Arcades and all that entails

• You can't find certain arcade games anymore. At least, you can't find them like you can find anything else. The internet will not help you. No one really cares about arcades well enough to catalog where they are or if there are still any left around the world. The worst of it is, some are rare due to how unique and unconventional they are (Hokuto No Ken's Punchmania, for example)
• You are not in full control of the arcade game, really. Want the game's Fake Difficulty lowered? No dice, that's up to the arcade owner to decide. Want the thing repaired? Sure, once the arcade owner gets around to it, or if s/he even has the necessary materials to have it repaired, especially if the game is gimmicky and rare. "Language setting to Japanese? Change the blood settings? How do you expect me to do that? I just own the thing, I didn't make it."

edited 17th Nov '10 1:54:52 AM by Schitzo

ALL CREATURE WILL DIE AND ALL THE THINGS WILL BE BROKEN. THAT'S THE LAW OF SAMURAI.

AllBoth my favorite arcades are gone now.

But soft! What rock through yonder window breaks? It is a brick! And Juliet is out cold.

Oh, and INB 4 Dead technology, who plays arcades anymore and other variants. Arcades are a religious experience in the life of a gamer.

ALL CREATURE WILL DIE AND ALL THE THINGS WILL BE BROKEN. THAT'S THE LAW OF SAMURAI.

My love for arcades is less about the gamer thing and more (lets face it, all) due to my obsession with coin operated technology. No fancy video game system can replace the thrill of a pinball machine.

Emperor Wu liked cake, but not exploding cake!

^ Thank you.

I propose a new fiction genre: Coin Punk

edited 17th Nov '10 1:48:49 AM by Schitzo

ALL CREATURE WILL DIE AND ALL THE THINGS WILL BE BROKEN. THAT'S THE LAW OF SAMURAI.

I love finding gimmicky pinball machines. For example, "Funhouse."

It's like a Tales From The Crypt in pinball machine form, I love it.

But soft! What rock through yonder window breaks? It is a brick! And Juliet is out cold.

San Jose State's arcade. DoDonPachi. With the difficulty set to Very Hard.

http://twitter.com/raydere | http://raydere.tumblr.com

Holy shit yes! I heartily endorse this new genre.

Do you by chance watch Modern Marvels on the History Channel? They did a whole show on coin operated stuff, from parking meters to vending machines to gumball machines to arcades and such, and they visited this place. I know where I must go if I visit San Francisco. They also went somewhere else that had a similar theme (but more modern machines that had some endearingly grotesque curios) but I forget their name.

edited 17th Nov '10 1:58:12 AM by Landstander

Emperor Wu liked cake, but not exploding cake!

Mark my words: I will go here someday. It's only 400 miles south!

(Although my friends and I are planning a trip this winter break.)

edited 17th Nov '10 2:02:30 AM by TsundeRay

http://twitter.com/raydere | http://raydere.tumblr.com

Is... is that something in California that I actually would like? And it's not Solvang?

But soft! What rock through yonder window breaks? It is a brick! And Juliet is out cold.

SO SECONDED! For a long time my absolute favorite game was Polybius, which seems to be impossible to find nowadays. Really, back then I couldn't stop playing, sometimes I even stayed in the arcade over night just to play it (now that I think about it, why did the owner allow me to?). Sleeping was something I already had given up at some point. I think it was when I reached that face, that reminded me of my brother. Only a lot more rotten. But one day, when I went into the arcade, it was gone. I don't exactly know when, as I just got out of the asylum (can't remember why I was there, strangely enough) and the owner of the arcade always denied that such a game even exists. Weird.

Well, it really seems to be impossible to find Polybius anymore. Sometimes, though, I still think back to all the fun I had with it and feel the urge to play it again. Coincidentally, these are also always the moments when I have the urge to slash my throat with a knife.

People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.

It makes me sad that there are no arcades worth going to around here anymore. Ah well, I started liking them less when they started getting filled with Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat clones. Bah at fighting games I say.

The only places I can even find arcade machines in my town anymore are movie theatres. And they're all decade-old pieces of shit.

Generally it takes only about 1-2 games for me to frequent an arcade.

If SJSU hadn't gotten Tetris: The Grand Master I wouldn't be going there even for DDR.

If the 3 Golflands around here hadn't gotten DJMAX Technika I wouldn't be going to any of them as often now. In fact, I've made some close friends through playing Technika.

http://twitter.com/raydere | http://raydere.tumblr.com

My first college used to have a nice big arcade in the student center.

It had two DDR machines (they were 5th and 4th mix, or Xtreme and 4th mix, or something like that); which were generally regarded as the best and worst investments in the arcade. It also had some fighting games, like Virtua Fighter and Soul Calibur. Then about three pinball machines, including one Lord Of The Rings machine and one The Sopranos machine. And an air hockey table, and some driving games.

I'd go there to eat lunch, and sometimes even to do homework. The DDR machines meant that I would be entertained by random assortments of techno/dance music (which I like, mind you). I never played there, but I never had the money or the time anyway.

Then they renovated the place, put a branch of the school's credit union in 2/3 of the space, and relegated the arcade to the remaining 1/3. This was much less successful, sadly, even if the credit union branch was a nice thing to have. I think they cut out the air hockey table and lesser DDR machine, and maybe had just one pinball machine and one driving game.

Sadly, they never had Gauntlet Legends or any Ninja Turtles game, which are the only arcade games I've ever pumped copious amounts of quarters or tokens into. I got into Gauntlet Legends at a hotel's arcade many years ago. Well, that, or Bust-a-Move, which I first played at some Canadian restaurant or mall, many years before I discovered Gauntlet Legends.

I think that this student center arcade has probably gone the way of the dodo by now. I already knew it was losing money.

THIS.

I hate how arcades are slowly dying here in the US. I rather like them—there was this one called "Gameworks" that was badass, but it closed one day and I never heard from it since.

Is there any reason why arcades are doing much better in Japan than in America?

"Who wants to hear about good stuff when the bottom of the abyss of human failure that you know doesn't exist is so much greater?"-Wraith

All I want for Christmas◊ :D

In the largest town near where I live their Chuck E. Cheese, Gigglebees, Farmer Joe's, and 2 different arcade games have all been shut down, so a few of the smaller companies' machines are just collecting dust in pawn shops where no one wants them. :<

Some wealthy geeks should buy up the machines just to own them.

Also, sad to hear that Chuck E. Cheese's branches are closing down. I used to go there a lot as a kid.

edited 17th Nov '10 12:46:30 PM by GlennMagusHarvey

I want an Initial D cabinet so I can put a Tv in it, attach my Logitech DFGT  ^*

to it, and have the coolest Gran Turismo set-up ever.

"Who wants to hear about good stuff when the bottom of the abyss of human failure that you know doesn't exist is so much greater?"-Wraith

I used to go to them when I was a kid. Once they started wanting like 75 cents and up for games I just decided to hell with it. I'll wait until the games come to the consoles. It seems most other people around here agree since most arcades are either a lot smaller than they used to be or have disappeared completely from the malls.

Such a sin too because I really enjoyed it as a kid but I can't keep subsidizing the arcade industry. Not at those prices.

"If everybody is thinking alike, somebody isn't thinking"- George S. Patton

You'd also need one of the Initial D video games just for the So Bad, It's Good (at least the PC one) factor.

Huh?

I played Stage 5 at a local arcade (it was directly imported from Japan), and it was pretty fun to play.

[—Also: Yay, you went back to that cute avatar of pyrololi holding her teddy bear....I hope I didn't sound too creey here....

edited 17th Nov '10 2:28:09 PM by Chagen46

"Who wants to hear about good stuff when the bottom of the abyss of human failure that you know doesn't exist is so much greater?"-Wraith

It's because arcades were made to suck money out of you, they cared more about life limits and Fake Difficulty then actual craft and such, and when consoles started gaining ground and making better games people started wondering why they should keep driving to the arcade and dumping their money in for one play and wait in line for other people sometimes when they could get a better experience at home in private whenever they want. Sure now they're the same and games at the arcade are almost as good as console games but at the end of the day it still comes down to "INSERT COIN HERE".

I agree with this, along with the difficulty of finding classic cartoons and animated movies due to being "vaulted" somehow, it bugs me that we may or may never see our favorite arcade games again based on weather or not one of the consoles decide to release an archive collection or something like that.

Oh look I mispeled somethink.

One of the best arcade games ever was Space Lords. Don't get me wrong, classics like Galaga have their place (a very sacred place) but Space Lords was pure awesome in a cabinet. Also, Strike Force was the most awesome Defender-remake, ever. Anyone familiar with these two?

:p

edited 17th Nov '10 3:29:09 PM by evilneko