Arcades back in the day that seemed to carry lots of obscure games

[Mulletino]

There were many arcades down the seafront at Southend but one of them seemed to have the more obscure machines. I can't remember the name of the place but it didn't have the space for the bigger flash machines that the other large arcades had. I deffo remember playing Gladiator and I,Robot there.

[mckafka99]

It never ceases to amaze me that many of the rare games and many well known Pinball machines that frequently get mentioned at Atari Age (such as 'I, Robot', 'Spiders'), we got to play at, of all places, the Pittsfield, Maine Bowling Center (the 'Bowling Alley', as we referred to it, which is long since gone). We were quite lucky. Between that place and the LaVerdiere's drug store chain that had arcades in them, for a small town in central Maine, we really saw a great deal of the 'Golden Age' of arcades and machines.

[Keatah]

Living not far from Bally/Williams we got to play the new protos. A good number of which are lost forever.

 

Edited August 19, 2019 by Keatah

[schuwalker]

On 8/19/2019 at 7:48 AM, Keatah said:

Living not far from Bally/Williams we got to play the new protos. A good number of which are lost forever.

 

That Aladdin's Castle mentioned at Spring Hill playtested games for Bally Midway. There was a Just for Fun arcade in Villa Park/Lombard I swore had Gottlieb prototypes and the Galaxy World in Carol Stream had Data East playtest their pins. Wish I knew where Taito had their stuff...

[Tempest]

On 8/18/2019 at 8:53 PM, schuwalker said:

 

Return of the Jedi only had 800 units. I just put that there cause I still can't find one ?

Really?  Wow.  I remember seeing this at an arcade back in the day and at a local comic book shop circa 2004ish.

[orange808]

1 hour ago, schuwalker said:

That Aladdin's Castle mentioned at Spring Hill playtested games for Bally Midway. There was a Just for Fun arcade in Villa Park/Lombard I swore had Gottlieb prototypes and the Galaxy World in Carol Stream had Data East playtest their pins. Wish I knew where Taito had their stuff...

Interesting, did you get to play the Krull pin?

[orange808]

Celebrity in Denver was the best arcade I knew of.  Unfortunately, I don't know of any photos or video of the downstairs arcade, which is a shame.  It was absolutely sprawling.

 

Anybody out there have anything?

 

 

[Mulletino]

2 hours ago, Tempest said:

Really?  Wow.  I remember seeing this at an arcade back in the day and at a local comic book shop circa 2004ish.

 

The arcade I mentioned also had this (return of the Jedi), and I remember playing it in a Kebab Shop in the 90s, which was odd as they mostly had Fruit Machines (One armed Bandits) to fleece the drunkards who played them.

Edited August 21, 2019 by Mulletino
added machine name to avoid confusion

[JBerel]

Were there really only 800 Return of the Jedi cabinets produced? I never thought they were rare. I bought mine from the local arcade for $400 back in the day. I just wish I had bought the environmental Discs of Tron back then. That was my favorite arcade cab.

[Zoyous]

Hmm, I don't know if these games qualify as obscure titles, but... the 100 Oaks Mall arcade in Nashville seemed to be a well-curated selection of games, so they would have the newest hit games but also kept a lot of older games. For example, I remember when Cyberball was new, they also had one of Atari's black-and-white Xs and Os football games positioned next to it. They also kept Stunt Cycle running well. Let's see, now that I think about it there was one lesser-known game called The Pit (Centuri, 1981) that they had set up next to Dig-Dug.

[CreeB]

My local arcade had PACLAND,, ENVIRONMENTAL DISCS OF TRON,, ROBOT BOWL,, THE GLOB.. some place in Cali had BIO ATTACK.. uhh I ROBOT at a pizza place in ohio.. BOXING BUGS at a bowling alley iirc.. QWAK at a bowling alley or skating rink (too scared of video games at that time to play).. MAPPY somewhere (probably at chuck e cheese's).. BEGA'S BATTLE in queens..

[VectorGamer]

21 hours ago, CreeB said:

ENVIRONMENTAL DISCS OF TRON,

I remember when my mall arcade got this. Huge crowd of people standing around the cabinet watching people play. I could never get on it.

[CreeB]

31 minutes ago, VectorGamer said:

I remember when my mall arcade got this. Huge crowd of people standing around the cabinet watching people play. I could never get on it.

Plus sark's voice.. since i had a crush on him i always loved that game..

[Davidvision]

We had some odd ones up here.  Thayers Quest, Quartet, Cliff Hanger, Crossbow, Psycho Soldiers, Dr Mario.

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Davidvision
missed item