Topic: Arcade Experiences

I miss the 80's and 90's where we had arcades where we could go to play a whole bunch of new and old games. There was a communal feeling to it all where you would place your quarter anywhere the stand-up would prevent it from falling in order to say I'm paying next. When it was your turn you would share the gaming experience with a total stranger in a bonding experience. I also remember this taking place at 7-11's, convenience stores, grocery stores, restaurants and other places. 7-11 used to be quite the hangout place with video games, comicbooks and Slurpee’s.

Not sure if there’s already a topic on this, but I thought that I would start a topic on favorite games you played wither it was a big one like Street Fighter 2 or Double Dragon or a smaller one like Rastan or Karnov. There were tons of them and I bet that a lot of people have great experiences to share and arcade stand ups that were your favorites.

all i would play at arcade is streets fighter but when you go to game room you still see all old school one "yo"...

there was this amusement arcade place i used to go to occasionally called funland in london's trocodero complex. it was called sega world when it opened back in 1996, it had financial problems and was rebranded as funland.

it was during a week before xmas last year when i noticed funland shut down. before it shut down, i used to play games such as dancing stage euromix, virtua fighter 5, tekken 6, soul calibur 2, king of fighters 2001, street fighter 4.

it's a shame many of them have closed down or are going to close down, especially as home console gaming is less of a money issue- you just stick the game into your console, switch it on and play as you'd do on your controller. no need to stick 50ps or £1 coins.

but i miss arcade gaming.

Yeah its the same as the Movie theater, I love the experience of both. I wish that Arcades would make a comeback. We have a pizza place that I go to which is great, but not the same.

yep. i too love both home consoles and arcades- each of them have very different experiences but the one thing they have in common is the fun factor. can't beat that.

My first memory of arcades is the summer my older brother got paid to babysit me, so he would use the money at the arcade to play SMB, and I had to just wander around bored the whole time because I had no money. He would also use the money to go to Harvey's and buy himself lunch while I had to sit there and starve and watch him eat. Glad my mum didn't ever let him babysit me again after that summer.

The best was when the arcade by my school got the shiny new Atari Tetris cabinet — I loved that game. I got suspended from school once for refusing to do school work, and the first place I went was to the arcade to play Tetris, and I couldn't help but laugh that my punishment for not doing work was getting to play Tetris.

I also remember meeting this adult guy that was super pro at Arkanoid. I used to just love watching him play and talking to him while he played.

I've played at movie theaters, laundromats, and Chuck.E.Cheese's but I have never played at a true arcade.

I remember where I grew up we had a waterslide park called Wild Waters. My friends and I got season passes and when were weren't going down the slides we would be in the arcade ether playing or watching others play. My favorite at the time to both watch and play was Double Dragon.

I've never really gone to an arcade more than, like, twice I think. Once for my birthday a long time ago, my cousins boyfriend took me to an arcade. I'm pretty sure the only game I played that time was Rampage. And the other, more recent time (though still a while back) I was at West Edmonton Mall, and my uncle and I played House of the Dead 3 (I think. I know it was a light gun game).

Then there was times I played the games at movie theaters (Simpsons Arcade, and one I don't remember where you are 2 cops or something. It was a light gun game, and it started with you in a car and you could shoot out the windshield), and a Bubble Bobble cabinet at a laundromat we used to go to.

Rampage, Simpsons and Bubble Bobble are all great games. I remember that the store that my parents would shop at had a Rampage and that I played it while they shopped. Simpsons was a great 4 player games that was as good as the TMNT games, I love trapping the bad guys in bubbles in bubble bobble, I even downloaded the WiiWare version.

Yeah. Although the WiiWare game wasn't nearly as good, and it had that annoying design flaw where bubbles would pop too soon if you shot them at a wall that was directly in front of you, making it hard, and sometimes impossible, to get out of those tight areas you sometimes start in.

You have to move to the opposite direction, then turn around, just one pixel, jump and bubble, and then you can get out of those nasty pits.

No, I know. But that's the point, the NES one was perfectly fine. You think they'd have noticed how difficult it was.

Also, the graphics suck. The 3d sprites just aren't very pleasing.

Hmm I think Bubble Bobble Plus! on WiiWare is better than Bubble Bobble on NES. I mean, it includes all the levels from the original and 100+ more, it has a 4 player co-op mode and collectables/achievements in itself, unlimited continues, and online leaderboards.
It even has the original soundtrack (remixed).
And the NES version wasn't the best (it was good though with level passwords), but I played the Master System and Commodore 64 versions as well and they were closer to the arcade version, and the WiiWare version of the original is closer to the arcade than the NES version as well.
In one thing I'm completely with you, 2D sprites would have been better than the new animated 3D characters however we have to get used to it in this otherwise pretty good Bubble Bobble remake.

My arcade experience was limited to a Street Fighter cabinet that my Youth Center has, and an SNK collection cabinet they just got. The SNK one is awesome; it has over 100 games. Sadly, most of them are just fighters, which I like, but it lacks variety. Street Fighter used to be one of my least favorite franchises, though. I could never understand why people thought it was fun, and to me, it looked stupid. That all changed when I got with a friend and we decided to try out the Street Fighter cabinet. We played for 2 whole hours that night, and we came back to it several times that year. I still play it from time to time. It got me into fighters.

So, in conclusion, I would say that arcades were definitely a great thing. It was almost like a demo system, except you got access to the whole game with only a minimal fee. It's too bad that the minimal fee turned into 100's of minimal fees for most people trying to get that high score.

I love the SNK arcade machiene's most that I've seen only have 4 or 5 games, thats awesome that yours had 100!

Anyone remember the Nintendo arcade machienes where you could play a number of the 8 bit console games like Super Mario Bros, Castlevania, etc. and you were timed? Those were great for trying games out before buying. Our airport had that machiene.

Speaking of the WiiWare Bubble Bobble has anyone downloaded the extra levels? I still need to beat the first 100.

Also anyone remember the Batman Arcade game? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_(arcade_game) I vaguely do, also a Superman one. I was looking at the Wikipedia page on Arcade games and came upon this one.

Yes I got the two Bubble Bobble Plus! Pay&Play DLC packs.
I think each pack was 50 "hard" stages.

Well, 200pts for 50 / 400pts for 100 new stages is great, but there's one thing I didn't like about them: They all have the same level texture which makes it somewhat bland compared to the 200 colorful stages from the Original and Plus! versions.

However, for 400pts extra you get 100 monotone brown/yellowish new stages but apart from missing colors/texture variety the new stages are worth it if you like a chalenge.
I like to have all 300 stages unlocked and thought it was worth it. (There's much DLC available on WW that's not worth what you pay for).

Arcades were my first experience to video games. Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, Popeye, Excitebike, BurgerTime, Q-Bert [just insert any old oldschool arcade game here - chances are I played it].........and then more awesome games came along, like Super Mario Bros. and Ghosts n Goblins and Double Dragon ...........and then came my favorite arcade game ever - Street Fighter II.

It was always great to try n get the high score on an arcade machine only to come back a week later and find somebody else had beaten it! D: (lol - good times)

I remember playing all of those oldies! Great times, The small town that I grew up at didn't have an arcade, so I didn't step into a real one unto my pre-teens when we moved, but all of those back then were in pretty much every place you went to, grocery stores, retaurants, air ports, 7-11's, etc. I remember though that Double Dragon and then later Street Fighter 2 were my favorites, along with TMNT 1 & 2, X-Men, Simpsons and Stryder. I also really liked Golden Axe and Rastan.
It was always great to try n get the high score on an arcade machine only to come back a week later and find somebody else had beaten it!