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Where did YOU play?
Chris:
We've all found video games all over the place, but I'm sure we all have strong visceral memories of certain arcades associated with particular eras of our life or particular games. What places stand out in your mind?
For me, it's something like this:
Shakey's Pizza: My brother and I would dump every quarter we could find into the PONG cocktails their.
Oz: My first arcade, Oz was a dimly lit hole in the wall in the Puente Hills Mall (the mall used as Twin Pines Mall in Back to the Future) in Southern California. It was distinguished by a big round window forming the O in Oz. This was still the 70's so a lot of the games were mechanical: projection-based shooting galleries, pinball, skee-ball, and all the early black-and-white classics; later they had a lot of vector games. I played a lot of Battlezone here. In this particular arcade, kids whispered of rumors of a game called Foxbat that was so advanced and realistic that the Air Force had confiscated it and was using it to train fighter pilots.
PJ Pizzaz: A forerunner of Chuck E. Cheese; pizza in one half, arcade in the other. The one I went to near Puente Hills Mall was a split-level, very futuristic looking. This was the only place I ever found Sub-Roc 3D and I played it constantly.
Starcade at Disneyland: Coming off of Space Mountain, you pass right next to this arcade, and they always had the latest stuff. My biggest game memories here were Starship 1, Tailgunner, and of course banks of TRON machines when the movie came out. More recently, it had a FULL SIZE X-Wing model hanging from the ceiling! (Also props to the Main Street Penny Arcade which was full of great pre-video mechanical games.)
Redondo Beach Pier: There were two arcades here: the Underground, which was (of course) underground, decorated with signs from the London Underground. This was a huge arcade full of classics; it was a haven for "real" games at a time when arcades were being taken over by fighters. I came here almost exclusively to play Rip-Off. For other games, I would go to the old arcade at the other end of the pier which was huge; it had a Tilt-A-Whirl ride in the middle which I would always (unwisely) ride after too many trips to Hot Dog On A Stick. Lots of mechanical games here and older videos; I played a lot of pich-and-bat type games here, plus they had two Hercules pinball machines, the only ones I've ever seen.
postalp123:
Lets see:
My earliest memories were of the 7-Eleven down on the corner of my Detroit neighborhood: Trojan & Guerilla War
Then when my family moved to Westland, there was an italian bakery called "Captain Nemo's" and there I saw my favorite game of all time: Black Tiger. And also a Liquor store in the area introduced me to (IMHO) one of the best put together games of all time: R-Type.
From then on out, I have fond memories of the Chucky Cheese's, Showbiz's and especially the Little Ceasers Play places, a few standouts from the arcades there are as follows: TMNT, Aliens, The Simpsons, etc...
Eventually I looked back to a few 7-Eleven's in the area, and there I found "The New Blood" of arcade games: Street Fighter 2, Iron Man's Off Road, Bionic Commando.
And of course there were the Mall Rat days in Ann Arbor hanging out at the arcades: Area 51, X-men vs Street Fighter, DoA, DDR.
The "vs" series the with Capcom/Marvel collaboration caught my full attention for quite some time, many good competitions in those years, got most of my hand/eye coordnation from it, lol.
monkeybomb:
Space Station: A standard arcade in the Northidge Mall in the San Fernando Valley.
Flaky Jakes: This place was an incredible restaurant. They had a toppings bar for hambugers when you could dump as much melted cheese ass you wanted onto burger that was sitting in a small round trough and not a plate. Coolest place I've ever been. It's been gone for years. Double Dragon and Guantlet were the big games there.
Shakeys Pizza: You all know this one. Ours had Excitebike and Elevator action.
Colecovision at home. My dad was always tight with money at the arcade because he wasn't tight with consoles.
somunny:
I remember playing Dragon's Lair at a nearby liquor store aptly named "Liquor, Liquor". There was also a great arcade adjacent to the local community college that had about sixty machines.
Of course Chuck E. Cheese, Straw Hat and Fountain Skate all deserve honorable mention.
Ah, the good ol' days...
ahofle:
Let's see...before arcades were everywhere:
- 7-Eleven: Star Castle and Spectar
- Local movie theatre: Space Invaders, Break Out
- Pipe Organ Pizza: Boot Hill, Atari Sprint, Space Invaders
Once the big mall arcades came around, I lost track. :)