Took a walk through a modern arcade last weekend...

[Silverfleet]

I think I may have touched a nerve, which I didn't intend to do.

 

I was born in '82, so I missed a lot of the "Golden Era" of arcade games. But I remember them being around and going to them pre-SFII as well during the time between the golden era and the fighting game renaissance. What many of you call "decline" was my heyday. Before the fighting games hit it big, co-op beat-em-ups were the big draw. For me, the TMNT 4-player arcade game was the 1st game changer. You used to have to wait in line to play that one! It was a rite of passage to grab 3 friends and beat that game. Same with The Simpsons, X-Men, Golden Axe, and many others. I also enjoyed playing games like UN Squadron, Raiden, R-Type, Arkanoid, Double Dragon, The Ninja Warriors, and Final Fight. All of them came out during that time.

 

I also very much enjoyed the fighting games. I remember when I first saw SFII. It was at Star Land in Hanover MA. There was a crowd of people around it, and I waited my turn to play. I picked E.Honda, and I was quickly dispatched. I didn't understand why there were so many buttons, and how some of the characters were throwing fireballs. But I wanted to play it more. When other copycat games came out, I played them all too. And I still do.

 

I get why some people didn't like them. Before these games (and TMNT for that matter), you played to get the highest score, just like pinball. There was something about beating that high score and becoming king of the hill that was fun. When the beat-em-ups and fighting games came out, the challenge changed from getting the best score to seeing how far you could get or seeing how many people you could beat. I didn't care who was playing them; I cared about how far I could get and the mastery of a character's move set. It's a different kind of thing.

 

I think the biggest downfall of arcades is the advancement of console and computer technology. Why play a game there when you could play the same thing at home? By the time the 32-bit era started in the mid-90's, a lot of the heavy hitter games had nearly arcade perfect ports you could play at home. And then when online gaming started picking up steam, competitive players started doing that on a machine they may have already already had anyway.

[Asaki]

-Nearly all of the actual video games were conversions of popular cell phone games. Angry Birds, Jetpack Joyride, and Crossy Road were all there in arcade form. While I couldn't help but think "why pay money when your phone plays these for free?", they are all risk/reward types of games, so it makes sense that they are sitting in an arcade. I guess...

 

-Most of the games there were physical ticket/skill games. There were plenty of them, and I played quite a few. They had enhanced versions of skee-ball, basketball, and more of the ones you would find in a classic 80's arcade. I think I played more basketball than anything else.

Oh man, you aren't kidding. I hadn't been to Craig's Cruisers in quite a while, and we went on Friday...how depressing =( I said "Well, I guess I'll just get four tokens and call it good."

 

Lots of gigantic cell phone games, and it seemed like everything cost $1 per play >_<

 

Played three rounds of Daytona 2 and did about as bad as I thought I would =) They didn't seem to have them linked up for two-player mode, though? It was awesome to play with force feedback, I had no idea how much it improves the experience...and then right near the end of my first race, it broke! =) The other two rounds were a LOT more difficult without the steering resistance, you may as well have put a Dreamcast controller in my hands. Spent my last token on King of Route 66, not a bad game, although the horn(s) and the radio didn't work very well.

 

They updated their air hockey table with crappy 5 second looping music and a bright backlit board so that the neon puck is difficult to see.

 

I was tempted to put a token into Guitar Hero just to show all the kiddies how the game is supposed to be played (on expert mode), but it wanted a whole dollar.

Edited September 21, 2016 by Asaki

[Aldo]

I still have vivid memories of walking around Chuck E Cheese in the late 80s and just being wowed by the seemingly endless mazes of arcade machines.

 

I do agree with a lot of other people here that when fighting games started becoming popular, especially with the advent of SF2, the arcade kind of went downhill, for me at least. It wasn't that I didn't have a good time going out and learning all the moves to these games, but it seemed like the selection was starting to become limited. No longer did we get sidescrollers, and other variations, mostly arcades were filled with fighting games, shooting games, and driving games.

 

But for me, the biggest indication that arcades were changed forever was when I found a handful of Chuck E Cheese tokens on a walk. I was a young adult then and I drove over to the nearest place and walked in. I was shocked to see that it was all ticket redemption games with the only arcade machine being a (rather generic) racing game.

[Asaki]

Our Chuck E. Cheese was still pretty decent up until a few years ago. Granted, the good games were usually out of order, but there were at least enough games to waste quite a bit of cash on...and everything only cost one token!

[+sramirez2008]

I've been to several arcades over the past year or so. YESTERCades in Redbank NJ, the Morristown Game Vault, the Game Preserve near me outside of Houston TX and also visited the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas.

 

I liked each of the arcades. What they share in common is that all of the games are set to free play and they charge a flat rate per hour. If your into pinball, you have to check out the HOF in Vegas. I played several mechanical pinball machines and they also had classics like Asteroids (my personal favorite arcade game). Oh, and right next door to the HOF is a store that sells classic games and consoles. Don't recall the name, but they had a nice selection of carts and consoles.