that lasted for mere minutes as it was just death followed by death
>grinning ear to ear and did not care
>went home and dreamed about dragons lair

I really though I was living in the future.

When I was a kid we used to have an arcade in the food court of the biggest mall in our area. There was a games workshop next door and the movie theatre was across from the food court and had a small arcade of its own. It was like paradise.

>be a kid
>go to mr. hortons arcade
>play all the games, waste all my money.
>really nice arcade, dark, loud, all the newest arcade machines.
>mr. horton tells me and my brother he has a brand new street fighter game in the back.
>go in back with mr. horton, street fighter game was badass, he let us play it for free.
>asks me if I can keep a secret
>gives me a piece of cake.
>i get sleepy.
>wake up in my underwear.
>mr horton not there.
>get my clothes on go home to my rich stepdad and tell him about what happened.
>stupid sister is there, makes everything about her.
>she ends up doing softcore porn, was also an actress in a video game, and dies of drug overdose.
>stupid brother ends up in jail and is now a crackhead.

>>3582941
damn dude
you missed the TMNT arcade game I feel bad for you that was the best game ever

>be kid
>friend is into Warhammer 40k
>I'm not into it but tag along with him to the local hobby store anyway
>X-Men: Children of the Atom and Gauntlet Legends machines in the hobby store
>while my friend spergs out on his Eldar army I sperg out on videya

>>3581801
>What were arcades like?

Possibly the greatest things in gaming.

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>>3581801
We didn't have an arcade in my little town

At first it was just about walking to the gas station across the street. They had Pac-Man, Jungle King, and Donkey Kong, a pretty decent lineup.

I had my dad's Atari to play on and I knew nothing about the Nintendo, this was 1988.

Then I found another gas station, a couple of blocks away, that had a new thing: VS Super Mario Bros, Punch Out!, and Star Wars Arcade.

Suddenly my eyes were opened and even at the tender age of 8 I knew that I wanted to play more of this Super Mario game. I knew there was more to it than the single-screen pacman, donkey kong, and other games I'd played.

You don't understand. Super Mario looks dated now, with primordial graphics, but after playing Atari for a few years it was the fucking latest in technology. I never even knew games could look so damn good. Long, scrolling, colorful levels that were more than just about getting the highest score.

>>3583190
nice
>be 90's kid
>go to arcade
>they still have a VS Super Mario Bros. machine
>beg mom to play it
>but anon, you already have that game for your game boy (Super Mario Bros. Deluxe for Game Boy Color)
>go play a different game

BUT MOOOOOM

>>3583198
O yea I later got the Nintendo but I would still played it any time I found it somewhere.

The last time I found one was in the old Broadway Video (which was later bought and turned into a Blockbuster)

its funny how I have more bad memories of arcades than good because my parents hated video games and would almost never give me money to play

and now that I have my own money all the arcades are gone in my area

>>3583190
Later when I was older all the kids around my block would go to Mazzio's Pizza after school, not eat lunch, and spend our lunch money on the little arcade they put together in a separate room.

First they had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Speed Buggy, Paperboy, and a fucking GOAT pinball machine called FunHouse.

Shit got real when they got Street Fighter 2: Championship edition. We'd have little tournaments and play until we ran out of quarters and watched everyone else play. This was our online play, this was our xbox live. Putting your wits against another human being and measuring your skill, it was awesome.
Cooperating in Ninja Turtles was also incredibly popular.

Later they got Sunset Riders and that shit was epic. I got so good at it I could get all the way to the indian reservation without losing a single life.

It was the best arcade experience I had because it was just me and my friends causing a ruckus, taunting each other, the whole place smelled like delicious pizza, and sometimes we'd sneak to the salad bar and sneak away some breadsticks or something.

Sometimes my parents would also drive to this flea market in Dallas, and I spent our entire time there at an arcade. They had some of the more badass games, like Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Toki, Battletoads, among others. This was a big arcade and smelled like cigarrettes but I loved it. This was also where I saw Daytona USA and was amazed by the graphics, truly the future of videogames was 3d.

>>3583225
>my parents hated video games and would almost never give me money to play

I know that feel bro

I'd simply skip lunch, go straight to recess, and hit the arcade on the walk home and meet all my buds there

>>3583227
>the whole place smelled like delicious pizza
There's nothing like arcade games and the smell of pizza, Oh man.

>>3583227
>used to be able to smoke cigarettes at arcades
>now you can't even smoke cigarettes in a bar

yeah I know lung cancer but fuck

>>3583238
Oh yeah

This was before my time, I started running around town when I was closer to 9 or 10, but back in the mid-80's arcades were seedy spots where punks hung out and did some underage smoking.

>live in a town with no actual arcade
>the fair starts bringing a mobile arcade with different crazy shit each year
>Cybersled, WWE, Metal slug, all kinds of good stuff
>the Mall gets a knock off chuck e cheese
>dominate Time Crisis 2 on the weekends
>move to the big city
>giant arcades with shitloads of light gun games!
>they are all broken all the time
>see tool marks on the triggers
>some faggot went around and broke them all off
>get a ps2 light gun
>hoist a CRT to eye height
>light gun arcade at home!

>>3583243
a roller skating rink in my area (they don't really have those anymore, do they?) had Time Crisis 2

some douche broke the cool slide goes back when you shoot guns and the cheap skate (no pun intended) owner replaced them with generic lightguns with no blowback feature

>>3583250
We still have one on the outside of town and it had Ninja Turtles 1 and 2, shit was cash

Also the bowling alley had a badass arcade too, I kept going there up into my teen years to play pool and talk to girls

>>3582726
>Large dark rooms, dimly lit

Where the fuck are you from? I've never been to an arcade that didn't have full lighting.

>>3583250
>roller rinks
Like drive in movie theaters they are still around. You just have to look. The first time I saw/played TMNT was at a local skating rink. In between skating I would stare at the attrack mode or watch other people play.

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Great times there, though some fuckers were trying to steal your game by punching you while playing, then I became the man I am now

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>>3582769
Pretty much, yeah. Even a lot of convenience stores had them at one point.

One of the first times I was in a real arcade I was 11 or 12 and they had the Star Wars arcade game that looked mind blowing to me, as if it was right from the movie. I sat down and beat the whole thing on my first try with my father standing there cheering me on.

We went back there a few times after and I played it every time I went but I never beat it again.

>>3583657
As far as I know the game can't be beaten. Each time you destroy the death star you just restart at the beginning at a harder difficulty. I'm not sure exactly how many levels of difficulty there are. The three on the start screen on maybe a couple more I guess. It certainly maxes out at some point. I've played for hours and at some point early on it doesn't seem to get any harder.

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>>3583724
I know I didn't loop it, but I do distinctly remember blowing up the Death Star. So I probably just got up and left thinking I'd won, maybe some dude got a free play on my back.

Weird thing is, I had almost the same experience with Space Harrier. A friend just got a Master System I gave the game a try and beat it on my first go. Then it would be years before I could clear it again, let along regularly. Some weird ass beginner's luck or something.

They were the best. Especially after you had a slice of pizza and soda from a local place. I'll never forget those smoky, dark and neon-lit arcades with the sounds coming from every direction.

I found an old arcade token while cleaning out my garage a few years back. I keep it in my wallet now to remind me of the good times.

>>3583601
Southern California, anon. Almost every arcade I've been too back then was like that. A fully lit arcade was a rarity in my area.

Was a hangout. Our local pizza joint was right next to one so we'd take our plates from point A to B and hang out there for the rest of the day until it was time to walk home.

Any SoCalfags remember Pak Mann arcade is Pasadena? It was open from 1982 to 2005. I went a lot from around 1996 to closing. They had a great mix of current games, classics and pinball. My dad and I would always play Daytona 1 and 2, and Rush 2049 together.

My parents took me every Saturday, after Round Table Pizza at the mall. The mall had a great arcade called Tilt, and I always wanted to go there first. Now Pak Mann is closed, and Tilt is still there, but with only crane games and about five video games.

My arcade selections now are actually very good. There's a retro arcade in Pasadena, a 90s coin arcade in Upland, and Round 1 in Industry.

>be me
>little kid
>trip to mall with grandma
>see a movie or two
>hit food court, taco bell
>grandma keeps asking "are you sure you don't want another meximelt?"
>fat and happy
>wander over to Alladin's Castle
>play a ton of Marvel Super Heroes
>worship that game
>fantasize about going to the mall all the time
>eventually christmas comes
>grandma got me a Saturn and a copy of MSH
>arcades are gone now, but I can still get meximelts and play all the MSH I want

feels very good

>>3584545
Your grandma sounds awesome.

Good and bad.

Some really cool games, and I'm partial to playing fighting games on a cabinet, but you'd run into games that were just made to take your money. You could run into some really cool people and some douche bags.

>be 9 year old me
>at local arcade watching a guy (16-18) play Time Crisis 2.
>Dude ask me if I want to play.
>I say sure and he pays for me
>He shells out his money so I could play and we end up beating the game.

>be 8 year old me
>playing MK4
>18 year old 90's neck beard comes up to the machine
>My 17 year old brother and I played MK4 nearly every day and I can hold my own against him.
>I wipe the floor with the neck beard
>"fucking kike" and walks off.

Never been to one either. They sound like a crappy place to drop off your kid. Full of large adults, loud, noisy. Someone could take your kid and no one would notice. Or they could stab him when they get too pissed playing Street Fighter. I also heard in the 80s they were associated with drugs.

Tbqh, playing arcade games sounds un-fun. I can't even play these games on my consoles, never mind having to pay money for them. I'd probably get 25 seconds into Donkey Kong or Final Fight then die. I always wanted to try arcade machines as a kid though. I used to see stuff like car arcades as a kid but my parents rarely let me use them.

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Arcades were absolute magic.

To understand arcades you have to understand that back then there was no considerable internet. Gaming magazines were slow. Which means YOU got to see the new games first before magazines had a chance to print the infos/photos. Which meant you would walk into the arcade and every time there was a new game in the corner. Like BAM... Capcom's Punisher, BAM... Virtua Fighter, BAM King Of Fighters 94 and so on...

There was no bullshit factor with arcade games because all games were there on display. That didn't leave room for hype marketing. If a game sucked you wouldn't plunge a second coin inside. A scary place for companies that relied on bullshit marketing for sure.

When the playstation among other factors made Arcades obsolete gaming changed forever.

THANK YOU SONY YOU GREEDY FUCKS.

>>3584690
I think you're like, reading my mind or something. I agree 100%.

Did you ever hang out on rec.games.video.arcade on usenet? I used to get tips and codes from there. My favorite of all time was learning the Power Up, Original Game and Super modes for Bubble Bobble.

>>3584692
Thanks mate. Nah i am on fightcade though.

There were 2 types of arcades: the ones you'd find in malls, and actual dedicated buildings like modern Chuck e cheeses without the pizza.

Arcades in malls were usually situated near the food court, and were subject to having lots of old games. Dedicated arcades had loads of awesome shit you wouldn't see at the malls or wherever else you'd see arcade cabinets.

>>3583742
Yup. The guy behind you got a free play with your extra shield.

Sometimes people overthink things once they've done before. And some things are done better using instinct instead of overthinking them.

>>3584506
>Pak Mann
I remember it being shit and full of fightanfags around '90. But at least it had stuff. By then most arcades in the bowling alleys, skating rinks, pizza places, etc were a shadow of their former self if the place hadn't already gone bust. In the 80's Magic Mountain had some decent arcades. And because they were staffed by minimum wagers who didn't give a fuck you could just flick pennies all day long.

When I was really little we had Alladin's castle, when I was like 7 my big brother had his birthday there after hours. It was awesome! All the games, just our friends and a roll of tokens. Played so much TMNT, Bucky O'Hare and GI Joe

In my teens, Rink Side opened in Gurnee IL, now it's crap, but when it opened. They had every fighter you could want, even a MVC2 machine with VMU slot.

Sometimes I take my niece to Dave and Busters. It's expensive and crappy. But at least sometimes I can get her away from the stupid ticket games to play Mario Kart or Pac-Man.

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Any Torontofags?

I remember the big arcade on Yonge Street that had ~8 Initial D machines, and you got change from an obese man in a bulletproof glass box in the front.

The only other one I remember is the Amuse-O-Matic Centre in the basement of Union station with lots of old pinball machines and generally super well maintained equipment. Played the tons of pinball and Neogeo waiting for the GO bus. It was probably one of the last "real" arcades in North America.

>>3584859
arcade on yonge was great, used to play strikers 1945 there and watch the street fighter crowd but never had the guts to challenge anyone. Union station arcade was fun too, it was pretty sad right before they got rid of it and didn't have much left.

>>3584874
FYI the union arcade was run by these people

http://www.pinballexchange.com/

You could tell they cared about the machines (Unlike the perpetually broken machines at places like Cineplex). They had tons of classic Data East and Williams pins and they all worked flawlessly.

so what happened to all the cabinets from the arcades that got shut down?
were they scrapped or sold to collectors and whatnot?

>>3584887
Most were probably scrapped.

>>3584690
>blaming only Sony for the decline of arcades
arcades were dying long before PlayStation

They were mostly dark, but were faintly lit by neon lighting and disco ball effects. The arcades were about the size of three or four gamestops. There were children and teenagers playing the games, no adults no females. The teens were always into punk rock. The people fell into one of two extremes. They either had tons of tokens and a bucket to carry them or zero tokens. Zero token kids were the worst. They got dropped by their parents as daycare and used their 2 dollars within 5 minutes. They would spend the rest of their 5 hours at the arcade begging for quarters or being annoying and giving unwanted advice to people playing the games. "Jump, block, dragon punch, OH go left, HIT Him, HIT Him" That kind of crap. The teens would occasionally steal tokens from small children and would be banned from the mall for it.

There were about 50 games, but only about 4 would be played at any given time with a crowd of people around. The 4 that would be played are the arcade games that people know of like PacMan, Galaga, Missile Command, Space Invaders. In the 90s it was Street Fighters, Mortal Kombats, Tekkens, NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, Turtles in Time, Simpsons Arcade, X-men, and in late 90s DDR. Out of the 50 games 10-20 would be skee ball, pop a shot, pinball, and claw game. Those games would give you tickets that you could trade for crappy plastic McDonald's style toys or candy for about 5 - 25 tickets. Unrealistically, there was always like a skateboard, bike, SNES, or CD Stereo that was like 50k tickets. You'd get about 5 tickets max a game.

They were fun, but honestly it was much more fun to be able to play as much as you want in your own home with who you want. That is why they don't really exist except at bars for the socially awkward anymore.

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As an oldfag who grew up playing at the Arcades in the mid 80's, i can tell you it was a lot of fun to hang around people who played videogames, always having a nice chat about some new trick they found to beat certain enemy or stories about how they survived with low health a hard part of one levelk.

Think of it as /v/ without the shitposting, namecalling and idiocy.

Everyone was nice to each other, the best moments ive ever had playing videogames with other people were in TRuyrtles in Time and The Simpsons, soooooooooo many great memories when those games were brand new and there were lines to play the game, everyone cheering for you and screaming when you beat a boss.

Great times that will never come back. But still i feel very fortunate to have been there to experience what truly was the videogame boom, i stopped going when i started highschool in the early-mid 90's and the last games i remember playing were Street Fighter Alpha and the first Darkstalkers, it truly was the golden age of videogames, and i was a beast at Capcom fighters.

>>3584984
Motherfucker, do you live in a movie?

Just a heads up, if any of you mother fucks are in SLC, there is a good nickelcade in Midvale. Its like 2 bucks to get in the door and all games are 2 nickels at most.

Not huge, but decent.

>>3582774
>A group of older girls grabbed my dick and ass while I was playing Samurai Shodown.

Man... that's the place i wanna go to when i die!

pretty much like most anons here, i grew up going to arcades in the early-mid 2000's but im sure by that time they were dead in the water.

our mall had a nice aladdins castle inside it that got some pretty damn good games for its time. when i was younger it had a lot of pretty good fighting games. Project Justice, MvC2, Tekken, Soul Calibur 2, etc. had the classic racing games, along with some house of the dead, other various shooters, the initial D with the card readers, etc. i think my final semester senior year i skipped last period almost every day so I could play some in the groove and some ddrmax2 for a bit before I went in to work.

i went to college freshman year, came back over the summer and realized that literally no one played the games anymore, a lot of the machines i loved were sold off, and most of the shit was replaced into party/ticket games for the children; shit was dead. felt really depressing and havent quite been able to fill that same void since

>>3581801
Where do you live? There are still arcades in the US, but they go by the name "video game museum" or "pinball history and more." What's great about those is that they charge you a flat fee st the door and all the games are unlocked. They will never, however, replace the feeling you got back when you were a kid playing super hang on with your bros and trying to do as good as possible in as few quarters as possible.

>needing to go outside to play games
thank god I grew up with a good pc and a playstation

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>>3585620
>but they go by the name "video game museum"

Here in Canadaland we have the local "Wonderland Arcade" that has been at the same location downtown since 1978. It is run by a sweet old lady who is the widow of it's founder, and she is keeping it going in his memory despite not making any money.

>Wonderland still smells, sounds and looks like it did in 1982 when Regina teens came to play video games like Pacman and Asteroids. The arcade stopped turning a profit years ago, and most customers today come only for nostalgia and cheap fries.

>But Wonderland’s owners can’t walk away.Money comes second to the Bryants, a family driven by a respect for the history behind the once-bustling hot spot and what it means to the all the brothers, sisters, nephews and granddaughters linked to the family business.

>“My dad was an amazing man,” says Dorothy Stuart.

>Her father Vince Bryant started a successful coin-op business more than 50 years ago before launching Wonderland in the late 1970s.Bryant died 10 years ago just before turning 80.

>His his wife Alice, 88, remains the face of the family business.Alice and Wonderland. Vince named the arcade after the wife he adored.

The only thing that changed is that it is now a $4/hr unlimited play arcade.

>>3585301
This sort of thing happened to me to but it was while I was playing Thexder on a TRS-80 at Radio Shack.

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>>3585768

They still have the original wall art (Elvira was huge in the early 80s, and the killer instinct art was added over a decade later).

A lot of our old arcades had art copied from heavy metal magazine, the kind of fantasy art you saw airbrushed on the side of a van at the time. You couldn't fap to video game characters in 1982 so you had to provide lewd artwork on your own.

>>3585768
If anybody wants to go to an arcade in the US that is 100% authentic go to Cedar Point. It usually gets mentioned in these threads but it has operated continuously from the 70s and even has some surviving electromechanical games in the back though I'm worried about their fate as many are in ill-repair I'm guessing their pinball tech isn't certified on them.

If it were an independent arcade I'm sure it would have closed long ago, but as part of the amusement park it's kept afloat by the profit sharing. There are other smaller arcades around the park including one that has some great early 80s "computer font" signs but the main arcade is the one with vaulted ceilings under the offices.

>>3585780
>many are in ill-repair I'm guessing their pinball tech isn't certified on them

That is why wodnerland here in town is so great. The games are all very well maintained (especially the pinball) as the family takes pride in it.

There are three generations of service techs in the family, and they have a warehouse of extra machines to rotate in and out an a ton of parts. The fact that they owned their own coin-op service company is one of the reasons they survived for so long.

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>>3585787
Show me a pic of an EM game in perfect working order and I'll be impressed.

>>3585802

They have some Williams sports games from the 1950s, and a baseball game that appears to be much older (1930s?). They do not have any of the early 70s EM machines or anything like that, as those are indeed a nightmare to maintain.

The arcade opened in 1978 and only did pinball before that. Any older games they had would have only been picked up later on as curios.

I was born in 95 so I was lucky that the town I was growing up in had a relatively good, commonly rotated selection in an arcade in the basement of a casino. My parents would drop me off with a bunch of cash, and there was an attendant there to watch all the kids while the parents gambled. They had Rampage, Street Fighter 2 ,Turtles in Time, two Neo-Geos with MS2, 3, Aero Fighters, sit-down Afterburner, Out runners, motherfucking T-MEK, ms. Pac, HYDROOO THUNDERR, that big red sit down Atari tunnel racer, r-type, and others that rotated out often. Usually 3 pins, Super Mario World and World Cup Soccer are the two I remember fondly.. No redemption games whatsoever, save for a skee-ball just for fun. A few vending machines to keep fed while you were stuck there as well as a pool table, one of the best parts about it being half daycare was being able to check out all the cool new games on the gameboy I hadn't heard of on other people's systems since I didn't have access to the net at the time.

we have one of these barcades opening soon just south of dayton, ohio.

http://resetarcade.com/

>>3583227
Aw man I miss Mazzio's, used to go there a lot with my bro's and play Pitfall and TMNT, those bastards always stole the powerpill!

>>3585973
*Pitfighter

>>3581801
I grew up in the 90s and used to play games at Timeout in the mall, and Cinemark. They had a row of MK I, II, and III machines with Marvel Super Heroes and Street fighter Alpha, played that shit for hours, Good times.

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We still have a mall that's stuck in the 90s in my country and goddamn, there are A LOT of Neo Geo cabinets but it's mostly still there cause old men likes karaoke there.

I don't know if it's the lighting or design of the mall but it feels so fucking old. The arcade even more so.

>>3586192
Nearly every mall in the failippines is stuck in the 90's. Which is the last time most arcades there did any maintenance on any of their machines. Still, it's nice to have at least one or two little arcades in every mall and several malls within a short distance of each other.
I get the pool tables, air hockey and kiddie games. But fucking karaoke. WTF are they thinking.

>>3586549
>>3586192
I feel like I'd like the philipines if I wouldn't be afraid of getting shot in the back of the head for smoking a doobie.

>>3581801
>>3581801
>>3581801
>>3581801
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um-Q92f5ctk

>>3586568
In many ways it's a shithole but there are lots of things to like. It reminds me of LA in the 90's. Urban sprawl. Full of brown ESL people. Game Boy carts and famiclones on the shelf. Arcades in every mall. American food. 90's or earlier prices. Manila bay smells like Santa Monica in the 90's.
Pinoy Trump probably isn't going to last long so you should be able to blaze up soon enough. It's sad because I actually like him as a character and the place does have a serious drug problem. But he's an angry little bitch with a chip on his shoulder who is going to fuck his country over trying to piss off the US.
Which is great, because the pisso is in a free fall and that just makes it easier for the whiteys he hates to come in and buy shit. I'm gonna buy another house and fill it up with arcade machines from all the places that go bust when no one can afford to go to malls any more. Thanks Dutarde!

>>3586839
Sounds awesome and there's 2 dollar whores everywhere too right?

we have a place that has $10 an hr unlimited play OR for $20 you can stay from open till close, unlimited games. restricted to cabinets from the 80s anda few early 90s.

Never been. My wife is a gigantic faggot who yells at me for having fun:c

Stay single boys, that or dont marry that girl who seems sarcastic and mean in a joking way. It turns out she is just angry at the core.

>>3584545
What the fuck is a mexi melt?

>>3586942
>my wife is a gigantic faggot
kekd

jokes aside get a divorce

>>3586968
IKR I almost pointed out to him that meximelts haven't been on the menu forever but they just changed the name to chili cheese burrito (and I think they officially have less cheese now)

>>3585651
>he never built his own cabinet

>>3586867
Whores haven't been $2 since my dad was there during the war. But they're still relatively cheap. You could find something for $20. But I wouldn't touch that, even with your dick. Honestly I wouldn't even bother with a whore aside from a few drinks and a bj in a titty bar. There are plenty of less skanky girls who are "totally not whores" just looking for money to put themselves through school and love white cock. You can find them in the malls and I've even picked up a few in the arcades.

>>3581839
Is that Aletta Ocean on the right?

>>3586942
Place about an hour away from me has $5 all day gaming. I've been twice now and both times were a blast. The place fills up fast tho. Best to get there early. Some of the machines need some tlc but I can't complain too much for only $5.

Just tell your wife that this day(insert Saturday or Sunday a month from now) is when your going to check out that arcade so that would be a great day for her to get some cleaning done around the house ;-)

>>3584762
>Yup. The guy behind you got a free play with your extra shield.

For some reason now knowing this makes me happy.

>>3587183
>What's the difference between a $2 door and a $5 door?

>>3581801
https://youtu.be/x6aNPsjNwFo

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I have to wonder why there's not more of a collective of video and images of what arcades were like. Going on youtube to try to find video of arcades results in some pretty slim pickings, but there are a few neat trips down memory lane. Especially this one of back when 7/11 had arcades. I was so young when that was a thing that it's almost a blur of a memory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5FZRqherbo

Did arcade cabinets use mono or stereo for sound?

I'm thinking it wouldn't make sense to do stereo as the machine was surrounded on all sides by other machines playing.
You wouldn't be able to get good sound stage with all those other noises in the background. Better to make it mono to keep the audio clear and easily recognizable.

>>3588084
Arcades used fucking everything m8. Some sitdown games had speakers in the goddamn seats even.

Neo Geo MVS MV-1FZ with universal bios, Fatal Fury 2 and Bubble Trouble for $120 CAD, should I go for it?

>>3588279
If it's working I say go for it. I have a 4 slot MVS myself on my back porch.

>>3588279
*Puzzle Bobble
Does anyone know how much a unibios chip costs? Sounds like I might save a bit of money with this.

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i vaguely remember arcades in the early 90s but most of my experience is from single stand alone cabinets. I went to the movies with my uncle one time and there was a few people gathered around a street fighter II cab. i always went to the laundromat with my mom and I always played galaga and street fighter II. I went to an aladdins castle at the mall a couple of times and it was pretty great but one game that stood out for me was segas time traveller. then mk came out and that was pretty cool but mk2 was the best for me especially mileenas man eater fatality which i saw at the small arcade room at the movies. there were several diversions arcades all around town and there were tons of interesting games and my dad would take me every weekend and some of my fondest memories were us playing revolution x together.

>>3587541
It gives me pleasure as well

>>3587896
AIDS

>>3582658
:D
>>3582827
I remember that feeling after losing my last credit in fightan games and having to stand and watch other kids play while I waited for my dad.

>>3581801
>be me 1997
>6 years old
>walk into a grimy arcade with older cousin
>gangsters hanging out in the front
>witness my first drug deal happening
>thanks to my Power Stick 6-button and Sega Genesis copy of Mortal Kombat II I was competent
>tear a few older guys a new asshole
>gather up a crowd
>be blown out by the superior photo-realistic graphics
>it's closing time
>"LAST MATCH" is being screamed by everyone
>beat the other guy
>get quarter refunded because machines are going to turned off
>they wanna see me again
>haven't been to that arcade since then because it was in older cousin's part of the state
>go there last year
>it's cleaner and less crowded
>more recent games

Family Arcade on Vermont in front of the LACC if anybody is interested.

My hometown has two arcades and my brother works at one of them. They're run down as fuck now but I used to play the games there as a kid.
I never played any of the video games there though because we had newer ones with better graphics at home and I didn't really care about retro at that age. Also I wasn't going to spend my quarters on shit that doesn't print out tickets.
Glad I didn't spend too much time there as a kid because my brother tells me all about the machines that are rigged to let you "win" only a certain number of times.

I remember for Christmas the arcade near me would put their cabinets up for sale and I always wanted to get The House of the Dead, Silent Scope, or Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter but they closed before I was an adult and now that dream is gone.

Awesome.

One time, when i was about 7ish, i was in one with my older sister playing goonies and some old man grabbed me by my head and drug me about 10 feet away before letting me go.

>>3586942
Lol'd thx

>>3583601
Arcades in NYC were dim lit too also smoking was allowed

>>3583227
>salad bar
>in an arcade

This blows my mind for some reason.

>>3588084
Around the middle of the '80s cabinet development started to use stereo audio (For example Marble Madness, in 1984).

>>3588026

Those old early 80s arcade videos (or other videos of people on th street, shopping etc) are a shocking reminder on how fat people used to be so rare.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FBi6Tu9Gq4

Every kid in 1981 went to 7-11 and drank sugary drinks, sat on the couch at home playing atari, ate mcdoanlds, and did the things modern kids did. Something has changed.

From grade 1-7 we had a single fat kid in our entire school, and he was more chubby than fat. In high school we had 2 fat kids in total out of about 1100 students.

There days there are like 4-6 chubby kids per classroom (mostly girls) and maybe one morbidly obese kid.

>>3582910
Don't worry. He became a SJW feminist cuckoo and voted for Clintons.

>>3593592
Cheap carbs and degenerate parenting does that to you. Meat used to cost a lot less too, before the whole mad cow disease, bird flu, swine flu shit. Get /fit/ and read /pol/ to stay healthy and wise.

>>3593625

I'm not worried about myself, I was a kid on those days and was very lean until ~30. Desk job for 10 years after that took a toll even with me going to gym a few nights a week.

It is the next generation I am worried about but I cannot see a big difference in parenting or kids activities. If anything kids get more attention and obsessive parenting now than ever.

Is it just a corn syrup thing?

>>3581864
This. Just about every, oldfashioned diner in America has at least a missile defense or space invader game. Makes for very comfy late night romps.

>>3582941
cuck you went to gwl in niagara? they still have an arcade I think

>>3593638
>Is it just a corn syrup thing?

Fuck off, foodbabe. Take your vaccines, already.

Comfy place to blow some quarters (I hated the ones that used tokens). You just had to be wary of some of the unsavory types who would show up sometimes, like the fat guy who would block your controls with his enormous bulk in vs. matches and pound tar out of your helpless avatar, or the guy who lurks behind the token machine, watching how you play and calculating the best way to beat you, then challenges you out of nowhere just as you're about to deliver the final hit to the final boss, kicks your butt and beats the boss without having to fight through all the mooks first.

>>3596503
>You just had to be wary of some of the unsavory types who would show up sometimes, like the fat guy who would block your controls with his enormous bulk in vs. matches and pound tar out of your helpless avatar, or the guy who lurks behind the token machine, watching how you play and calculating the best way to beat you, then challenges you out of nowhere just as you're about to deliver the final hit to the final boss, kicks your butt and beats the boss without having to fight through all the mooks first.

That's why I play single player games and haven't been to an arcade, or play any MMO in ages.

>>3582774
>Fatal Fury
>Samurai Shodown
I hate to say it, but that's what happens when you live in Central/South America.

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>>3581801
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQPGtzmStq4

I was pretty young as they were being phased out, but they were incredible for the little while that I was able to enjoy them. You're surrounded by games, surrounded by people there to play games, surrounded by pure energy. The games were fast as fuck and all about the experience, no cutscenes or exposition or anything (not that those are necessarily bad when warranted/in their place), just pure and intense gaming action.

There are still a handful of stalwarts outside of Japan. If any of you ever find yourselves around Ann Arbor, MI, check out Pinball Pete's; it's not quite as good as it once was, but it still has some cool stuff (Raiden Fighters, obligatory Metal Slug/MVS, SFII and III, MvC2, CvS2, etc.), enough to be alone worth a trip.

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>>3581801

Just as they are now: dimly-lit and noisy. The difference is now they bundle arcades with bowling and bars.

>>3581801
>Putting a credit on both players slots on House of the Dead so you can dual wield the guns.
How many of you also did this?

I want to have my own Arcade, damn it all to hell.

How plausible would it be if all games I had were the classics (Pac-Man, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter II, Marvel vs Capcom, Time Splitters, House of the Dead, etc.) and complement it with a few mindless games of my own made with UE4 (which I have no experience as of yet, but I'm sure it's not that hard).

Have a VIP floor with a subscription fee to justify buying the newer modern Arcade machines, like that Star Wars X-Wing game. Or even VR, for that matter.

>>3581801
I only played arcade once, because at the time there were arcades, my family was very poor, so wasting money to play was not an option. I walked from one machine to another and pressed buttons, pretending that I'm playing. And suddenly, I press one button, hear a coin that got stuck somewhere inside falling into the coin bank inside the machine and puff, I got a few playing credits for free out of nowhere. I played like a fucking pro, like half an hour on one credit without dying once. One of the most beautiful childhood memories.

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>>3581801
I was fortunate to have many around me. The games were in independently owned stores, tourist traps, bowling alleys, chain stores, pizza parlors, and of course there were quite a few dedicated arcades in my area. They were like a personal E3 without much to any wait times, to see the future of games. You could have people there watch you play live, watch others live, or even get robbed. The dedicated arcades tend to be dimly lit to accommodate the CRT monitors, with some machines having their sounds turned high up, in a similar fashion to sensory overload a casino can employ. They can have setups too elaborate for typical homes, like sit-down machines with hydraulics, or complicated controllers. However, the arcades, are not just the pure videogames, but there are also pinball machines, prize machines, amusement areas (laser-tag, mini-golf, Battletech simulations), and amusement rides (roller coasters, carousel, bumper cars) as well. Competition in fighting games, rhythm games, or even simply just score can open up to communities and opportunities to meet new people. I am fortunate there are still arcades around me, but the community and crowds they attract now feel a bit different, or maybe I'm old and it was more magical when I was younger.


Just imagine being here, because you can still visit these today:

Japan:
https://youtu.be/-N_K8-WQxfA
https://youtu.be/9XBNfhlQtuU

US:
https://youtu.be/CXNY9jcejqY
https://youtu.be/_vvuf20_KjM

>>3597070
Tried it once. Really cool to do at least once but doesn't really offer any advantages to using a single gun. You can either fire both with way less accuracy, unless you're Neo, or fire one at a time switching between the two, which defeats the purpose.

But still you feel like like Neo.

>>3586942
Sorry John. Better luck next time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElS3-62oxyg
>Keith David will never come to work on your Donkey Kong machine

>>3581801
Arcades are like Casinos. They have a lot of flashing lights, noise (often a cacophony of music/crowds) but smell like piss instead of smoke.

I miss it though. I regret not buying the Virtua On cabinet the arcade closest to me had when they went out of buisiness.

>>3581801
>Noisy
>Foggy due people smoking (yes, there were a time when people were allowed smoke on closed spaces)
>Full of sketchy looking dudes
>At least one of the machines was tetris
>Cocktail version of Tehkan world cup always present too
>Allways a queue to play street fighter 2, final fight or any new, good loking, machine.
>Pinball machines!!

Machines on different state of disrepair, you were lucky if all the buttons worked most of the time, and you were the luckiest dude if you had all the buttons needed (we played sf2 with four buttons, I didn't discover the medium punches and kicks until I played it back in mame).

These were my arcades back in late 80's and early 90's, by mid 90 they were all closed.

>>3582889

Im mr arcade machine repair man and i can confirm i clean gutters for a living.

>>3582827

It was most of us.

There was a arcade in the late 90s near my house that used nickels. Most expensive game being 5 nickels. Spent many after school days in there.

Also loved playing in the arcade in the Disneyland Resort in LA. The one that was half sunken in a pond.

>>3603480
>Disneyland Hotel underwater arcade
Oh man, I loved that place as a kid. I remember playing Hard Drivin' and Dirt Dash there. Between that and the RC car track across the pond, the hotel was almost more fun than the park.