What place was your favorite arcade from your past??

[jediz]

there was a pizza place on the way home from school. They had Ms PacMan, Galaga and Track & Field. It was a daily stop.

the 7-11, only had one game, it was commando.

When we went to Springfield, MO, the alladin's castle there was awesome. I loved playing temple of doom at that arcade. I mostly remember playing USA vs Russia superchex hockey (for some reason I loved being the commies). Also played a lot of punch-out.

Last but not least, the "Gold Mine" in Norman, OK. really good arcade for the time and size. Time traveller even made stop there. It's where I spent most of high school playing SF2.

[alfonzotan]

My favorite "quickee mart" had an Astro Blaster.  Played the hell out of that one.  The bowling alley had a Space Wars, and the roller rink had a Moncaco GP cabaret.  Wish I had both of those games today. 

My hometown only had one real arcade, it was owned by a guy who later became a dog track gambling magnate, and recently beat two federal indictments for bribing legislators.

It was an odd town...

[lordnacho]

Can we start an awkward arcade moments thread?  Here's a few from me:

On vacation at Virginia Beach, hiked what seemed to be miles to a little arcade.  I liked going slow in Paperboy, but some older kids bullied me into going faster.  I did out of peer pressure and crashed, got mad at them for wasting my quarter

North NJ mall(my favorite spot) - asking an older kid how to do a Hadouken and him telling me to practice and figure it out myself.  Jerk!!

Same place as above - hot girl watching Smash TV, me gets caught looking at her, she whispers into her boyfriends ear.  Me running away.

[stu33]

My uncle owned one in Three Mile Bay, NY in early 80s...didn't have a chance with the population of 200 in that town.  He had a BattleZone, BurgerTime, Omega Race (upright), Pac and Ms. Pac, Asteroids Deluxe, some solid-state pin with a motorcycle on the side, I think, a juke and the giant atari football with the trackballs.  As long as I brought friends, I got all the quarters I wanted.

The P+C supermarket in Watertown had a Choplifter and a Roadblasters for awhile, and the Salmon Run Mall in Watertown had an arcade that was pretty much skee-ball, 5 street fighter cabs, and redemption stuff.  The Ames (Zayre's previously) had a Spy Hunter.  And the gas station in Chaumont had a Time Pilot.

Northern NY didn't have much arcade-y goodness after my uncle closed up.

[teeuwen]

Was pretty spoiled over my years.

I remember the Mac’s corner store about two blocks from my house had a dragon’s lair for a while and after that they had a Sega time machine.

Though the years between this Mac’s corner store and me being older I don’t specifically remember too many arcades.

There was a couple 1943 shooter games on the ferry we used to take to visit my grandma.

They had a pretty awesome arcade at the paramount theater not far from my house but I more specifically remember the batman pinball game.


I grew up in Vancouver being so close to the border I went to the larger arcade in Seattle when it first opened called gameworkz.

Moved to Edmonton later on and Being older I was quite spoiled living in Edmonton, my local mall had an arcade, had an off-road machine, marvel vs. street fighter, had the six player x-men, As well west Edmonton mall at the time just opened playdium, they didn’t last to long but it was pretty awesome much like gameworkz, I used to play xevious there when I got low on money.

[MaxVolume]

Kinda odd for me to jump in here, because I was barely ever allowed in an actual arcade.  I do have some memories to add, though.  Probably most of my game playing was done either at Hill's department store or at a nearby laundromat.  The laundromat had a Dig Dug and a TRON, and to this day, Dig Dug is just about the only arcade game I might be considered "good" at, although a lot of that is from playing home versions.  I actually went back to that laundromat this past Saturday, and they now have a Super PAC-MAN, which I played.

Another thing I did Saturday was to drive by "The Forum" mini-mall, which is a group of shops in an enclosed "pocket" of a strip mall.  Back in the day, there was an arcade in the back called Silver Odyssey, and the doorway was constructed to look like the door of a spaceship.  After the arcade moved outside to a "regular" space in the strip mall, they closed off the "spaceship" doorway with a wall containing a regular door.  The "spaceship" door frame is still in place, though, and that was cool to see.  Kind of a permanent monument to the '80s and the golden age of arcades.

Here's my attempt at a graphic representation of what the "spaceship door" looked like... hope it displays correctly:
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/    \
\__/

Probably the first time I saw a color vector game was at "Video Venture" which was in the same shopping plaza as Hill's and the laundromat (a different one from where The Forum and Silver Odyssey were located, though).  My siblings and I got to spend an hour or so in there once, and that was about the most "arcade time" I had until I was in my late teens or early 20s.  I did get to go into Silver Odyssey for a few minutes as a kid, but I don't think we played any games.  Really early arcade experiences as a kid would have been at Natural Bridge (probably my first experience... I played "Cops 'n' Robbers" I think) and "Tweetsie Railroad" (where I discovered the awesome Star Trek sit-down machine).

The coolest place in town was an old movie theater that eventually gave up and "went dollar" in its last days.  They had a huge game room which took up most of the lobby... there were just walkways around the perimeter to get to and from the concession stand and theaters from the box office, kind of like "tunnels".  In its later years, they would set all the games on "free play" and charge a flat fee for admission, completely separate from a movie ticket.  There were a LOT of old classics still there, and it was a blast to finally get some time on those machines.  I talked to someone about buying the machines after they closed, but I had no real financial means to do it at the time.

Other than occasionally finding a machine at our local Food Lion, that's pretty much my arcade experience.  Hope that wasn't too boring.

Oh... and I noticed some people talked about skating rinks.  I worked at one in the late '80s, and my favorite game they had was a High Speed pinball machine.  Funny... I don't remember any of the video games they had except for Fire Truck, which I was way too old to play at that point, although it was popular with the little kids.

[Hockeyboy]

Forgot about the skating places.  Skate Fantasy in Manchester, Ct. where I gut my teeth on Donky Kong.  They had Pacs and a couple of pins.  Probably 15 machines in all.

Skate Palace East in East Hartford is where I discovered Bubble Bobble. 

Then, there's where we used to ride BMX...Rt. 5 BMX in S. Windsor Ct.  Just a couple of machines, but the most important was Exitebike and  USA hockey.

Man, what fun.

AJ

Yeah, I forgot about our two skate places: Sunrise Rollerland in Citrus Heights, CA opened up with a wooden floor, red carpeting wall-to-wall, and a kind of medieval theme inside. Then Roller King opened up in Roseville and it had this super-weird new kind of floor that was plastic or whatever that "new" stuff was back in the early 80's.

Both of those places had a bunch of arcade machines, along with several pinballs.

You guys are taking me way back down memory lane...

[DefJam]

Wow, so many.... it would be great if we had a database.   Ok, my old hangouts...  I lived in Pennsylvania in Montgomery County:

Spaceport - Montgomery Mall.   Fun Fact:  The guys in the Youtube training video worked at this arcade, and I am pretty sure that the spaceport in that photo is from Montgomery Mall.   They also had a killer Star Trek Vector promotions, I remember going in and there were about a dozen machines all on free play.  Still my favorite.

Odyssey Land - in Montgomery  on Rt 309.  Standalone arcade, open til at least 2am.  Good for the older kids.

Saturn IV - In lansdale near lansbowl - awesome place, really dark inside, space themeed.  They always had a good diverse line up.  SpaceFury was there.

Supercade -  Plymoth meeting Mall - It was a huge arcade, they kept an interesting mix of old and new over the years... it hung in there for awhile, but is gone now as well.

There are so many more, but they were the best of what was closest to me.  I would kill for pictures of all of them.

[mcseforsale]

If yer gonna do a database, how about:

Home Town
Closest Major City
Location (or business)
Address (or close proximity)
Machines you remember

AJ

[Batchman]

Memory Lane time ... probably my favorite arcade of all time was the Starcade at Disneyland, kind of under and off to the side of Space Mountain. Adventures Through Inner Space emptied out into a gift shop connected to it. Played a lot of Tron and Crystal Castle there. Also played a lot of Gauntlet at the penny arcade on Main Street.

Played a lot of Crazy Climber at the local Smith's Food King, became one of my favorite games of all time.

There was an all you can eat pizza and pasta restaurant deep in Fullerton or Yorba Linda (can't even begin to remember the same after all this time) with a comic book store next door that had the 4 player X-Men machine set to give 4 lives for a quarter, and a buddy and I ate there frequently, specifically to go to the comic book shop and plop in enough quarters to make it all the way through! He always played Cyclops and I always did Nightcrawler.

A donut shop near my junior high had me gaining skill in Gorf, Vanguard and Astro Blaster at different times.

A burger place during my later years on Knott Avenue always included a few rounds of Ms Pac-Man.

The arcade at Knott's Berry Farm underneath Knott's Berry Tales became a later favorite when I found they still had a Crazy Climber after it had long vanished from everywhere else!

Interestingly, that later led to frequent dreams where I would be at that Knott's arcade, just to play Crazy Climber, or stumble across a Crazy Climber machine elsewhere, and joyfully settle into playing a few games. Then a few years later, I was working a security shift, playing around on my computer, and came across MAME for the first time, and downloaded and played Crazy Climber, and then suddenly said "I'm playing Crazy Climber again! I must have fallen asleep, and this is just a wonderful dream!" Took me a couple of days to fully accept that no, this wasn't a dream, and it was now possible to play Crazy Climber (and all the other games) again!

[fallacy]

Memories of Altered Beast at Skate City blowing me away, must have been like 8. Memory of playing Gauntlets with all my friends, thinking it was after soccer practice at a pizza place. Street Fighter 2 blew all of us away, must have been like 12 and was old enough to ride my bike to the pizza place myself to play it. Freshmentin in  high school I remember seeing Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Dungeons and Dragons, Alain VS Predator at the Mall and would always play but soon after I would get my first PC a Dell 486 and would no longer care about Arcade or console games.

[Mr. Peabody]

@Batchman: speaking of Crazy Climber, I've had it i mind lately. A game ahead of its time, by at least two years.


I don't know about favorite. In a city of a few hundred thousand, we had arcades across the city. All convenience stores and some local sandwich and stuff places had a game or two. As well as a few golf-and-arcades, one a castle, and Chuck E. Cheese. These latter two I visited most through the years. Saw Mouse Trap at CEC. Thought it was a kiddy game, given the graphics and large buttons, though with a standard difficulty of game play.

At Magic Mountain I saw Bubbles (from Starcade) and especially Discs of Tron, environmentals, the graphics seeming to hover in the air inside the cab, a line of several several facing and linked for player vs player.

[Batchman]

@Mr Peabody,

Forgot about Camelot Golf until you mentioned mini golf, but don't remember specific games from there, except maybe Venture, which didn't hold my interest for too long.

Played a game at Magic Mountain that really grabbed me, but I have never been able to find or identify it since. Sigh!

[Namco]

Wow. Necro  post. But glad to see it!

My favorite, was my weekly haunt. Starting around '82, My mom and dad were in a bowling league at El Dorado Bowl in Westchester (Los Angeles, Ca) right next to LAX airport. It had great, classic games, plus I saw all the greats roll in through those doors when they were new. Pac-Man/Mrs. Pac/Pac-Man Plus, Pole Position, Xevious, Dragon's Lair, Jungle King, Galaxian, Galaga, Bagman, Centipede, Food Fight, Elevator Action, Frogger, Tempest, Major Havoc, Star Wars, you name it, they had it or eventually it rotated in. Also great pins toward the end of the row, I remember 8-Ball Deluxe, but don't recall what other pins they had.

Fox Hills Mall in Culver City had a Time-Out around '87 or '88, but the games seemed harder/quarter munchers. I remember Bad Dudes, Super Monaco GP, Stun Runner, and NARC.

Old Towne Mall in Torrance was really fancy, but I only went there a couple times. I think it was called Starcade or something. It had ramps and whatnot, seemed multi-level. Different assortment of games like Gorf and Zoo Keeper, stuff like that. That was the first time I saw Discs of Tron, environmental. That blew my mind!

Hawthrone Mall in 86/87, I remember they had an Aladdin's Catle. I remember playing Battle Zone, Golden Axe, MACH 3, Pengo, and Mr. Do there.

And there was a minature golf place in Hawthrone or Redondo Beach called Malibu Castle Park, had a slammin' arcade, but I didn't get to spend much time in there. We went like twice and only played minature golf with the family.

In Jr. High, I'd walk past Inglewood Lanes on the daily and played tons of Double Dragon, Zippy Race, Operation Wolf, DK 3, Mario Bros, Vs. Super Mario Bros., Vs. Baseball, and Contra there.

When the 90's rolled around, I got deep into Street Fighter 2 and saw the arcade resurgence. My favorite place to play SF2 and Mortal Kombat was HollyMain liquor store in El Segundo, right after high school.

Up the street from my house there was a 7-11 that had a few great games rotate in and out (1 pin/1 vid) Cyclone, Chase HQ, Earthshaker, Street Fighter 2, Neo Geo, and Double Dragon. I didn't get much time as an adult with a car to explore the southland more before we moved up to the SF Bay Area. A bit of an arcade wasteland up here, plus they started dying. My community college had Samurai Shodown, NBA Jam, and Metal Slug. I spent an obscene amount of time gettong good at Samsho.

Hollister had a great arcade called Mystic Castle for a while. The owner, Neil, used to work for SNK and had a beautiful, minty Neo Geo cabinet with Samurai Showdown 2 that quickly became my favorite game, along with Tekken 2. Also there was MK2, MK3, Killer Instinct, Bust a Move, just a great lineup for such a small town. One evening Neil had some old SNK friends visit, one of them showed my and my buddy secrets like how to do taunts, some kind of super combo, and transform into a little chibi character.

Good times, man. Good times.