I miss 20 years ago when every mall had an arcade place

It would be interesting to see if someone were to open a game room up again with the old favorites, say, nothing after the year 83' or 84', who the gamers would be? Would it still attract the youth of today or would the gameroom be filled with people around my age of 35?

Galaga was my game of choice. ONE quarter and I could get to level 50 something (been a longggg time). And then, there was also Super Mario Bros. The arcade was out wayyy before the actual console came into existence and I was able to flip the game, beating it multiple time with only ONE quarter.

And who can forget DEFENDER? Ahhh, what a game.
 
i miss the old arcades in the mall to. i remember seeing mortal kombat as well........it was unbelievable. lan centers i think are the new arcade most have the popular games and some old favorites. at some lan centers the prices are reasonable.
 
It's 11:35PM as I type this sentence, and here I am on a Saturday night in downtown Las Vegas, sitting at my PC at home, sortakinda wishing it was 25 years ago and I was at that Putt-Putt Golf and Games in Norfolk, VA, where I would most likely be if it were February 28th, 1984.

I'd have two tokens on some game (this was pre-SF days, for you young folk), probably two on a Pinbot pinball machine also because the place would be hopping. I'd have already had a few sodas, perhaps an ice cream cone (those Waffle cones... oh how I miss those) and the place would be open till 6AM in the morning - if it was after school season meaning mid-June, they'd stay open from Friday at noon when the doors opened to Sunday at midnight.

I'd have a bunch of my fellow gamers with me, and we'd be talking, laughing, having a good old time, reading some F.A.Q. file I actually downloaded from some BBS someplace about some special moves in a game or secrets, or the latest movie we might have just come from across the parking lot where a 4 cinema "satellite" theater existed that complimented the 6 screens inside the mall which had closed at 9PM.

We'd stay probably till very early in the morning, just the sun coming up kind of time period, then head home, zone out for whatever length of time, get some sleep, then get in touch and make plans to do it again the following night. Oh, yeah, we'd just done it on Friday night too so... it was truly a regular thing.

But now I sit here, in "Sin City," wondering where those times went, what those friends are all doing now because we don't keep in touch anymore.

Life sucks sometimes, this happens to be one of 'em. :) I'm bored silly, and I actually sortakinda wish I had a decent joystick at this moment because if I did I'd already be playing some SF or some other SF-based game (like DarkStalkers, a big fun fave of mine) using M.A.M.E. with the actual ROMs...

Man I miss those days, I really do.

Good to know I'm not alone considering the popularity of this thread. :D
 
Joe Average said:
It's 11:35PM as I type this sentence, and here I am on a Saturday night in downtown Las Vegas, sitting at my PC at home, sortakinda wishing it was 25 years ago and I was at that Putt-Putt Golf and Games in Norfolk, VA, where I would most likely be if it were February 28th, 1984.

I'd have two tokens on some game (this was pre-SF days, for you young folk), probably two on a Pinbot pinball machine also because the place would be hopping. I'd have already had a few sodas, perhaps an ice cream cone (those Waffle cones... oh how I miss those) and the place would be open till 6AM in the morning - if it was after school season meaning mid-June, they'd stay open from Friday at noon when the doors opened to Sunday at midnight.

I'd have a bunch of my fellow gamers with me, and we'd be talking, laughing, having a good old time, reading some F.A.Q. file I actually downloaded from some BBS someplace about some special moves in a game or secrets, or the latest movie we might have just come from across the parking lot where a 4 cinema "satellite" theater existed that complimented the 6 screens inside the mall which had closed at 9PM.

We'd stay probably till very early in the morning, just the sun coming up kind of time period, then head home, zone out for whatever length of time, get some sleep, then get in touch and make plans to do it again the following night. Oh, yeah, we'd just done it on Friday night too so... it was truly a regular thing.

But now I sit here, in "Sin City," wondering where those times went, what those friends are all doing now because we don't keep in touch anymore.

Life sucks sometimes, this happens to be one of 'em. :) I'm bored silly, and I actually sortakinda wish I had a decent joystick at this moment because if I did I'd already be playing some SF or some other SF-based game (like DarkStalkers, a big fun fave of mine) using M.A.M.E. with the actual ROMs...

Man I miss those days, I really do.

Good to know I'm not alone considering the popularity of this thread. :D
Click to expand...

Yeap, I concur completely, though I would never have lasted all night, would have long spent my money and thats if my mother would have even allowed me to be there that long.

You know what else......we had all that fun....COMPLETELY SOBER!!!! Smoking a joint or drinking a beer was the furthest thing in our minds. We wanted to achieve the highest score and scope out the babes. These days, as I walk thru the mall with my wife and 2 kids, it has an arcade, but mostly those games which spit out tickets to get some lame ass prize....but as we walk by, I see the "kids" there and around there and you can just tell they are high on something.

We had a Putt-Putt Golf too (in Texas), but THE place to be was a place called "Games People Play". It was basically the same thing, even had a putt-putt range...BUT, it also had a HUGE water slide in the back part by the parking lot with 3 different slides to take down. Some how, no one ever got shocked by being in wet swim trunks and playing a game at the same time. Well, they wouldnt let you in dripping wet mind you, but still, heh, can you imagine something like that in todays times.....man o man, the lawsuits would be piling up left and right.
 
there was a 5cent arcade by my house there was like a 5$ fee to get in but we all just sneaked in :D
 
I told a friend a few days ago that if I ever get a big lump of money, like a few million from a long lost relative I didn't know I had (my Dad was from Galveston, TX, so who knows what old billionnaires I might be related to and not even know it), I'd build a real arcade and do it right. Original games, or as original as I could find 'em, with tons of pinball machines too. Good food, great atmosphere, etc... bring back the days of old.

The hope would be that it'd be successful and attract a lot of customers, regulars, diehards, that sort of thing. It might not last in today's high speed ADD/ADHD type of world, but I'd have one helluvalot of fun making it a dream come true. It wouldn't be loaded with all the crap games we have today, and nothing that you "sit" in; those games cost ungodly amounts of money and don't ever pay off.

Oh, and nothing would be over $.50 or two tokens, period. That's the cap, with a membership program that's $10 a year and gets you 6 tokens for a buck - but the games take tokens or quarters... just a holdover from the old Putt-Putt days... and you get 50 free tokens on your birthday, a soda, and a foot long hot dog also, with ice cream too. Hey, I like to treat people right, and that Putt-Putt back home for the longest time did treat us right.

Two sections, one for serious arcade stuff, and one for the little ones, on opposite sides of the building as I know these days a lot of us "old timers" will have families and the chidrens (as Homey D. Clown loved to say) will need something to do, so they're off on their own while the "adults" get their asses handed to 'em.

And we'd take care of the machines, also. I just popped into GameWorks here in Vegas the other day with a friend that wanted to see how well I could play Zangief, and while I spanked him 6-1 (he won the first match, oddly, but then got wiped 6 times in a row) it was shameful: my Fierce Punch/Kick buttons would work 1 out of 10 times, his joystick wouldn't allow him any Up-Left movement so he couldn't jump back (he was stationed on the left).

But I warned him not to get close, ever, and of course, nobody listens so he continually found himself getting screwed... in that good Zangief way. :) But, because both our gameplay was skewed in a bad way because of the damaged machines and defective controls, I say my play was "shameful" because it would have been 7-0 if things were working correctly. :D

That's the kind of place where I would typically tell them "That machine is fucked up, fix the buttons," and get the "We'll tell the tech about it" and give them a few days to do it. When I come back, if they haven't done it, then I whip out the old SuperGlue and "fix" it myself to the point where they don't have much choice.

Sorry, I just can't tolerate a place that won't take care of its own hardware. ;)

So my place would have a serious supply of sticks and buttons, and it's safe to say I'd be the one doing the tech work from open to close unless I had some reason not to be there.

Ah... the fun I could have once again... maybe someday...
 
RiZnO said:
I'll never forget the day I was at my local arcade and the delivery guys rolled in a new game called Mortal Kombat... I was playing sf2 and watched the techs set the game up and it just sat there unplayed for an hour till me and a friend went to check it out..... I was never the same after lol MK changed my life forever haha
Click to expand...

Tell me about it...they put MK in our local grocery store when I was about 10 I think. Me and my bro's would play the game while my mom did her 1.5 hr shopping for the week and of course there'd be about 5 other kids crowding around.

I recall looking up Subzero's (my fav at the time) fatality, and when "FINISH HIM" came up I did the right combo (F,D,F+HP) and he just ripped that dudes skull and spine right out. We kinda looked at each other in silence like, holy crap I hope mom never hears about this game. :D
 
maademperor said:
arcades were fun cause you didnt have anything better...console + big screen beats an arcade cabinet (except the driving games maybe)....besides when arcades started to go down I remember a seedy element starting to infest all of them, burnouts and pedophiles I imagine :D
Click to expand...
Yep, why go to an arcade and play on a 27" tube when you can play the same game at home on a 50" plasma? I do miss the darkness and all the various sounds of an arcade though..
 



489481231_e69339ad0b.jpg
 
There is a bar in Dallas, TX called Barcadia that has quite a few old arcade games in it.
Pics:

bar2m.jpg


barj.jpg


Pretty pimp place and I suggest if you live in the Dallas area to check it out on lower Greenville
 
Las Vegas, baby... who knows, maybe I'll win a big slot jackpot someday. Of course, actually putting money into the slot machines instead of the buffet would help that happen... :)
 
^lol. I hear you. That reminds me, I need to find a house with a pretty good sized bonus room. I'd love to get a few cabs and pinballs if I could. After looking at some of the rebuilds on these old units, it definitely become more than a hobby. And though it'll never have the mystique or sheer excitement of its real arcade counterpart, but it'd be a nice little get away to relish in the heydays. You know, there's something to be said about "everyone" or many people getting excited over something. It definitely creates an unsaid pact.
 
When I was in high school (early 80s) a arcade opened up in town that was walking distance from school. So what happened? We started skipping classes to go to the arcade! IT WAS COOL!
I only skipped a few times myself and then I see a story in the news paper about "Local business contributing to juvenile delinquency." The guy that owned the arcade sunk his life savings into it and now was getting undeserved negative publicity. Soon his business license was revoked and he closed the doors.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
When I was in high school (early 80s) a arcade opened up in town that was walking distance from school. So what happened? We started skipping classes to go to the arcade! IT WAS COOL!
I only skipped a few times myself and then I see a story in the news paper about "Local business contributing to juvenile delinquency." The guy that owned the arcade sunk his life savings into it and now was getting undeserved negative publicity. Soon his business license was revoked and he closed the doors.
Click to expand...

thats a sad, fucked up story.....
 
I remember the arcade in the small town I grew up in was the main hangout for all the drop outs, burn outs and drug dealers in town. I suspect this was the case across America. That's why arcades always got a bad rep. It was still a fun place to visit due to the games you couldn't play anywhere else.
 
Joe Average said:
... and you get 50 free tokens on your birthday, a soda, and a foot long hot dog also, with ice cream too. Hey, I like to treat people right, and that Putt-Putt back home for the longest time did treat us right.
Click to expand...

LMAO that sounds *so* 80's.
 
Arcades were hot, sweaty places where, for a time, you could play games that were smoother, larger, faster and more sophisticated than anything that you could get at home or on a handheld.

I liked the fact that they were cheap at 10 pence ( or 25 cents ) and ubiquitous. I remember coming to Toronto in 1988, on vacation and right near the top of the CN Tower, there was a Mario game that was addictive as crack. The view from the top was nauseating and unimpressive compared to running around, banging one's head on platforms, to make a crabs dissapear into their shells, bouncing up onto the platforms and kicking the crabs off the screen before they poked their head outside the shell.

When I think about the CN tower, I think about that Mario game - I don't even know what it was called. I wish I had had more quarters...

I think that a lot of people are mourning the lost innocence of childhood.
 
MrAgmoore said:
I think that a lot of people are mourning the lost innocence of childhood.
Click to expand...

It's more accurate to say we're all sharing some memories and experiences from the past. Do I miss those times? Of course, anyone that says otherwise would be lying - being younger, typically having far FAR less in terms of bills, mortgages, marriages, careers, the dreaded R word - Responsibility - and many other aspects that keep those periods in our lives as something that we will never forget.

Mourning that period? Nah... but I'll relive it if I can, sure, anytime... and twice on Sunday, which is about 3.75 hours away... ;)
 
Yes I miss the arcades too. I used to go spend a few bucks in the mall arcade every time I went. Even if I was broke and my mom was shopping I would just hang out and watch.

That is why I built a MAME cabinet. :D
Another good use for your spare PC parts.
 
it was the original pwnage... playing mk 2 in a crowd of people and finishing some random and having 10 people there witness it was great lol .... well untill someone better raped you in front of the same ten peeps... slap my quarter up on the screen cuase i'm next.
 
Joe Average said:
It's more accurate to say we're all sharing some memories and experiences from the past. Do I miss those times? Of course, anyone that says otherwise would be lying - being younger, typically having far FAR less in terms of bills, mortgages, marriages, careers, the dreaded R word - Responsibility - and many other aspects that keep those periods in our lives as something that we will never forget.

Mourning that period? Nah... but I'll relive it if I can, sure, anytime... and twice on Sunday, which is about 3.75 hours away... ;)
Click to expand...


Well said Joe! I really couldn't have stated it better. As I grow older I have come to understand how wonderful of a blessing it is to be a child. When you are young, the world is much bigger; multiple things to explore and fascinating thing to learn about. Possibilities are seeming endless. As you age the world becomes smaller. Typically you can get caught in the hum-drum of what you have expressed in your post. It's always nice to think back to simpler times when you didn't have much to be responsible for and you enjoyed every one of life's journeys. Arcades in particular is what we are reminiscing now...

There is nothing wrong with relishing in the good ol' times. :)
 
there was a small arcade within walking distance of my house many years ago. it was awesome, it had classics such as killer instinct, mortal kombat 2 and lots more. my friends and i would spend many quarters nearly every weekend.

saddly, that arcade closed down a long time ago. i wasn't too happy, lol. though there is a decent size arcade that's much further away in one of our larger malls that i'm tempted to go to relive my youth.

i miss my childhood. barely any responsibility, my mom pretty much did everything for me, lol. all that was on my mind was playing with my friends, watching cartoons, playing games and the only responsibility i had to worry about was getting my homework done.

now i'm a married man, full time university student (classes 5 days a week), i work saturdays and barely have any free time nowadays.

i long for those simpler days.. lol.
 
Don't go and listen to green day's 'good riddance' if you're really involved with this thread content, you'll get really depressed, heh. the guy in the car in that video, that facial expression is exactly how I feel though. its hard to enjoy gaming as much as I did back then and it's unfortunate.
 
damonposey said:
Don't go and listen to green day's 'good riddance' if you're really involved with this thread content, you'll get really depressed, heh. the guy in the car in that video, that facial expression is exactly how I feel though. its hard to enjoy gaming as much as I did back then and it's unfortunate.
Click to expand...

http://www.mtvmusic.com/green_day/videos/46712/time_of_your_life_good_riddance_.jhtml

Had to go watch it, hadn't seen it in years... :)

And on a slightly more positive emotional note, finish it off with this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-MONIvP6kI :D

and a nice history on that game too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cclwi0Opvyo
 
remember those guys that would sleep outside the arcade... it was a different time ya know
 
The arcade I remember best was Aladdin's Castle in Barton Creek Mall in Austin, TX. Top Games on Riverside Drive in Austin is a close 2nd. It's where I played games like SF2, Mortal Kombat and my favorite, Revolution X. That was the shooter that was Aerosmith based. Nothing like blowing things away while listing to "eat the rich" ! Plus, I think the bonus round was shooting cats off of a wooden fence or something.
 
Arcades sure changed. The one in the mall now is full of bright lights with all those stupid DDR games. I remember going in a lot with my friend and I would play and play..he didnt like videogames so he would watch me.

Even when I worked in a movie theatre from 99-03, we had MvC2 and it was a blast to play on breaks or after my shift. There was this one guy who always used to play and whenever I had a break we would duke it out and it was fun.

Then I moved to Miami and was a manager at the movie theatre there until this past October when I moved to New Mexico. That theatre had junk games and no fighting games. DDR was used all the time by those wierd emo kids and usually had a gathering around it on the weekends at night. Some loser came to me asking for a refund for a game because it didnt work, so I gave it to him. Then he comes back 4 minutes later saying that he tried it again and it didn't work. I told him he was stupid for trying again when obviously it didnt work the first time. After arguing with him for like 15 minutes (I was bored and was enjoying his stupid attempts for me to give him tokens back), I gave it to him and I said to him you better not play that game ever again or ask for a refund. Fun fun times :)
 
I enjoyed going to the mall arcade as a kid. I sucked at almost every game, but my worst memory (and one of the last times I went to an actual arcade) was getting beaten in one hit by some maggot who though it was cool to cheat in Mortal Kombat 3.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top