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.

Maybe a plus for some, but I've already have it on a few collections already. I might get it just to have Pac-Man Battle Royale, but as I currently don't live with my girlfriend (and she didn't really enjoy it anyways) I can't see how I'll get much use out of it by itself.

I just looked up "Pac-Man Museum." I might pick it up, looking at the included games, it looks like it's missing Pac-Man Jr. and Pac-Man Plus? I understand why those are absent, but it's still a shame.

It's not like it will be a huge ordeal to credit up the machine whenever it runs low, or out.

That is amazing. I don't know if this is considered the same, but a buddy of mine could play through Guitar Hero without looking at the screen and just listening to the song and playing along.

I was in Vegas visiting my girlfriend last week and we went to New York, New York, which supposedly had a great arcade. It too was one of those places where you have to load up cards, which I think is a great idea btw. While they mostly had ticket redemption games, they had a pretty good selection of fairly new Pinball machines (Ghostbusters, Metallica, etc.). At another Casino I did play Mario Kart GP with my girlfriend, but playing it with pedals instead of a controller was difficult (it was really hard to drift). I also played the Pac-Man game which gives you tickets based on how many points you score, I saw the Galaga version too, but didn't play it. I think my biggest discovery though was 'Pac-Man Battle Royale.' We played the table top version, though I did come across the cabinet version too at another Casino. It was interesting, and I could see why it would be fun with four people, but as a two player game it wasn't too fun. At least we didn't think so. Also speaking of Pac-Man, I came across the World's Largest Pac-Man as well, but didn't get a chance to play it.

What was a real disillusionment for me was those machines where you put a token (or quarter in) and try to knock the other tokens (or quarters) off the playing field. When I was little those machines used to give you whatever coins you managed to knock off. Nowadays they just give you a certain number of tickets based on how many tokens you knocked off.

I really thought with the Nintendo 64 we were getting our own "Neo Geo" in a way. Games that were arcade perfect, little did I know... Nintendo 64 was the point where my unwavering loyalty for Nintendo took a big hit.

I was the exact opposite. When I flipped through my first manual (Xybots, to be precise) and saw that, I found the idea behind the machines really fascinating. It's actually what made me more interested in them. Not less.

I haven't' heard anything about it since the initial announcement. Even the blog that ran the story isn't carrying it anymore. Edit to add: The reason I couldn't find anything more out about them is because they had to change their name to 'Gamers Arcade Bar.' Here's a link to their Facebook Page They have a post saying the should open the 20th-23rd of this month. Since it's the 20th today and there's no announcement yet I'm assuming they'll be opening in the next few days. I'll keep you guys posted

Thanks for that. It makes a lot of sense, I'm assuming it's because each game runs at a different refresh rate and MAME can't duplicate them all at once?

In games where there is a lot of scrolling (Vs. Super Mario Bros. is a good example) it looks like the screen is cut at a certain point and the area above the "cut" has trouble keeping up with the bottom portion. It's not always in the same place, sometimes it's on the lower half of the screen, and sometimes it's on the upper half, and a lot of times it's in the middle, it kind of takes me out of the game. Single screen games play just fine, since there's no scrolling of the background. It's not a huge deal since this is a free service, but I'm really curious what's causing it and if it's something I can correct. I'm not currently posting the specs of my computer since it was a "hand me down" from a friend who built it himself, but if they're required I'll ask him.

18/52 I am ashamed.

Oops, that was a typo I won't go back and edit though since you pointed it out. I should also point out there's another arcade in town, it's one of those places where you play a standard fee and can play all you like. It's called 'Jedi Alliance' and is only open on Sunday's from 5-10 pm. I haven't been there yet, but I'm planning an outing soon, because they opened in a residential neighborhood, they're actually a Church, to bypass a zoning loophole. Here's a link to the video, if anyone is interested in more: Local News Story.

I live in the Spokane area, and arcades are slim pickens around here. The other day I just found out they're opening a Barcade downtown called 'Qauters.' How profitable is a barcade? I mean I'll be going when it opens, but does it have a chance to stick around?