Reminds me of The Pizza Machine, where I grew up. I went to many a post-soccer-game party there. The one game that I remember they had was Spy Hunter, but there were 5 or 6 for sure.
Ground Kontrol turns into a bar after 5, and they rent out portions for retro parties and such. So in some ways, it was better than an arcade when I was a kid - I never got to drink beer while pumping quarters in Galaga back in the day.
The place by me was Carlucci's Pizzeria. They had the most games. The pizza was just OK, but it drew in the kids. But yeah, bars and bowlings alleys had the games and, so while the ability to drink a beer and play a game was there, the inability to do so due to age was not.
But now most of the places are gone. Even bowling alleys are closing left and right.
yes, it's pity. Here in France too, i remember in 80-90 in my city we had almost one arcade close to each school , and one near each cinema.
We did one better, we had the games IN the cinema. The average movie theatre back in the 80's actually had a small arcade room and they usually had 1 or 2 pinballs and about 8 to 12 video machines. (I had my introduction to Space Invaders (giving away my age here) in a movie theatre). We still have video games in cinema's today, but a far cry from what it used to be. The most I seen was four in one place and NO pinball machine!
Some were very tiny (in fact all if you compare to U.S ones) , but they were really full of cabinets with no free space around. Some even put cab outside because if they put inside nobody could walk anymore!.
Oh! We had some pretty cramped places too. Coney Island had a really cramped arcade. But the worst were those "arcades on wheels" that the local carnivals used. They were bad. You had a truck trailer that was only 8 feet wide and two rows of video games. If it was full there was only one aisle in and out. Moving sideways was a must and you HOPED you didn't bump into someone that was playing and cause them to loose a life!
and now, they are all closed. We don't find cabinet in bar , no where.
That is VERY sad. I think we are heading in the same direction. Bars usually only have 1 or 2 machines now as well. If you are lucky, you find a pinball as well. The only places that you still have a good concentration of arcade games are the amusement parks and fun centers.
I know only one arcade in my region that is open all the year , and the only thing you find , are big cabinet , the kind of thing you can not have yet easly at home a Like twin outrun 2 , House of Dead 4 etc...
Yeah, the fun centers I mentioned mostly have those huge big screen games too. Most of them are sit down drivers that are linked together. There is a wall of about 10 of the same game and they are all connected so this way you could have 10 people participating in the SAME race. One game I saw at Dave & Busters (adult entertainment center), was so huge, I wouldn't really call it an arcade game. It was a trivia game, but it was done up like you were a contestant on a game show. There were about 8 stations in a semi-circular crescent surrounding a huge projection TV. The game asked you questions, and if you had the answer you hit a button, just like on a game show.
I am telling you the stuff is getting really big. The Hyperbowl game I mentioned uses a video projector that displays the video image vertically on a 9 foot screen.
The DDR machines take up quite a bit of space too because of the immense floor pad. There are usually several of those. But for me, it is not the big size, but rather the big sound they make that annoys me.
There is this huge flight simulator game that uses THREE large TV screens. So, we have it over here too. It seems like the arcade games get bigger, louder, and have great graphics, but many of these games are continual rehashes of proven formulas. It is really hard to find the ingenuity of what was out there in the 80's. In terms of arcade games, that is still the best era for me.
Geo
Home
Help
Search
Login
Register
Send this topic
Print
Topic: MaLa Gamelist - Ground Kontrol (Read 3478 times)
